Anything but Ordinary

My Mum has been worried lately about how we are going and how long we are planning to continue our current adventure. I am no longer working 9 to 5, earning a nice steady income in corporate gig in a big bank and keeping my passions for small incremental moments that may sneak through the cracks of an "ordinary" life. What's more my more balanced and stable husband is doing the same and enjoying it! She worries, as is a Mum's role, about a lot of things, but probably mostly about the fact that by being less ordinary, the little unit that is my family, is exposed to a lot more potential change and adversity.

Here is the thing, I don't want to be on the easy freeway of life along with the majority of folk, speeding from meeting to meeting, kids at before and after school care, living an easy life of prosperity and busyness but without any of the potential highs or lows that come from taking such an off route by-way as we have.

There is a catch though. A beautiful, far more self directed existence as we now have, living the dream as it really can be some days, does come at a cost. You chose to take risks. Take enough of them and some will materialise. So it is not just taking risks, it is accepting that you are making your life more variable, volatile and exposed. It is harder. You need to take more ownership and all your mistakes are your own to learn from as you cannot blame others; society, your parents, your best mate, your boss, the economy etc. when things go wrong.

I was listening to Avril Lavigne's song Anything but Ordinary (yes I love girly music like her's) driving through the snow storm down to Annecy yesterday and had it on full volume 5 times over as it truly resonates with me just now. Here are the lyrics and a You Tube link so you can hear it for yourself. You Tube link

To walk within the lines
Would make my life so boring
I want to know that I
Have been to the extremes
So knock me off my feet
Come on now give it to me
Anything to make me feel alive

Is it enough to love?
Is it enough to breathe?
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
Is it enough to die?
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be anything but ordinary please.
I'd rather be anything but ordinary please.

Let down your defences
Use no common sense
If you look you will see
that this world is a beautiful
accident, turbulent, succulent
opulent, impermanent,
I wanna taste it
Don't wanna waste it away

Barcelona Tapas

Sometimes I get so weird

I even freak myself out
I laugh myself to sleep
It's my lullaby

Is it enough to love?

Is it enough to breathe?

Somebody rip my heart out

And leave me here to bleed

Is it enough to die?

Somebody save my life

I'd rather be anything but ordinary please

You see I don't want to be ordinary. I realised that ages ago and have generally embraced rather than feared that. I know the costs of choosing the less trodden path can be substantial, both personally and when you are planning as a family unit, as it has to work for all. But we decided we wanted to put ourselves in an environment with the ability for amazing opportunities and adventures.

Some of the moments like a relaxed lunch together, full of laughter, fun, great food, wine and atmosphere in a groovy little tapas bar in Barcelona as the boys test drive their 10 words of Spanish with gusto have been truly sensational. Snow shoeing through knee to thigh deep untouched powder in the forests behind our house yesterday, including seeing wild deer en route to the pool at La Clusaz was a quieter, beautiful moment.

Other moments have been tough, heartbreaking and challenging to my core. Like seeing my generally sociable, happy son stand facing the wall at his first day of the new year at school to hide his fear and discomfort. We had put him in a place where he couldn’t yet converse with the other kids and knew none of them. I couldn’t protect him from his struggle. I was impotent to take the pain and fear away. Although I am really relieved to see him now heading off to school far more happily with friends to play with and more language to be able to share the games with them, it is hard knowing how easily he fitted in and thrived at school in Australia and how much it is still a daily challenge here. Hopefully long term, the benefits of the experiences here and having another language will outweigh the short term struggle. Until then we just try and support him the best we can and be his pit crew and support team in his grand challenge.



No shield, no cloak or makeup to hide
behind. Just me being, well me!

 Some of the risks are of showing who you really are to others. It is incredibly liberating being who you are, not who you think people want you to be. You cannot successfully attempt to fulfil a challenging, unusual goal with layers of self protection still in place. It is a bit like trying to do an ironman with makeup on! The effort makes any pretentions quickly exposed and irrelevant.

That is scary in many ways, as when people turn away or challenge what they see in you, it is not some lightly sketched outline or partially cloaked version of you they have an issue with, that you can change in your next appearance. It is a more fundamentally real and unprotected you that you really need to delve deep to decide whether you too wish to change it or it if a part of you that you wish to maintain and protect.

Additionally when you strive to make big, hairy, audacious goals (BHAG) come to life, you need to know you can manage the heartbreak if you don’t get there. A BHAG by definition has a great risk of failure. It doesn’t make it not worth doing, but understand the risks and be prepared to accept them (personally and those also on the journey with you) before you start.

Ron Clarke

Ron Clarke was one of the great Australian middle distance runners of my parent’s generation. Despite amazing success, including breaking 19 records for distances from the ½ mile to 6 miles in the 1960’s, he never won a gold medal at an Olympics. As a result he was labelled by an unsympathetic and uncompromising public as “the bloke that choked”. He was phenomenally talented and hard working, had put himself out there, aimed for the stars, reached the moon, and yet failed the expectations of a community who wouldn’t be able to keep up with him on an easy training run.

You may be blocked by circumstance, chose to abandon your goal as you determine the costs/sacrifices to be made are not worth it once further understood or just not get there despite best efforts. As I put in my last blog about goals, it is the journey, not the achievement of the goal that provides the majority of the overall experience. Whether you are successful or not, the striving closer to the edge of your capability changes you in many ways. It provides great lessons that floating along through life can never teach you, giving you an even better platform for any subsequent endeavour.

Not wanting an ordinary life don’t mean that some of the most precious moments are not “ordinary” though; such as playing with the boys on the way home from school, having a nice picnic together by a river, sitting with Rob at a cafe today doing some business planning while we waited for the shops to reopen from the standard French 2 hr lunch break. It is more the intensity that is different. When you are journeying in a more self-determined way, challenging yourself in many ways, risking failure and heartache, you see the world in richer colour so that even “ordinary” moments feel different, better, more real. Lyrics like those above seem written specifically with you in mind, stories and books resonate more deeply and the world seems abundant with opportunity. It is like being in love, but with life itself.

So some days may be hard, even heartbreaking, but I would prefer this to never really knowing what was possible, hiding within a comfortable, ordinary life, pretending my dreams can fit to that size and not ever truly connecting with people openly and fully or challenging myself to a really big, audacious goal. Luckily for me Rob feels that way too. Instead we chose to discover what an extraordinary adventure of a life we are capable of both individually and as a family. So no pinstriped suits needed here just now. With -18c forecast for tomorrow morning, a down jacket is far more practical.

All the best in finding an extra-ordinary dream to follow yourself.

Biz
C