The Beautiful Little Things in Life

                Six Years ago, one lazy afternoon when I was in college, my friend Shahul, out of nowhere, fancied this idea of ‘gallery day’. “Dude we should totally do ‘gallery day’”, he said, his face beaming with pride of his little invention. “What the heck is ‘gallery day’?” I asked him. “We spend the entire day, in the gallery”, he replied. “Okay… doing what?”. “Nothing.”, he said flat. As pointless as an idea that was, the six of us bunked class the next day and spent the entire day in the sports gallery of our college, which looks over the sprawling football field. We watched the football games that took place, chatting with each other, sipping cans of coke and laughing all along. I remember every detail of that day vividly. That is surprising to me, considering I don’t remember the big days of college life, such as graduation or my project presentations as much. It is always the little things that stay in your memories.

                Now imagine your childhood. The most carefree times of our lives. Not only were we carefree, but we were the happiest.Back then, we spent most of our days laughing, smiling, enjoying life and just being happy. This happiness is derived from children’s ability to see entertainment and fun in every little thing in life. Riding a bicycle around the neighborhood, chasing butterflies or even simply holding a gas balloon on one’s hand brought immense joy. They see beauty in everything. I am sure that all of us here know at least one kid who loved playing with a carton box. Because for the kid, it is not just a carton box, it is his house. For the kid, the floor is filled with volcano lava and he has to jump from furniture to furniture to save himself. Imagination, intuition and an innate ability to find happiness in the smallest of things makes childhood beautiful.

                Fast-forward from childhood to now, we are no longer what we used to be. We are never really in the moment and our minds are distracted with what has happened before or what is to be done in the future. We forget to smile. We no longer run just because it is fun.  We cease to look at little things in life with the fascination that we used to. We declare we are too busy. Being busy, nowadays, is worn as a badge of honor. But are we really that busy? Studies show the exact opposite. Research by Havas worldwide, which surveyed more than 10,000 adults across 28 countries, has found that more than 65% of respondents admitted to pretending to be busy than they actually are. When asked why, they revealed that they equated a life of busyness as a life of significance. This is the root cause of why we do not have time for the little things. We work with this preconceived notion that being busy is something to be proud of. And it is absolutely wrong, at so many levels. We fail to understand that life passes most people by while they are making grand plans for it.

So how do we break out of this and appreciate the little things in life better. Three small steps will help you in this direction.

1. Believe that life is made up of little things - We tend to think of life as the passage of days, weeks, years and decades. But, in essence, life is made up of moments.
2. Create these moments - A little thing may be a fun evening with friends. It may be the joy of learning something new. It may be listening to the giggles of your kids. It may be the warm feeling you get when you’ve done a simple kindness for a friend or a stranger. It may be noticing nature bloom and blossom.
3. Acknowledge the little moments - Each day, pay attention to at least one or two moments that worked out well for you. Don’t shrug your shoulders and conclude that “it was just a crappy day. Nothing worked out for me.” Even a bad experience has a valuable moment wrapped up inside of it, if only you‘re willing to dig deeper to discover it. Pay attention to what you have done. Express Gratitude Before You go to Sleep Each Night. Then you will fully understand how blessed you truly are!

Nino, the Georgian poet, once said “Sometimes, little things make a big difference”. I have to say that perhaps it is more than that. Perhaps it is always.

AUTHOR NAME - Mohammed Thanish [Member of Play2Discover NGO]
AUTHOR MAIL - mohammedthanish@gmail.com