Small moment, big lift

Did you know that 20th March is the annual International Day of Happiness? The United Nations declared it in 2012, but I must admit I had no idea. The initiative to declare a day of happiness came from Bhutan, a country whose citizens are considered to be some of the happiest people in the world. It’s only three weeks away so I thought I’d prepare for the day by celebrating some of the very small moments of happiness that can get lost as life whizzes by.

I’m not talking about the big things like, say, the birth of a new grandson (which happened a few weeks ago, by the way), but sometimes you can be having an off day, or a mediocre one, and then something happens - it’s very small, but it gets right inside your senses and lifts your spirits. You close your eyes, sink into the sensation, sigh...and return to the real world. It was a brief but heady moment of joy.

Happiness triggers, I guess we could call these moments. These are some examples from my life in recent days:

1) After unloading the weekly shop and putting it away – something that always feels like such a chore – I opened a new pack of ground coffee. Ahhh, the aroma. Eyes closed, inhaling deeply, I was transported to a euphoric place. It can do it to me every time (and I’m glad I didn’t buy that pod machine after all).

2) Having kept an appointment which involved a long drive, I learned that I’d been told the wrong day. Grumpy, I returned to the car to be met by the sound of kookaburras laughing in the trees. It’s a sound that always makes me feel joyful and I immediately forgot to be annoyed at the waste of time.

3) That moment when squeaky clean skin meets squeaky clean sheets makes me sigh with utter contentment every single time.

4) Taking a short cut home I drove along the sea shore for a short distance, happened to glance out to the ocean and saw yachts racing. It was such a glorious sight I forgot the problem that had filled my head until that moment.

5) I’m sure many people can relate to this one...it was the moment when my new grandson opened his eyes and looked at me for the first time. There seemed to be such a connection in that brief meeting of gazes, and I was immediately hooked.

Do you have certain tiny triggers that can make you happy every single time, even if it is only briefly and no matter how bad things get around you?