Value the Mundane

Do you value the mundane? I do, but not often enough.

This morning, after a busy weekend, I have arrived at the coworking space where I write and I am anxious. It’s a season of transition for me and several activities are simultaneously in play. There are “important” things I can and should be doing. But an anxious attitude almost certainly will scuttle my efforts. So, now I’m anxious about my anxiety? That’s helpful.

Among my low-level tasks to do is calendar prep. I use a daily planner that comes in four quarterly books. The pages and calendars are undated. To use this planning system, once each quarter I must allocate time to put dates in the upper left corner of each calendar block for the three monthly calendars. I must also enter a date on each of the daily pages I will use during that quarter. It’s tedious. I don’t like it. But I need it.

I recently received the book for the next quarter. Since I was too agitated to do my best work, I pulled the planner from the shelf and began filling the blanks. It was a tonic. The task demanded sufficient focus to distract me. If I put the right date in the wrong box, I could ruin my entire month, after all. Also, I realized my writing needed to be legible, so rushing was not advised.

Anatomically Correct

One of the most fascinating things I’ve seen recently is a pair of digital dissection tables used in the Department of Health Science at Gettysburg College. Thanks to people who have donated their bodies to science, and the incredible patience of others who scanned and labeled those bodies slice by slice, we can clearly see all the pieces that comprise the human body.

For every large, strong bone there are a number of smaller bones. Like the ones that help you find furniture in the dark. Arteries lead to veins and so on, delivering oxygenated blood and collecting depleted blood for reuse. The tables allowed us to isolate the circulatory system and see how that flow works. We could remove muscles and organs from the display and show only bones. We could remove bones from the display and zoom in on facial muscles.

This becomes apparent: we are complex beings with some familiar parts. Hard parts and squishy bits. Femur, tibia, ulna, heart, aorta, brain, lungs, etc. It’s the lesser known parts that keep us intact. A meme I just saw says “The average spine has approximately 100 joints, 33 vertebra, and 220 ligaments.” I trust the source. Especially since it supports my opinion that little supporting muscles, ligaments, and cartilage with relatively boring tasks keep us operating at our best.

In our daily living, the unexciting tasks can serve a similar purpose, rooting us in routine, aiding our focus, and coaxing us from our emotional ledges back into the safety of more controlled environments.

As you’re loading the dishwasher, sorting the laundry, making your shopping lists, dusting, or entering dates into your crisp new planner, take a moment to be thankful for the marvelous benefits of the mundane.