I’m sitting at a trailhead on a Sunday morning before daybreak, waiting for the sun and sipping an iced coffee. It’s a chilly morning but not freezing, and I am warmly dressed, suitable for the weather. There’s a steady misty drizzle falling, but not the sort of rain to keep me off the trail this morning. I feel satisfied, calm, and content. Perhaps even happy.

I sit with this feeling, sipping my coffee and listening to the traffic as the occasional car goes by. At least for now, there’s nothing more important to do than to savor this moment.

Yesterday began well, and was quite a lovely day throughout. I hung out with my Traveling Partner. We watched movies and shared the day gently. I didn’t really get much done and ended up completely forgetting about the laundry I had started. The thing is, though, the laundry is less important than the time we spend together, and I definitely needed the restful day. Win, all around, really, especially if I don’t punish myself for “slacking off”, which I have not.

…Maybe I’ve grown? 😁

I sit, relaxed and ready, contemplating the value in savoring the small pleasures in life, and the gentle moments of joy. It’s made a huge difference for me, this one simple practice.

“Additive” changes tend to be easier to make (for me). Learning to make a specific point of also “wallowing” in the good moments – even ridiculously small pleasant moments of no consequence – has done so much more, so much faster, to improve my sense of the quality and character of my very human life. It’s been one of the most profound (and positive) changes I have made to the way I face life. It’s hard to overstate how useful this has been.

It’s easy to the point of being default behavior to wallow in a moment of pain, misery, or aggravation, which tends to blow it out of proportion in my implicit memory of my experience, generally. Doing so, over time, creates a fairly profound sense that “life sucks” more commonly and deeply than it truly does. For years I struggled to “not do that” without understanding that a “subtractive” change of behavior like that can be incredibly difficult to make.

If you’re just generally feeling miserable and as if that is always the way of it, I definitely recommend savoring the smallest of pleasant moments as a regular practice; it can do a lot to open your eyes to how common those are. 😁 Over time, doing so has so much potential to thoroughly change how life feels, generally.

Daybreak has come and the trail is clear in the dim blue-gray early morning light. I smile and finish my iced coffee. It’s time to begin again.