Inspiration behind Fig & Olive

You are sitting on your hotel balcony, enjoying yet another cup of iced coffee while staring out at the beautiful blue sea in front of you. When suddenly you realize... It's already the second last day of your long-awaited annual holiday. Before you know it, the holiday excitement is overshadowed by a sinking feeling.

Thoughts start swirling around in your mind and you can’t help but wonder - "what will be waiting for me when I return back to normal life? "

We’re all familiar with this love-hate relationship with holidays. Why do they always start with the excitement of switching on our “Out of Office” notice, BUT end with an insurmountable dread of tasks scheduled for our return?

Actually, the real question is: why do we only schedule 10 days of joy every year, yet live the other 355 days in dread, looking forward to this 10-day vacation?

We humans have this habit of focusing only on the big things and measuring our lives in milestones.

Yay, I got into my dream school!

Congratulations on your new job!

Wow, we really need to celebrate your promotion!

Hooray, we’re having a baby!

What about the other millions of small moments in between that truly make life meaningful?

LIFE IS MADE UP OF MILLIONS OF SMALL MOMENTS,

NOT JUST MILESTONES

In fact, life’s simplest pleasures are found in the rhythm of our everyday lives.

Yet, modern life often puts us in a trance. We go through the motions without thought or intention. We take an awful lot for granted.

While being busy and productive is a good thing, when it becomes a subconscious obsession, you start becoming detached from real life. Your mind is constantly thinking and planning ahead, calculating whether what you are doing now is a waste of time. You can never be present and find peace in life’s fleeting moments.

Sometimes, you need to be intentional in planning and scheduling joy back into your lives.

Serious question: when was the last time you actually THOUGHT about what brings you joy?

GRATITUDE FOR EVEN THE MOST MUNDANE TASKS

This is something I learned when I took a sudden break from my hectic job. I realized that... I forgot how to appreciate life. Every activity felt like a “dreadful waste of time” unless it was measurably productive or clearly enjoyable.

To re-learn finding peace and enjoyment in life’s ordinary moments, I listened to hours of podcasts and read dozens of books on personal growth. Finally, one day, I decided to sit down and make a list of things that brought me joy and gratitude. (I know, this sounds really cheesy, but I was desperate at that point.)

While this may sound obvious to you, it was the mundane activities, when done with intentionality, that made me grateful for all of life’s small moments. Putting on my favorite white shirt in the morning, drinking warm coffee from a double-walled glass mug, feeling fresh and clean after a hair wash. These were the touches that made ordinary moments extraordinary.

I have come to find that by consciously cultivating a rhythm of small moments of beauty and peace throughout my day, starting in the home, I am more likely to create a fruitful, and more importantly, joyful day.

FIG & OLIVE: ABUNDANCE IN SIMPLICITY

This became the inspiration for Fig & Olive: to help us re-learn our appreciation for everyday life.

Fig & Olive was started to bring back intentionality into busy modern lives in a tangible way through our products.

Our mission is to turn everyday tasks into luxurious, joyful experiences. We want to help you create, notice, and surround yourself with small moments of joy and gratitude through products that make even the most mundane tasks (like doing laundry) enjoyable.

Fig is often a symbol of abundance, and olive, a symbol of peace. Our prayer is that just like fig and olive trees, you, too, will be inspired daily to flourish and live abundantly.

“Life is made up of moments, small pieces of glittering mica in a long stretch of gray cement. It would be wonderful if they came to us unsummoned, but particularly in lives as busy as the ones most of us lead now, that won’t happen. We have to teach ourselves how to make room for them, to love them, and to live, really live.”

― Anna Quindlen, A Short Guide to a Happy Life