Crumbs of Courage and Celebrating One Year of Delights of the Ordinary: Delights of the Ordinary No. 38
A petite celebration of life’s marking; I am making drum rolls and flying the confetti around.
Hi, I am Anugrah.
I write Delights of the Ordinary for us who are trapped in the world of hustle culture but are quiet creatives at heart.
With Delights of the Ordinary, my mission is to see victorious people transformed inside out.
This newsletter intersects viewpoint, culture and art in our practical 9-5 job space. If you know even one person who will benefit from reading Delights of the Ordinary, feel free to share so they can subscribe.
Delights of the Ordinary currently is a free publication. Yet it takes me many hours of effort to write and curate it. I may need lots of coffee to keep me going. You can :)
“It wouldn’t have been failure to be bankrupt, dishonoured, pilloried, hanged; it was failure not to be anything.”
Henry James in Beast in the Jungle
Today Delights of the Ordinary completes a year!
(A petite celebration of life’s marking; I am making drum rolls and flying the confetti around.)
When we land in places that are unknown to us, they either become a place of learning or a place of victimhood because these unknown places just feel as risky as riding a roller coaster down full throttle without your safety belt on!
I am kind of in this place right now. The unknown landscape of writing these newsletters to many of you who have been calmly supporting and reading through my rants and my ideas. I owe you more than I owe to anything. A big thank you!
Still, this unknown ground remains a place of great learning.
The Prologue
A year back on the fifth of April twenty-twenty-three, I wrote my first post as a letter. (Click here if you wish to read what I wrote a year ago). Delights of the Ordinary started with a crumb-sized courage and just two subscribers - one, my husband, and the other was me from my other email id. (That email id still receives my letters and sometimes I read myself as a stranger who is struggling with the vagaries of the world.)
A Crumb-Sized Courage
Most of you must have met this miniature-sized courage within you, that would say “Let me try….” And then you quickly question back in the heart, “What if it doesn’t work…!” Then easing yourself you may say again, “It is fine…who is bothered about what you are doing anyway…!”
And then you abruptly freeze -up to even know how to start, what to really do about it! And then the heart will say again, “You are dumb to even think what you will write or someone is interested in reading it.” (Insert writing with your creative work)
Finally, if you get past all of these dangerous cliffs inside your cranium, bruising your senses and even your logical reasoning enough, yet are still holding that teeny crumb of courage. Then act on it.
As George Saunders says, “In a world full of people who seem to know everything, passionately, based on little (often slanted) information, where certainty is often mistaken for power, what a relief it is to be in the company of someone confident enough to stay unsure (that is, perpetually curious).”
We say cheers to our sceptical unsure selves because we all have somewhere gathered the courage to do something that went out of our comfort zone. Some worked; some didn’t. And that is ok. In both the cases, if we could see beyond brooding in our failures or extravaganzas in our success we would see we had remarkable lessons etched into us for life. This is a wonderful story of you. And, therefore even if you see just a few people cheering around you, still carry on to do things that are exclusively yours.
Somehow these letters have put inside me a good portion of courage that people are listening, reading and making some wonders in their own skies. I hope that you are creating wonders for yourself. It is so much pretty out there but the world system has deduced its difficult pressures to hold us back that we are not making enough time to see the pretty things around us.
A Small Milestone
My Website is Up!
But when a few of you joined my writing journey initially, I felt maybe something was making sense out there. Marine biologist and author Rachel Carson says, “If you write what you yourself sincerely think and feel and are interested in, you will interest other people.” And so by the end of the last year, I made up my mind to seriously find someone to help me on my website. It is a small milestone but stands tall on my side of the highway.
I have had many failed attempts to get a website done myself. Since I am a nutritionist by degree and a writer in my heart - placing a website in its complete order was such a chaotic task that even though I started umpteen times, I always gave up!
Yet, in my wobbly steps, my website finally sees the daylight. I would be glad if you would take a peek at my online home (here’s the link) → paintmyword.com.
“[I]t’s worth recognizing that there is no such thing as an overnight success… To endure five years of rejection to get a job requires either a faith in oneself that borders on delusion, or a love of the work. I loved the work.”
Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson
Mini Restful Stances
After this one year of writing, I want to take some mini restful stances. So I can reshuffle my thoughts, my itchings, my turbulences happening in my mind about writing and other spaces of my life. I wish to keep some sane somber ways to reach out to you and in every which way shun the mechanical ways of doing things.
Creativity is a space of adoration and a tender cocoon of moulding yourself in some essential manner. Hence, if you’ve been in this trap of running at a pace which the outer world thinks is good, land up into your courage and try to stop for a while.
If you can, take a break for a day or two and do the random tasks at home. Cook a horrible meal, which will remind you that you need to brush up your culinary skills a tad bit, or do the laundry and remind yourself you do not need these many clothes. Do those nonsense things in life that are such great teachers but we hardly give way to them. Because eventually, we all one day say, “That’s it! Was life made of just this!”
To End:
Carry On by Robert William Service
It's easy to fight when everything's right,
And you're mad with the thrill and the glory;
It's easy to cheer when victory's near,
And wallow in fields that are gory.
It's a different song when everything's wrong,
When you're feeling infernally mortal;
When it's ten against one, and hope there is none,
Buck up, little soldier, and chortle:
Carry on! Carry on!Carry on! Carry on!
Fight the good fight and true;
Believe in your mission, greet life with a cheer;
There's big work to do, and that's why you are here.
Carry on! Carry on!
Let the world be the better for you;
And at last when you die, let this be your cry:
Carry on, my soul! Carry on!
I thank you for being a part of my rickety frail journey here. From 2 subscribers this small mini-publication of 157 subscribers, I will continue to write till you are ready to read. I aim to keep this section of the Delights of the Ordinary free for all.
Keep making sunshine around you, frolic perceptions about life and about the one who created this life within us. Your choices are important and your words, your art, and your business is meaningful.
- Anugrah
Delights of the Ordinary started in April of twenty-twenty-three with just two readers and now has a readership of 157 of you. I am highly grateful for the time and room that you give me in your heart.
Stumbled on my publication? Explore all my previous editions here. And in case you don’t wish to spend time browsing then complement this post with Decision Fatigue and Our Creative Life, Fomo, Jomo, Wagmi And Why We Need Them in Our Lives, To The Ordinary Woman or read about The Art of Walking.
And don’t forget to
Much love
All the best..... way to go