Quote of the Day: Chris Van Allsburg on Life & Wisdom

Your day can disappear in a blur: notifications stacking up, feeds begging for attention, and the quiet pressure to keep pace with everyone else’s highlight reel. In that kind of speed, wonder doesn’t vanish because it’s gone, it vanishes because we stop noticing. That’s why this line lands like a reset button: “The idea of the extraordinary happening in the context of the ordinary is what's fascinating to me.”

Van Allsburg’s insight isn’t just about stories; it’s a practical way to reclaim your agency. If you’re waiting for a perfect vacation, a bigger breakthrough, or a dramatic change to feel alive, you’ll overlook the most reliable doorway to meaning: the life you already have. The extraordinary often arrives disguised as routine, one honest conversation, one curious question, one small risk taken in plain sight.

There’s also a performance advantage here. Familiar settings ground the mind, and grounded minds create better work. When you deliberately plant a bold experiment inside an ordinary day, an unexpected opening line, a surprising act of courage, a “what if?” that interrupts autopilot, you make the ordinary more vivid and the extraordinary more believable. Not because reality becomes magical, but because your attention becomes disciplined.

Chris Van Allsburg earned his authority on this terrain by building timeless worlds in books like Jumanji and The Polar Express, where the impossible feels convincing precisely because it starts at the kitchen table.

Today, pick one routine you’ll definitely do, coffee, commute, dishes, and add a single intentional twist: write a note of humanity, ask a better question, take a different route, leave your phone behind for ten minutes. Let the ordinary hold still long enough for the extraordinary to find you, and may you recognize it when it arrives.