life gets happier when its smaller

a working thesis for living

I have this theory, that life gets happier when it gets smaller.

This year I’ll turn 36, a respectable, decidedly adult age. I will look back on this year as the year I learned the difference between dreaming and coveting. Between clarifying what you want out of life, and pining over everyone else’s.

There’s no way around it, we think of a small life as a boring life. A life built around routine, predictability, and sameness doesn’t show up with the same regularity on people’s moodboards for living¹, but I think a small life is underrated.

I love my life.

No actually, I do.

And it’s not because I’m jet-setting to Europe for the summer, or traveling around the country on vacation. I’m not famous. I’m not in the process of a home renovation, or on a book tour, or attending fabulous events every night. I don’t have the best style and the latest trends (although, I like to dress in my own version of stylish!) I’m not living out some American dream with land, a ranch, a homestead, or anything larger than life like that.

In fact, apart from a weekend or two away with my husband to a cabin in the mountains of Tennessee, we’ve gone on the same family vacation to northern Wisconsin every summer. We visit Chris’ family in Ireland as often as we can afford to (okay, that is pretty cool), but other than that we stay home.

We go to the same parks, order the same take out, have the same weekend routines, see the same friends, go to the same three restaurants on date night, where we usually end up ordering a variation of the same thing we always get.

And I freaking love it.

My nervous system is thriving.

Maybe someday I’ll want something else, but today, I want this. A life carefully crafted, brick-by-brick, into something I’m excited to wake up to everyday.

The Influencer Effect

It’s been six months since I’ve really been off social media. Occasionally I’ll login to Instagram to post about my Substack, or share a funny meme, but I usually immediately delete the app and go back to the quiet. I won’t go on about the immediate, predictable impact of little-to-no social media diet, except to say this: being off socials has bred a deep sense of contentment I didn’t initially see coming.

Even if you think of yourself as impervious to the urgency of influencer culture (I know I certainly did), something about removing that channel from my diet has eliminated the feeling of always being behind.

The anxiety of not “having things”, or not being “out” enough, or doing enough with my life is basically gone. Sure, I have bad days, we all do. But that daily nagging sense of never meeting up, never keeping up is gone. And in its place I’ve had time to cultivate the things I actually care about.

It’s cliché, I know, but you really can’t create a life you love by consuming the manufactured highlights of others’— you just can’t.

What do you actually want to do with your life?

A while ago, I was digging pavers into the clay walkway to the alley in my backyard. The January bleakness meant it felt like true labor, dirt seeped through my work gloves, staining my fingers. I was sweating, even though it was winter. I was muddy and sticky and I loved it.

It felt like a spiritual revelation. I had set out on the project because I hated how the path along our garage looked. I wanted something beautiful, a finished result. But I realized I actually enjoyed the process. It felt like play, like artistry, like accomplishment.

There in the January mud, I found unexpected joy. I decided to chase it, and I learned a lot.

I made a list of everything I want to do in my life, like things I’d actually be really sad about if I didn’t complete them. When I looked at the list, it wasn’t something I could purchase, or a trip I wanted to go on (although, I’ve got plenty a places I hope to visit in my life!), or anything that glamorous at all. I’ll share the highlights with you, I wanted:

• to write— I’ve always been a writer. Which isn’t to say I’m good at it, but just that it’s what I do. It’s what I’ve always done. I knew I’d be sad if I got to the end of my life and I hadn’t pour some concerted effort into this passion. Writing though, isn’t glamorous. It takes consistency, choosing to sit down with a blinking cursor instead of doing anything else.

• to garden and be in nature— I wanted to have a space where I knew every plant, every tree, every bird in my yard. I wanted to get out in the dirt every week, to watch things grow, to feel a part of nature.

• to have a family who likes each other— having a family is not everyone’s path, and that’s okay. But cultivating a family culture that feels fun, safe, welcoming, creative, and joyful takes intention and work. People have written entire books on this topic, and I’m hardly an expert but crystalizing that as a dream for myself was important to me.

• a few good friends— I love my friends. I love that every year we know each other, it gets better and better. I love having history with people and feeling known.

• to read— I had this moment of realization that I was really tired of TV. Maybe it’s just my pandemic lockdown watching habits finally catching up to me, but I wasn’t having a good time, despite dutifully sitting down every night before bed and logging several hours worth of down time watching shows. On the other hand, I had so many books I wanted to read, so many stories I wanted hear, and things I wanted to learn about, so why was I actively not doing it?

Things that didn’t make my list that surprised me:

• traveling the world

• having a “fit” body (listen, I’m just putting this here for transparency’s sake. I know this a category that brings up all sorts of things for people, so let’s just move on.)

• having a lot of friends or a big social life

• hustling for a “career” (again, a broad term. I’m not saying I’m opposed to work, I guess I just have never found the idea of having a career very personally inspiring. Something about me: I would be happy working at Starbucks. I’m not overly motivated by accolades.)

• being famous— okay this one might sound silly, but I’m serious. I think with the ubiquity of influencer culture and social media, I accidentally drank the Kool-aid that to be successful and happy, you have to be “known”, online, in your field, on social media, etc. When the reality is, I live everyday in relative obscurity quite happily.

This is just my list. It doesn’t have to be yours. But when I laid it out like that, it really helped me organize the hours of my day.

Getting granular

Once I laid out the things that were important to me, I was horrified by how little I prioritized them. Why did I pick up my phone and scroll when I would actually enjoy weeding or reading a book so much more?? Why didn’t I set aside meaningful time to write? Why didn’t I invite my close friends over to dinner more? Why did I always suggest going out for dinks with friends, when half the time I wanted to go on a hike?

These days I get up at 5:00am to write. Often I’m really sleepy, but excited. It feels like doing something for me.

These days I try to spend every nice day outside with my kids. In our backyard, at parks, the nature center. This achieves two of my dreams at the same time: being outside in nature, and spending meaningful time with my family.

These days I settle down at the end of the day in my armchair, a cup of tea and a book instead of watching Office reruns. Reading culture (because there is a culture behind it) has been a really fun one for me. I love recording the books I’ve read, writing reviews, sharing books with my friends and family, and curating my TBR pile.

These days I’m really happy with how I spend my time.

All this could change

My goals and values will probably change. As my kids get older, as I get older, my priorities will shift. Maybe one day I’ll wake up with an unquenchable thirst to see the world (I can actually totally see this happening someday!), or maybe someday I will have a career I really care about.

But in this moment, I feel the most like myself and the most contented I’ve felt in years.

Of course there are really hard days. Of course I’m not blithely checked out of the greater world and its tragedies at large. Of course there are financially lean months and years, and things I worry about for my family. Of course we fight and get mad at each other. Of course, of course, of course.

Settling into the this rhythm has also made my gratitude for the privileges I get to live with exponentially larger. We have a home! We can afford it! We have food! We have friends! We have health! So many people cannot say the same.

At almost-36 I guess I’m just realizing time is limited. I don’t have forever, but I do have right now.

1. I’ll make an exception for fitness influencers, bio hacking gurus, and wellness personalities. But in my experience these lifestyle brands exist to achieve some kind of radical physical transformation, that’s not what I’m talking about here.