Today I observed the most coordinated and efficient flower planting ever. The crew descended on the little island across the street and in less than 10 minutes had mowed, tilled up the ground where they intended to plant, and deposited the peachy-pink flowers at their assigned spots.
Then two men covered in dirt grabbed their spades and made quick work of digging holes for those new flowers to sit and patting them into place. They were halfway done before I fully realized what was going on.
I was busy working in my office when I looked up and saw this incredible sight. My work was certainly not progressing at the same rapid-fire rate, nor with the immediate, visually-pleasing final result.
Some days, I do manage to cross off all the items on my Post-It note list and with a contented sigh push away from my desk. More often, though, I see that I’ve run out of time before my next meeting. It’s easy to become dissatisfied with my day or feel like I wasn’t productive enough.
Watching the gardeners slot the flowers into perfectly spaced rows in a matter of minutes reminds me that while that sight was as satisfying as those soap-cutting ASMR videos, it’s astoundingly rare that our lives will line up so nicely with our expectations or hopes. Where else can we find satisfaction, then?
Many people talk about the importance of a “gratitude practice.” I usually rebel against anything that someone thinks I ought to do or draw a blank when it feels forced. I had tried many times over the years to do some kind of consistent gratitude journaling but inevitably found that if my depression worsened, it became difficult to think of things to put down or the task would seem too daunting (depression is hard work).
I have been using a planner pretty consistently for a year now to keep track of personal and work goals and lists. In the last month or so, I started writing down an observation or gratitude that I experienced that day in the monthly calendar page. When I open up the planner to the monthly view, I’m greeted with each day’s box with a memory, one whole month’s worth all at once.
What I changed about this from the usual advice is that I don’t require each entry to be a gratitude statement. Sometimes those can be hard to see or come up with. I’ve expanded the list to include: something I can see, something I can hear, something I remember from another time, or, when I’m really stumped, what the weather is like.
Seeing each day filled with some kind of record provides the satisfaction of a completed page at the end of the month, but also allows for life to be messy. I didn’t mark off all or even most of my to-do lists, but I did take a moment to acknowledge the beauty in my life or how I’m grounded in the present moment. Doing it consistently creates order and reviewing those notes reinforces the joy of the original experience of them.
Wherever you can, take down the barriers to doing little things like this to find beauty in your day-to-day. Even on difficult days, you’ll see patterns of interest and learn about what you were able to see, even in the midst of pain.