AUGUST 4 — My wife drives me to work, ever since she became a full-time housewife in 2013.
We only have one car, and this arrangement has quietly become part of our routine since then.
Some mornings she drops me off at KK2. On other days, it is UM Press, depending on where the first meeting of the day happens to be.
Living in the UM quarters in Section 16 means the journey is rarely longer than 10 minutes. We enter campus through the gate near the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, exchange a few final words followed by a light kiss on the cheeks before I step out of the car, and then each of us continues with the day ahead.
It is such an ordinary routine that I rarely think about it. Yet one morning, somewhere between that familiar gate and another familiar meeting, it occurred to me that perhaps our lives are built far less by the moments we celebrate than by the moments we quietly repeat.
When we look back on our lives, we naturally remember the milestones. Graduations. Weddings. Promotions. The birth of a child. These are the dates that find their way into family albums and social media memories. They feel like the moments that define us. But you see, milestones are surprisingly brief.
A graduation ceremony lasts a few hours. A wedding occupies a single day. A promotion is announced in one email. They may open the door to a new chapter, but they do not write the chapter itself.
That work happens afterwards. A marriage is not built on the wedding day. It is built through thousands of ordinary mornings, shared meals, difficult conversations, quiet compromises and small acts of kindness that never appear in photographs.
One day, without quite knowing when it happened, those countless ordinary days become 24 years together.
The same is true of almost everything else that matters. Nobody becomes a teacher because they receive an appointment letter from a university.
They become a teacher after explaining the same concept again to a student who is still struggling, after preparing lectures long after everyone else has gone home, and after discovering that seeing someone finally understand something can still be deeply satisfying, even after many years.
Friendships are built much the same way. They rarely depend on one memorable conversation, no matter how good it went.
More often, they grow because someone consistently put in the effort: checking in, noticing the little things that were said, remembering a birthday, asking whether you reached home safely, or simply making time when one needs the other.
It is tempting to think that these moments are too ordinary to matter. Yet perhaps they matter precisely because they are ordinary.
And we often ask ourselves what we want to become: a better parent? A kinder person? A respected professional? A healthier version of ourselves? They are all worthwhile aspirations.
But I sometimes wonder whether there is another question that deserves equal attention: What am I repeatedly doing today?
Because eventually, those two questions begin to answer each other. Our identities are not assembled all at once. They settle gradually, like layers of sediment carried by a slow-moving river.
One day of honesty does not make us trustworthy. One morning of exercise does not make us healthy. One afternoon of patience does not make us gentle.
It is the quiet repetition that does the work.
Looking back, I realise that many of the roles people associate with me today were never achieved in a single defining moment. Becoming an academic, writing books, editing the work of others, leading different parts of the university, mentoring students and researchers.
None of these happened overnight. They emerged from countless ordinary days that, at the time, felt rather unremarkable.
Most of them looked very much like tomorrow. And there is something strangely comforting about that.
It reminds me that meaningful lives are not usually constructed through dramatic reinventions. More often, they are shaped by simple routines that we honour long enough for them to become part of us.
A 10-minute drive to campus. Another lecture. Another manuscript to edit. Another meeting. Another conversation with a colleague. Another evening returning home to the people who quietly make all the other parts of life possible.
None of these moments will probably stand out when they happen. But perhaps that is the point.
One day, we may look back and realise that the person we became was never created by one extraordinary decision. It was patiently formed by the ordinary things we chose to do again, and again, and again.
Tomorrow morning, my wife will probably drive me through the same gate once more. The journey will take about 10 minutes, just as it did today. At first glance, nothing will seem different.
Yet another small page will have been added to the story of the life I am quietly becoming.
* Nahrizul Adib Kadri is a professor of biomedical engineering at the Faculty of Engineering, the Director of UM Press, and the Principal of Tuanku Bahiyah Residential College (KK2), Universiti Malaya. He may be reached at [email protected]
** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
