The Unexpected Joy of the Ordinary: In Celebration of Being Average

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The reader learns that Gray was an alcoholic, that she had a job with Cosmopolitan at some point but for unknown reasons is now self-employed, and that she lost her father. She doesn’t allow the reader to connect with her story because there are no details provided on any of these significant life points. Her discussion on grieving the loss of her father was a good example of how confusing her story telling is throughout. She writes, In other areas, she oversimplifies complicated feelings in her attempts to prove that you just need to paint a silver lining on hardships. She writes,

What we love about Catherine’s book is that she helps us see through her own unique way that the solution to really discovering happiness is really in rediscovering that joy in the ordinary. Those things that we often forget are amazing because they’ve become so commonplace for us. Especially in a world of instant gratification. Take a leaf out of Gray's book and be kinder to yourself by appreciating life just as it is - IRISH TIMESHere are some real lines from real gratitude literature, plus how I felt when I read them. (Article origins and writers obviously concealed.) The author is ignorant and uninformed in the areas she is trying to speak on, which we learn is because she actively avoids consuming the news or anything else that might be upsetting. Her perspective is ego-centric, and she is unaware of how life outside the upper-middle class looks. In recovering, I learned how to mine the wonder in the workaday. Simply by doing one thing. Writing at least five gratitudes, daily. (I nearly put myself to sleep writing that last line.) Gratitude-ing has been so done to death it has become clichéd. Yet it was one of the most transformative daily practices I’ve ever adopted. When you first meet your partner, they're amazing, everything's fresh and new and wild. But you inevitably ‘hedonically adapt’ to them. Even if you're dating Liam Hemsworth or Mila Kunis. So as long as you know that no matter who you're with that's going to happen, then you can adjust your expectations.” That I felt that camera flash of pain in my gob that tells me I need to go to the dentist – so I went to the dentist. That I can afford to do so, without financial jiggery-pokery and stress.”

Losing a parent was not, it turned out, the melodrama I expected, in which life screeched to a halt. Plus, we had this godforsaken memorial to organize now…” Interesting and joyful. Lights a path that could help us to build resilience against society’s urging to compare life milestones with peers – LANCET PSYCHIATRY

Being thankful for the little things can be life-changing

Six years ago I was suicidal. When I quit drinking I was still very low so I started researching how to change that. I kept coming up against gratitude and ‘finding beauty in the everyday’, and even though my Britishness was like, ‘that’s way too cheesy and twee for me’, I gave it a go. I joined a gratitude group on Facebook and started writing gratitudes every day and it completely turned my mental health around. Learning how to be exalted by the everyday is the most important lesson we can possibly learn. In Catherine Gray's hilarious, insightful, soulful (and very ordinary) next book, you may learn to do just that. She made it her mission to learn how to be default happy rather than default disgruntled - RADIO 4 - WOMAN'S HOUR Most of us are living average, normal lives. We have these flashes of extraordinary moments but they don't last very long... most of [life] is workaday and a bit humdrum and pedestrian. So why not embrace the joy of the ordinary? We've got nothing to lose.” Being thankful for the little things can be life-changing

So, what's the answer? THE UNEXPECTED JOY OF THE ORDINARY theorises that the solution is rediscovering the joy in the ordinary that we so often now forget to feel. Because we now expect the pleasure of a croissant, a hot shower, a yoga class, someone delivering our shopping to our door, we no longer feel its buzz. The joy of it whips through us like a bullet train, without pause. When I’d heard the news of his death, I had folded over and dropped my phone of the floor, as if right-hooked in the stomach by loss. I lay on the kitchen tiles, as expected, dominated by the overlord of bereavement.” Interesting and joyful. Lights a path that could help us to build resilience against society's urging to compare life milestones with peers - LANCET PSYCHIATRY Shallow, tone deaf, and self-indulgent. Incredibly boring and at times unintelligible. This book was a bad memoir and a worse self-help book. If you are coping with loss, depression, divorce, etc. I advise you to steer clear of this one. I can understand writing a book focused on providing solutions for, “first world problems”, but I cannot support work that is uninformed and dismissive of the reality of many. Thankfully, modern life isn’t nearly so dangerous. But evolution moves slowly, and your amygdala is still scanning for threats. The author, for instance, often feels threatened when she finds herself in busy subway stations. The reason is simple: her amygdala is warning her that there are no plants or water sources around, so she might have a problem finding sustenance.Neuroscientist Dr. John Cacioppo carried out a study in which he showed his subjects different sets of images and measured how their brains responded. He found that people became more engaged when they looked at negative pictures, like guns and dead animals. Positive photos – things like pizza and ice-cream – didn’t create the same level of excitement. I didn’t expect my quest for the ultimate extraordinary night out to birth an alcohol addiction. If I was bored, I didn’t go home. I drank more, in an attempt to salvage this faceplant of a night. Just one more drink, bar, dance. I didn’t expect to not be able to make a relationship last more than three years. My friends were getting engaged, starting families even, and had climbed on the property ladder thanks to parents handing them deposits, or the bittersweet windfall of inheritance, and in comparison, I felt like the very definition of a loser. On my 27th birthday, my mates made me a birthday book which they all wrote and drew in; all of the doodles of me starred wine and cigarettes. Later that night, I would chip my front tooth by drunkenly falling into a front door. So, what's the answer? The Unexpected Joy of the Ordinary theorizes that the solution is rediscovering the joy in the ordinary that we so often now forget to feel. Because we now expect the pleasure of a croissant, a hot shower, a yoga class, someone delivering our shopping to our door, we no longer feel its buzz. The joy of it whips through us like a bullet train, without pause.

Say a relationship ends; now I know he’s a cheater. Or if a boring but reliable source of income vanishes; now I can pursue something that doesn’t turn my brain into a narcoleptic. Having to move house; a new town becomes my oyster.” Take a leaf out of Gray’s book and be kinder to yourself by appreciating life just as it is – IRISH TIMES In the early chapters, reading the author’s stories read like a conversation with a friend. There was good flow but then she takes this too far and goes off on too many tangents. The narrative in this book was a mess. She uses a lot of English slang, I think, but sometimes while reading I really had no idea what she was saying. Examples below: The concept of this book - re-enchanting the everyday - is completely and utterly fabulous. Catherine analyses, summarises and presents a wealth of compelling research in support of the book's main thesis which is that, the best kind of joy is to be found in the everyday moments of our everyday lives. I really loved the concept and the manageable way in which the book breaks it down into a variety of specific segments for example 'ordinary living' and 'ordinary loving'. I think this book will offer some comfort and inspiration for anyone who has felt the pressure to reach a certain (likely socially constructed) milestone in their life as well as anyone who finds the frenetic pace of our modern and tech-driven lives somewhat overwhelming. I certainly found this an empowering read and there were many moments when I just wanted to let out a huge YES (and did in fact give myself a mental fist bump!) because I identified so strongly with the issue being discussed and the consequent feeling of being less alone is a rather lovely one. Catherine adds: “The negative bias is really strong in your relationships as well. One study showed that we need five positive experiences in a relationship to outweigh one negative experience. So, bear that in mind. If you have a big argument, try and make the next day a bit better.” Celebrate your ‘done’ listsToday I got the train home from work, put my book and my phone down for 15 minutes and just watched and listened to the rain pattering on the window. I felt so calm. It was an utter joy. And one night, I got into a bathtub with a kitchen knife at 3am, inconsolable, and willed myself to do something. I lay there for an hour, until the water was goosebump cold. For that hour, I existed in between two worlds; not wanting to live, yet not being able to do what was necessary to die.