I live a boring life. I’m 39 and most days look like this.
I work from a small office, hike, see my family, lift weights, read, and write. About it.
And I love it.
My 19-year-old self scoffs at it. Even my 29-year-old self would. “Is that all there is to life?” he says. “You should be there. In the middle of the action!”
What action?
I think I’ve seen too many TV shows and movies.
The dream you inherit is not the dream you keep
I had a different vision of what my life should look like. In my twenties, I watched the same shows Mad Men and Costumes. I like this life and wanted a big city.
Skyline office. Business dinners past midnight.
Instead, I graduated after the Great Financial Crisis and started a business with my dad. We buy, repair and sell industrial laundry equipment.
I was 24 and felt like I was wasting my twenties going to industrial parks and talking about used commercial washers and dryers.
I told myself it was temporary. I wanted to get through it and then build the high and impactful life I had assumed to have
It took me years to admit something normal. I really didn’t want that kind of life. I just thought I had to want it.
Most of us walk around with someone else’s dream in our head. You master it before you have any choice in the matter.
Movies, music, what your friends say, what the algorithm feeds you. By the time you’re in your twenties, you have a complete picture of what success looks like. And almost none of it came from you.
Seneca said plainly:
“He who has little is not poor, but he who always wants more is poor.”
Traps don’t want things. The trap is wanting things you don’t like because the world has told you that what they want is right.
Taste everything you want
Now I’m not saying you should skip the noisy life and go straight to the quiet one.
It’s the opposite. If you want something, try it. Because untested desire never dies. It just sits in the corner of your mind, whispering that you miss it.
Most people have the following desires:
- Backpacking through Asia or South America
- Living in a big city
- Nomadic laptop lifestyle, working from the beach
- Initial grinding, building something with the team
- Party years, going out every weekend
If any of them appeal to you, give them a try. Really try them.
I experienced city life when I lived in London. Always in motion, always something happening. I had a dream painting.
And I didn’t like it.
This flavor is worth everything. I still have before and after. Sometimes I want more social interaction, more activities, more city energy.
This is normal.
But now I can check that enthusiasm against reality. I was there. I know what it looks like on screen and how it feels in reality.
When boring is beautiful
Something has slowly changed over the years.
I started writing after I moved to my hometown in 2015. I built a small business around it. I met my wife. We had a son.
Nothing about my current schedule makes a movie. But life feels good.
Most days I’m not in a rush. I can’t wait for the weekend. I don’t count rest. Real hours of my real week are what I want.
This is the test I missed in my twenties. A proper life is a life that doesn’t need a break from your week.
Look closely at the people you admire who have built something real. Almost all of them did it from a peaceful life. Boring routines. The same table. Same hours. The same handful of close people.
So why do we keep chasing the loud version? Two reasons.
The first is the hedonic treadmill. No matter what happens, you will quickly adapt to it. The excitement of a new car or a new name burns out in a few months. Then you get to the next one.
The second is more sincere. We are afraid to be unaffected.
The world tells us that ordinary life is a wasted life. This silence equals small.
This is a lie. Peace does not mean small. It means not distracted.
Stop looking at the present as a comment
Underlying all this is a deeper problem.
Most people are so focused on the future that the present moment becomes a footnote. Something to go through. Something to sacrifice.
Think how crazy that is. Your whole life happens in the present moment. There is no other place where this can happen.
Anthony de Mello put it this way:
“You don’t have to add anything to be happy, you have to leave something out.”
You don’t need a city, title or airport lounge. You have to stop thinking that your life starts after you get these things.
The Dalai Lama was once asked what he admired most about humanity.
His answer: Man sacrifices his health to earn money, then sacrifices his money to regain his health. He worries about the future so much that he doesn’t enjoy the present. As a result, he lives in neither.
A peaceful life does not require doing little
The goal is to be more present in each moment.
Making coffee. Take a walk. Play with your child. If you are fully prepared for these things, they will stop being boring. They become your life instead of a waiting room for your life.
And no one here wants to hear. It also means that you stop looking at others.
Every minute you spend watching someone else’s life is a minute away from your own.
Your dream is allowed to change
If you had told 24-year-old me that I would be running a small business and writing, raising a child, and hiking all day in a quiet Dutch town, I would have been disappointed.
That’s because 24-year-old me knew just what he wanted.
Today I will not trade for any version of this week Costumes life
Your dream needs to change. Your twenties are built on incomplete information about yourself.
When you know who you are, your dream will come true. Satisfaction and ambition not the opposite. You can love your current week and build an even bigger decade.
Marcus Aurelius mentioned a line:
“It takes very little to make a happy life; it’s all in yourself, in the way you think.”
If the life you’re building doesn’t look exciting on the outside, but feels good on the inside, you’re doing it right.
Stop looking from the outside.
