Cultivating ambition for quiet, ordinary things

On what makes perfect days

“Happiness is in the quiet, ordinary things. A table, a chair, a book with a paper-knife stuck between the pages. And the petal falling from the rose, and the light flickering as we sit silent.”

— Virginia Woolf

I tend to place my ambition in distant things. Future milestones, achievements and successes trickle into the present and compose the day’s to-do list.  

Sometimes this brings a certain drive to the day, but it can also bring despondence when it feels like the life I want is far out of reach.

What if, instead, I brought my ambition in closer and directed it towards the quiet, ordinary things in my day-to-day life?

I recently saw the film Perfect Days from filmmaker Wim Wenders. It’s a mesmerising look at the day-to-day life of Hirayama, a public toilet cleaner in Tokyo. We’re immersed in the deliberate details of his life—from rising at dawn and watering his plants, to driving to work while listening to a cassette tape, to methodically cleaning cubicle-to-cubicle. His actions demonstrate to the viewer the beauty and profundity that can be found in living simply.

Having cleaned toilets at music festivals in my 20s, I certainly don’t think it’s a guaranteed pathway to quiet contentment and harmony. Hirayama’s profession is secondary to his way of both assembling and looking at things, providing a life-affirming lens for our days.

Of course, Perfect Days doesn’t continue perfectly. We see that the smoothness of his days is not immune to disruption. Distractions, interpersonal dynamics and unexpected encounters can rattle even the most routine-adhering among us.

Because that’s what days are: ever-changing clusters of mostly ordinary things.

Yet even in their monotony, there is always something to be ambitious about if we take the time to absorb and appreciate the subtle differences and details.

I remember waiting in line at a small local grocer during a pandemic lockdown, and each time the cashier was asked “how are you?” by the next customer, he had a different response. “I feel like I’m on the cover of People Magazine,” he said, or “I’m loving that my face mask looks like the top of this jam lid.”

There can be delight in even the most mundane repetition when you find a new answer, approach, or way of looking at things.

I’m reminded of the film Groundhog Day when Bill Murray’s character, weatherman Phil Connors, begins to bring more ambition into how he approaches the monotony of the day. His producer-turned-love-interest Rita remarks, “This day was perfect. You couldn't have planned a day like this.” To which Phil replies, “Well, you can. It just takes an awful lot of work.”

It takes a lot of work to keep bringing our ambitions back into this day. We can easily get caught in thinking happiness or fulfilment will be found when we accomplish this or do that—but soon we find that the goalpost has moved again. 

What if contentment is closer than we think?

I’ve long asked people what their perfect day would look like without geographical or financial constraints. Despite emphasising that last point, most people describe a day fairly within reach of their current means. Spending time with people they love, being more present, doing little things they enjoy. Yet day after day, we put off our perfect days—sometimes due to a pressing, unavoidable thing, but often in favour of some far-off success, another thing keeping us busy, an obligation.

At some point, we must deliberately imbue our days with the things we actually want for them.

For Phil the Weatherman, it took Rita’s help to see the Groundhog Day loops as a blessing instead of a curse. In Perfect Days, when Hirayama’s past is subtly revealed, we see that it has been a conscious decision to live a life of simplicity. I wondered if there was a time the friendly grocer deliberately added variety to his ‘how are you’ responses.

Perhaps we can all be more ambitious, more effortful, more present within the monotony of a day.

To cultivate ambition for quiet ordinary things, I think you have to cultivate an interest in small, seemingly insignificant things. As William Morris said, “The true secret of happiness is taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.”

We can ask ourselves, what are the quiet, ordinary things I want to turn my ambitions towards?

I want to be more deliberate with how I spend time alone.

I want to learn to make more things with my hands.

I want more sunlight in my eyes in the morning.

I want to be the one who says hello when walking into an elevator.

I want matching spice jars.

I want to interview my parents.

I want to read on the bus instead of scrolling my phone.

I want to be known as a great hugger.

I want to remember all of this can be had now, and better yet, it doesn’t depend on how much my income fluctuated this month, or how a certain project is progressing, or this or that metric. It can simply be had in this day.

As the Greek writer and philosopher Nikos Kazantzakis wrote, “I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.”

After all, all we have is a day, and another, starting over. Whether or not it’s perfect perhaps depends on how much you paid attention to the quiet, ordinary things dangling within it.

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