In Praise of Small Joys

Researchers who study this call it a micro-moment of positivity resonance, a brief instant of shared good feeling between two beings that measurably lifts wellbeing on its own. A boy bends down, scoops up a duckling and kisses the top of its head like it's the most natural thing in the world.

Nobody taught him that joy needs a reason. He just felt it and acted on it, the way small joy always used to work before we complicated it.

When did you last smile at something that asked nothing of you in return.

We've decided small things don't count. A stranger holding a door.

Someone covering your parking without being asked. A quiet afternoon with nothing scheduled in it.

We file these under nice, then move past them looking for something bigger to be grateful for, as if joy has to be earned in large amounts to matter.

But joy was never meant to be rare. It's the most reliable thing available to us, the door held, the meal shared, the hour spent with someone older who just wanted company.

We've just stopped noticing, the same way you stop hearing a clock ticking in a room you sit in every day.

This too shall pass, the hard days and the easy ones both. Maybe that's exactly why the small joys deserve more attention, not less.

They're the only proof, most days, that being alive is still worth doing.

I catch myself rushing past them more than I'd like to admit, already halfway to the next thing before the good part has finished happening. It takes almost nothing to stop.

A breath, a beat, an actual look at what just made the day slightly better.

Go back and find the one thing today you filed under nice. Sit with it properly for ten seconds before you let it go.