Gratitude in the everyday: 100 Happy Days
It was just over a year ago that I completed the 100 Happy Days challenge. For those of you who haven’t heard of this experiment, here’s a quick overview: For 100 days in a row you capture an image of one moment in the day that made you feel happy. You then share this photo with friends on your favourite social tool, such as Facebook or Instagram, with the hashtag ♯100HappyDays.
Your happy moment can be anything that moves you: maybe it’s a delicious morning coffee before you rush off for the day; or an unexpected ray of sunshine that pops through the window at work.
Over the course of the experiment you end up collecting 100 images of happy moments from your day-to-day life. According to the creators of this challenge, this helps you to flex those sometimes underutilized gratitude muscles and pay more attention to the little things that make life beautiful every day.
My own experience of 100HappyDays did just that — and came with a few surprises along the way. Here is a round-up of what I learned in completing the challenge:
- It’s all in perspective – We hear this all the time on the subject of mindfulness. As my favourite guru and honourary Board of Inspiration member, Jon Kabat-Zinn, says: ‘As long as you are breathing there is more right with you than wrong with you.’ We all know this is easier said than done. The most powerful effect of completing the 100HappyDays challenge is the combination of actively practicing gratitude and sharing this moment with others. Not only did I start observing more of these moments in my life, the challenge encouraged me to start actively seeking them out, no matter what might be happening that day. Sometimes this meant turning around what would otherwise be a frustration, such as this memorable rainy caught-in-traffic moment: (Side note: I was in Park at the time this was taken! No driving and texting, people!!)
- Life is the sum of its parts – To quote a legendary artist, ‘Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans’. I completed the 100HappyDays challenge during a relatively uneventful time in my life: there weren’t any epic vacations in the works or remarkable work or life achievements. In fact, you could say my 100HappyDays were pretty mundane if measured against typical success factors; as in, wealth, fame, or glory. But looking back at this collection of photos really brings home the truth of Lennon’s observation, particularly for those of us with a tendency to project into the future (super guilty on this one…). While anticipating outcomes is a useful skill as a manager or when planning a Thanksgiving dinner for 15, it doesn’t necessarily help us appreciate the now. When I look back on certain phases of my life, I am struck by how much living was actually happening while I was distracted with mapping out the future.
- Frequency of happy moments – During the 100HappyDays of this experiment there was only one day in which I really couldn’t find a single happy moment to capture (trust me, it was a really bad day!). For all of the other 99 days there was at least one happy moment — and often many more. To a natural cynic, this lesson alone was enough to convince me of the power of gratitude practice.
- Gratitude is contagious – The creators of 100HappyDays claim that by completing this exercise you will strengthen connections with others. This was the part of the experiment that had me most skeptical. Isn’t this just another social media gimmick? Aren’t we all exhausted by these fads? And who really cares what makes ME happy? As it turns out, the practice of expressing gratitude is contagious — and the outcome wasn’t at all about me. The images I posted sparked exchanges with friends, some of whom I hadn’t heard from in a while. It also triggered positive dialogue with others. As I progressed through the exercise, it dawned on me that this was an act of celebrating life. My shared moments of joy were sparking a virtuous circle of positivity. And the world needs a lot more of that these days.
