The Key to Happiness (I Think)
Life is so beautiful & I'm so grateful.
Recently, I feel almost completely overwhelmed with happiness. Full blown. I am happy at the core of my being, pretty much all the time. I know that life is full of ups and downs, and there’s no two ways around that. However! I believe the best way to sustain core-of-being happiness is to be grateful. And I think during times of happiness - the ups of life - it’s good to think about ways to stockpile some of those good feelings. That way, when the inevitable downs come around, maybe a little of the saved up joy and gratitude can serve as a sustaining force.
For example: treat yourself to an egg sandwich from the bodega even though you’re running late for the bus. Stop anyway because you’ve loved a bodega breakfast since you were a little girl. You end up fifteen minutes late to work, but that doesn’t matter - no one really cares. You sit down at your desk and eat your egg and cheese while you check your morning emails, and its so. damn. good. The key to happiness (I think) is to make that “so damn good” feeling last for the whole day…or longer. Instead of just making you feel good in the moment, it can make your morning, then maybe it makes your day, then maybe even your whole week. I did exactly what I describe above on Monday and I think there’s something to it.
That Monday morning was just the beginning of a project that I embarked upon this week, which I am about to share with you. Basically - just trying to savor the good stuff, both big and small. It’s Friday morning now, and I’m still thinking about that egg sandwich and how happy it made me. A lot of other things have happened to me since that Monday morning that have sparked joy, made me smile, laugh out loud, feel grateful and lucky to be me. I know it’s terribly cheesy, but what’s wrong with that? I’m riding this wave of joy straight to the bank (the happiness bank), and I encourage you to join me. So, here’s a non-exhaustive list, in reverse chronological order, of the really, really good stuff from my week:
☆ Friday Treat™. Need I really say more? Friday Treat™ is always good, and it’s the perfect way to wrap up my week of near-constant joy and gratitude.
☆ I wrote the majority of this post on Thursday night sitting in the lobby of the Marlton Hotel. It’s my favorite place to write, and its on my way home from work, which makes it even more convenient for me than it was before. That makes me grateful that I have to go into the office. Also, perhaps for obvious reasons, this post was simply a lot of fun to write.
☆ I had lunch with my grandmother (Baba). She’s so beautiful! And we had fun. I love the way she operates in a restaurant. She ordered the Cobb salad, which was huge. It was also quite pretty because all of the Cobb ingredients were lined up like a rainbow on top of the lettuce - tomatoes, avocado, ham, blue cheese, etc. She ate half of it, making sure not to disturb the top layer of ingredients on the other half so that our waitress could slide it out of the bowl into a takeout container without ruining the artistic plating.
☆ On Thursday morning, I read my book on the bus AND we got stuck behind a truck for a while, so I got more time to read than normal. It’s amazing how something that could be considered an inconvenience becomes a treat if you have the right mindset. I’m reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, thanks to Dayna. It’s so good.
☆ I did a puzzle! We started at 9:30pm, which isn’t that late, but feels too late to start a puzzle, so it was extra fun. Doing things in a way that feels just slightly irresponsible or indulgent when the stakes are low is always a good idea.
☆ I was cooking dinner, and while setting a timer for the pasta, I accidentally pressed a random button and discovered the light under my microwave (above my stove). I simply couldn’t believe that I had never thought to turn it on, and that made me laugh. Now I get to use it whenever I want, which is huge.
☆ I biked home from work on Wednesday right at dusk, and it was major main character energy. Everyone was looking at me. At least it felt that way. I was wearing a green hat and a green scarf.
☆ My sister is a poet! It brings me great joy to read the things she writes, and this week she sent me the following essay (a prose poem of sorts), which was just selected for a reading in April (!!!!). It aligned so well with how I’m feeling this week that it felt like an extra special gift. It made me feel validated individually AND connected to her in a powerful way. AMAZING. I’m including it in it’s entirety here because it’s so good.
☆ On Wednesday morning, I got a voice note from my friend Charlotte telling me a story about her pilates class and it made me laugh. I love voice notes so much, particularly when they’re long funny stories. Then later that same day I got a voice note from my friend Maggie explaining the Hailey Bieber / Selena Gomez drama (back at it with the parasocial relationship vibes), and it was even better than it would’ve been because I was already thinking about how much I love getting voice notes from my friends. Everyone should send more voice notes - and, while I’m at it!!! Make voicemails great again too!
☆ I watered my plants in the sink, and I love the way they look all together like a mini rainforest in my kitchen.
☆ My mom is moving apartments, and she asked me a couple weeks ago if there was any art I wanted from the old place. There was this one painting of an owl by my great grandmother, and I said I wanted it. On Tuesday, she took it down off the wall and on the back it said “2000 - Merry Christmas to Eve, Love, Grandma Gigi.” Not only is the owl actually already mine (score!), but it also felt like a message from my great grandmother who I loved (still do love) so much.
☆ I saw this girl on the sidewalk taking a video on West 9th Street, and she was dressed like an influencer (you know the look), so I kind of scoffed at her shameless content gathering. But after she walked away, I went and stood in the spot she was standing in and looked at her view. The light was beautiful. The way the light hits the buildings before the sun sets is one of my very favorite things about New York City. This was excellent because it reminded me not to be a grouch, and also because I got to see the light.
☆ On Tuesday afternoon I got up from my desk mid-afternoon. I went downstairs, bought a croissant, crossed the street to the sunny side, and stood there basking like a lizard in the sun, eating said croissant. The sky was so blue. It felt good mentally and physically.
☆ The song “The Way You Love Me” by Faith Hill is an absolute banger that I rediscovered while listening to a random Spotify playlist. I’ve been listening to it on repeat all week, and it SLAPS.
☆ I ate breakfast with Kathryn (the aforementioned poet), and she dropped me off at my bus stop. I held up the bus to take a picture of her because it was sweet. And the bus driver didn’t tell me to hurry, which he totally could have, and I’m grateful for that.
☆ I went to Trader Joes hungry, and I let myself buy all the snacks I wanted even though I didn’t need them. Grocery shopping hungry is always a bit of a risk, but it’s also really fun to buy random things that catch the eye. I love the grocery store in general, and obviously, Trader Joe’s is unmatched for random and unexpected snacks.
☆ I popped into the MoMA store in SoHo to buy a birthday present for a friend (this is an excellent store for unique presents!), and I found a flower pen that matches the set I have on my desk. The set was a Christmas present, and I love that I have a desk now where I can put it (again - perks of having to be in office 5 days a week). The new pen is the blue one - it completed my set, and it looks so good! Little things.
☆ My mom got me an actually alive plant for my desk too, and while I’m not confident in my ability to keep this particular plant alive, I’m sure going to try! Unlike my other plants who can all take a bath all together in the sink, this plant has to be “misted” every day (???). No matter! I love the way it looks, and it’s good to try to keep other things alive. It’s a maidenhair fern.
☆ I stopped the bus for someone who was running down the sidewalk to catch it. Easy to do, high feel-good return.
☆ I saw these two dogs on the subway in the same day!
☆ And finally, last but definitely not least, I decided to write this blog post in the first place. That was Sunday night - after a weekend full of fun and love, I was so full of the stuff that I felt like I could explode. And I wanted that feeling to last as long as humanly possible. Definitely for the whole week at least. So I decided to try to make it last.
And it worked. Each of the things listed above still produces a genuine reaction of joy for me. Transferring them from my notes app into this blog post was like reliving them and feeling their goodness all over again.
I’m not a psycho, of course. Work was overwhelming on Thursday, and the door to my closet isn’t closing properly, and I feel bad about skipping one of my runs this week, and I could barely drag myself out of bed on Tuesday morning I was so tired. Life is still life. But now sitting here, I had to make a concerted effort to think of that short list of annoying, inconvenient things from my week. It’s really only the good stuff that I remember.
So maybe this is the key to prolonged happiness - you deserve it if you’ve made it this far: live every day like you’re going to write a blog post at the end of that week about all the good things that made you smile or laugh or feel human or feel lucky or feel grateful. Notice them when they happen, then hold them in your mind and think of them as a running list. Play that list like a ticker tape across the backs of your eyelids, and you’ll be amazed how long you can make the happiness last. It starts as a spark and then your house is on fire. Or something like that.
By the way, while I’m on my sappy kick - I’m grateful for YOU. Whoever is reading this. This Substack is a huge source of joy for me, and anyone who reads it makes up a not insignificant part of that joy. If you enjoy reading my posts, tell your friends to subscribe too!
Love this blog! You are an amazing writer. Being grateful is the key to happiness for sure!
Dangerous girl starting a puzzle at 9:30pm! This was wonderful and amazing advice!!! I am glad you put it into words so well. You and Kathryn both gave me moments to savor this week - reading Kathryn's incredible poem a few days ago, and reading your thoughtful post this morning. I love you!