The Little Things

An essay about appreciating the smaller details of life.

The little details may sometimes go unnoticed, but life is so much more beautiful if we allow ourselves to look for the beauty in the small things that occur everyday.

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A few years ago, I was given a book when onboarding at a company called “The Five Minute Journal”. For those not familiar, it is a gratitude journal which prompts each day for things you are grateful for and appreciative of. I gave it a try with the best of intentions, but ultimately gave up after struggling with the repetition of being grateful for the same things each day.

“I am grateful for my wife”,

“I am grateful for my career”,

“I am grateful for my house”,

The entries looked very much like that each and every day and I didn’t really see the point of it. “I know I am grateful for these things” I thought to myself, before closing the book for the last time.

More recently, I found myself digging the journal out from the back of the drawer where it had spent the last couple of years, and giving it another go.

For context, this year so far has been particularly challenging for many personal reasons. I have battled feelings of inadequacy like I have never faced in my career before, and part of that is that I have become so reliant on big picture thinking. I journal over where I want to be in five years time, and my own concept of what “success” looks like for me, rather than taking the time to appreciate the wins as well as the little things that are happening on a day to day.

I also compare myself to others, I have spoken about this before, and these comparisons are not helped in the slightest by social media.

There is a very fine line between being inspired and feeling inadequate, and that is a balance I have and continue to struggle with on a daily basis.

I follow and look up to social media as being inspirational people doing great things, but the nagging doubt of “but you aren’t there yet” is never far away.

My wife has been an unfortunate spectator of this battle, and bought me a copy of Joseph Nguyen’s “Don’t Believe Everything you Think” which has quickly become one of the most impactful books I have ever read. It shone a harsh spotlight on the collection of emotional and mental bad habits that I have been accumulating over the years. Especially my tendency to be thinking and striving for the things I don’t have and have yet to achieve and being hard on myself as a result, rather than appreciating the things I do and being kind to myself for the life I have created.

Completely away from social media (it’s been off my phone entirely for the past few weeks and it has been bliss) and with a new mentality The Five Minute Journal has been a much more effective tool for me than it once was.

I have started appreciating the smaller things that would otherwise go unnoticed, like sitting with a coffee in the morning looking out at the garden, or my wife wearing a summer dress for the first time in the year, or my dog greeting me at the door with her favourite toy in my mouth without fail when I get home.

My morning routine has become less about optimisation, and more about appreciation and creation. This is the first article I have written in my journal just with pen and paper, as an example. I savour the thirty minutes of complete calm with just my thoughts and a pen. Just sharing my thoughts with the world is something to cherish, whereas previously I would have been concerned only with metrics and the long term vision of my writing.

It’s not the case that I have never appreciated these things before in my life, because I have, but more the fact that we can easily become blindsided by the big things in life and lose connection with them.

Giving ourselves the space to appreciate the little things and being more intentional about thinking about these small occurrences means that life can be oh so much more beautiful. Look at all these precious moments I have and look at what I have achieved so far, rather than thinking about what I have yet to achieve.

Ultimately, it’s a question of balance and I believe that looks different for different people. Strive for the big picture, but not at the cost of forgetting the present. That balance is an ongoing journey for me, but it is one that I now realise I need to go on and am looking forward to pursuing.