Recently, I realized that my best days often contain a feature that I call “spread the wonderful”. This involves having at least one nice thing in the morning, afternoon, and evening. Like most other simple things, spreading the wonderful does a lot with just a little.
To start, spreading the wonderful is a much better approach than having all the niceness in just one part of the day. If each part of the day has something nice in it, it makes everything much smoother and more enjoyable. It feels similar to being in a theme park and going from one fun ride, show, or other kind of activity to another. Should something unpleasant happen, having niceness surrounding the unpleasantness makes it much easier to handle. However, when the whole day has wonderful stuff throughout, it becomes less likely that something bad will happen, that a bad happening will worsen my mood, or both. Everything’s easier to handle when I’m in a good mood, and plenty of nice things make it easy for me to get into, and stay in, a good mood.
Spreading the wonderful was much easier when my dog Sawyer was still here. Although it was often hard to leave him in the morning for work, school, or whatever else I had in store for that day, I still enjoyed visiting with him before I left the house. Hanging out with him when I got back always made going home a huge treat, even if I’d had a bad day. Since he died, it’s easier to leave the house as I won’t be missing out on quality time with him while I’m away. It’s also harder to go back home knowing he won’t be there to greet me, make me feel welcomed, and love on me just because. As such, I’ve made spreading the wonderful an even higher priority so I can handle life without him. That makes the decent days better and the hard days bearable. I hope I keep improving at this and get to where I can do it effectively no matter what life throws at me.