The New Normal is Actually Quite Lovely

The Discipline of a Beautiful Life

Perfection is perhaps the hardest place to live.

For one thing, we simply cannot stay there forever.

Even when life feels almost perfect—when the people we love are well, our work is fulfilling, our relationships feel secure, and the future seems to be unfolding exactly as we hoped—something eventually changes.

Because life changes.

People change.

Circumstances change.

We change.

And no one ever promised us a rose garden—or tomorrow—so when there are roses, I think we should stop and smell them.

Enjoy the joy while it is here.

Live the life that exists today instead of waiting for some imaginary version of it to become perfect.

And never forget that no one else gets to tell you what you deserve.

You get to define that.

This is your life—uniquely yours—and you get to decide what you want to make of it.

Every year, I like to look back at the major changes in my life and give myself a little time to consider what they taught me.

Some changes made me happier. Some made me healthier. Some served me extraordinarily well.

Others hurt.

I think those deserve reflection, too.

There is something to be learned from disappointment, mistakes, heartbreak, and even the decisions we would make differently if given another chance. We cannot undo any of them. All we can really do is learn something and carry the lesson forward.

Change is inevitable.

So is disappointment.

People will hurt us. They will misunderstand us. They will occasionally surprise us in wonderful ways—and sometimes in ways we wish they hadn’t.

We cannot change the past. We cannot control what other people think about us, what they believe, what they say when we aren’t in the room, or even how they choose to treat us.

But we can change our expectations.

We can expect more for ourselves.

We can establish boundaries around what we allow into our lives and what we don’t.

And we can become much more selective about the voices we allow through our personal filter.

Not every opinion about you deserves your attention.

Not every criticism requires a response.

And certainly not every person gets a vote in how you live your life.

Sometimes people judge others through the lens of their own experiences, disappointments, insecurities, or unhappiness. That belongs to them. We don’t have to pick it up and carry it.

There is too much joy waiting for us to spend our lives defending ourselves to people committed to misunderstanding us.

Keep moving forward.

Most recently, I have been embracing a fairly significant change in my own life.

I now work from home almost exclusively.

Last year, our office transitioned to a four-day workweek, which has been wonderful. This year, I made another change of my own and began working remotely most of the time, going into the office for a few hours about once a week, occasionally twice.

It simply made sense.

So much of what I do today is analytical, administrative, and increasingly data-driven—the kind of work that often benefits from uninterrupted time to think and concentrate. I also have a wonderful team in the office handling the day-to-day, face-to-face interactions with our patients, while my own role doesn't routinely require me to be physically present for those interactions.

And perhaps most importantly, I discovered that I simply get more done at home.

Initially, I wasn’t sure I would like it.

I wondered whether I might become lonely. I wondered if I would miss the ordinary day-to-day interactions of being in an office. I worried that home and work might begin to blend together in ways that weren’t particularly healthy.

Instead, something rather lovely happened.

I discovered that I can accomplish far more from home than I ever could in the office.

Without the constant interruptions inherent in an office environment, I can concentrate deeply, finish projects, think creatively, and structure my day around the work that actually needs to be done.

But I have also had to learn something else.

How to stop working.

That may be the real discipline of working remotely.

I have a rather robust workspace at home now. Work is always right there. There is no commute signaling that the workday has ended. No office door locking behind me. No physical separation telling my brain, ‘That’s enough for today.’

I have to create that separation myself.

So I have developed little boundaries around my day.

I don’t begin working simply because my desk is twenty feet away.

I give myself my morning first.

I stretch. I exercise. I shower. I get dressed just as I would if I were leaving for the office.

During the day, I stop to nourish myself—not only with healthy food but with movement, fresh air, and sunshine on my face.

And at a reasonable hour, I end my workday.

Sometimes I return to my desk later for another hour or two. There are days when something genuinely needs my attention, and I don’t mind that. Flexibility is one of the gifts of working this way.

But before I return, I make sure I have lived some of my life.

I might run an errand, meet someone for dinner, make myself a lovely meal at home, take a walk, exercise, read something interesting that has absolutely nothing to do with work, watch a good show, write, or catch up with someone I love.

Because productivity is not the measure of whether I used my day well.

Living is.

Perhaps that is what I am learning in this particular season of my life.

Life doesn’t always become better because we successfully resist change.

Sometimes it becomes better because we stop fighting long enough to discover what the change has to offer us.

The thing I was apprehensive about has become something I genuinely enjoy.

The new normal is actually quite lovely.

And working remotely does require discipline—just not necessarily in the way people might imagine.

For me, it isn’t the discipline to make myself work.

It is the discipline to close the computer.

To walk away from the desk.

To go outside.

To feel the sun on my face.

To remember that being good at my job does not require giving every available hour of my life to it.

Maybe that lesson extends far beyond work.

We spend so much of our lives trying to get somewhere—to the right career, the right relationship, the right house, the right weight, the right financial number, the right version of ourselves.

Perfection.

But perfection is a terribly difficult place to live.

And even if we manage to visit for a moment, we cannot make it stay.

Perhaps a beautiful life isn’t one in which everything finally becomes perfect.

Perhaps it is one in which we become increasingly comfortable adapting when it isn’t.

Knowing when to work hard.

Knowing when to rest.

Knowing what deserves our attention.

Knowing what doesn’t.

Knowing when something needs fixing—and when something simply needs releasing.

Knowing that other people are entitled to their opinions without allowing those opinions to become our identity.

And remembering to stop and smell the roses when we happen upon them.

Because they won’t bloom forever.

Neither will we.

And today is still ours.

Enjoy the joy. Learn from the pain. Let the noise pass through. And keep building a life that feels like your own.

Still learning when to lean in, when to let go, and when to simply go outside and enjoy the day.

🍯 Honey 🐝

P.S. If you happen to find yourself in a rose garden, please don't spend the whole time wondering how long the roses will last. Smell them. 🌹