Think of the Happiest Things

If you were to ask me to list my happiest things, after family and friends, of course, my first reaction would be to list the “big” things in life. Travel, whether it’s to a beach two hours from my house, or to a beach that’s a five hour plane ride away, makes me happy. Excursions with the kids, whether it’s to a new part of our city, or to a new city all together makes me happy. And celebrations with family and friends make me happy too. And under the gloom of COVID, thinking about these things seems like a torturous double-edged sword; not only can we not do any of them, we aren’t even sure when we can hope to do them again.

It’s easy then, to fall into the trap of focusing on the doom and gloom. And not at looking at the millions of tiny little happy things that happen every day.

While revelling in, or at least stopping to notice, the small bits of joy in a day aren’t going to do much about the absence of the big happy things we have taken for granted in the past, it does help lift some of the feelings of doom and gloom. And if nothing else, it helps to make the day pass in a slightly more pleasant manner.