I like the subtitle to this because are joy, gratitude and delight not little daily experiments in and of themselves. Experiments of openness and wonder and vulnerability and presence. This is not at all how I planned to start this post, but nevertheless here we are…already in the deeper end of the ocean.
Life feels very uhhhhgggggg lately. Psyching myself up seems almost excruciating. Everything and everyone is annoying. I’m cynical, my days are one big eyeroll. There is nothing going particularly wrong. I just can’t seem to motivate myself for the 90% mundane and hard that seems necessary in order to get to the 10% awesome. I love my family, my support system is the best, I’m employed, I am healthy, I have two sweet pooches, I love my home and my neighbors, I can entertain hobbies and go on vacations and I never wonder where my next meal is coming from and…and…and…still…sometimes I stop and think…what in the actual fuck am I doing with this one precious life? Why am I not happier? I have all the things (and by things of course, I mean not actual tangible items, but rather the pieces, the elements, etc.). Leaving me to further wonder, what is the hallmark of a good life, even more a sweet life?
I’ve said more than once - and firmly believe - your life can be extraordinary, the only requirement is that you think it so. And I often do…and yet…
Sometimes I daydream about being one of those families that sells all of their stuff to travel around the world or live in a bus or something else equally wild that throws the middle finger right at the system (my life is very conventional and often my insides feel very unconventional). But, I know those ways of living just end up being a different kind of hard (who the hell is going to fix that bus every time it breaks down?) eventually landing you right back at the 90/10 scenario. I know the shift is not outside…it’s inside.
I listened to a podcast episode yesterday featuring Ross Gay, who wrote, The Book of Delights. He decided to write a daily essay about delights and put them into a book.
And it made me wonder if I could do something similar - not the book part, just the writing part. Because I need to do something.
Here’s what I know… we get more of what we focus on. And it doesn’t have to be big. (Ask me about how putting one thing I was grateful for in a jar for a year saved my soul.) I need more goodness; I need to recognize it; I need to feel it; I need to see it; I need to serve it up.
Here’s what I also know…I don’t recall ever using the word delight. Although, I must have, right? I don’t have a clue what delight means or what delights me or if that is any different from joy or gratitude or fill in any sort of positive descriptor here. I am a creative commitment phobe - I love to start a creative project, but loathe finishing them or being held at all accountable. I have a very long writing process where I let ideas just float by and grab them when I am able and ruminate for days or weeks or months…whatever feels right.
So, here’s my idea. I come here to this space and write some delightful-joyful-grateful-inspiring-wonderous thing about my day every day. It doesn’t have to be long, it doesn’t have to be profound, it doesn’t have to flow, it doesn’t even have to make sense. It just has to be done. Zero rumination (is that a word?).
How long should I do this? I - really so very badly - want to be the person that says a year, but I - really so very much - do not believe I am that person. 30 days doesn’t seem like a long enough stretch. Maybe 90 days? With an extension clause. What do you think?
I looked up the definition of delight, by the way.
A high degree of gratification or pleasure; extreme satisfaction; to take great pleasure; to give keen enjoyment.
But, seriously…how long should I do this? Any rules or guidelines you would add?
Oh, and I bought the book. The delights book. I’ll let you know how it is.