I am trying to get my shit together. Habit RPG was helping with that, and is still, but around my birthday various bummers started crawling back the same way I always see things wiggling just at the edge of my vision. I’ve joked before that I wish I had the same kind of depression I did in my early twenties, the kind that came with a single-minded focus and drove me to constantly make things. There’s a lot of stuff here that I’m not saying, that is boring, but the main thrust is that I decided to try the 100 Happy Days Challenge.
I love challenges. I used to do those monthly focuses, and August art month, and a weekly webcomic. So documenting one happy thing each day seemed like a great way to bully myself into finding the disco glitter lining. The challenge gives you some options for where and how you’re following it, I chose Instagram, which I’ve got IFTTT-hooked to Flicker, where I then sort them into an album (née set, a name change I am still getting used to).
Halfway through the challenge (or more, this is day 61 I’m on now), here are things I’ve learned:
- Sometimes the happy point of a day is ephemeral and not easily captured via camera phone, so you either take a picture of something and explain the moment in the caption or you look for another happy moment.
- Sometimes the happy thing is the stupidest thing possible.
- Sometimes the happy thing is how great you look.
- It can be easy to fall back on tasty food as your happy thing (for me, at least).
- You start looking for the high point of your day. “What is going to be the thing that is the best point of this day?”
- Looking for the happy thing isn’t that bad. Because you’re looking for something that makes you happy.
- Sometimes you have to actively do something to make yourself happy. This is surprisingly hard.
- Finding things that make you happy doesn’t make you a happy person, but that is okay.
That said, here are the first fifty days of this.
It’s a fun hashtag to browse, by the way. It’s a peek into all these little stupid moments that make other people happy.