Observations

On this week’s episode of A Little Happier, Gretchen told the story of a young girl who desperately wanted a dollhouse full of beautiful furniture and accessories. As a gift, her doting grandparents went out and bought them the best dollhouse available, full of all kinds of adorable trinkets, exactly what she’d wanted. She loved it and happily played with it a few times, but then never played with it again. The joy was gone. Gretchen quotes Bertrand Russell in saying, “To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.”

I found this anecdote fascinating, but came at it from a slightly different angle. I didn’t think the message was that we need to be without the things we want in order to find happiness. Rather, to me the story was saying that we want the experience of wanting the things we want.

We want the research, the longing, the planning, the saving, the anticipation, the treasure-hunting, the chase. In giving this little girl such a generous gift, they were robbing her of hours, weeks, years of daydreaming and scheming and stretching her creativity to use the resources she already had to create the outcome she wanted.

This instantly hit home, especially because (as I mentioned in this post), last weekend I became obsessed with a few interior design YouTube channels. Naturally, after watching all those videos I suddenly wanted to buy ALL THE THINGS. Blankets, baskets, and home goods galore. I wanted to run out to Home Sense or Dollarama or The Bay and grab some easy, cute options to “check off my list” and improve my home.

But then I’d be buying myself a dollhouse, wouldn’t I? I’d be robbing myself of the treasure hunt. When I look around my home, it’s the treasures I found at a thrift store, or while antiquing with my friends, or that I painstakingly saved up for, that I love and cherish the most. I don’t feel the same way about the easy options that I grabbed from Ikea because I needed a set of placemats.

I’m not saying that big box stores like those don’t ever serve a purpose (because they absolutely do!!), I just know that if I went out and furnished my (doll)house in the fastest way possible, I would be stealing some of my own joy. Instead, I’d rather live without certain things completely until I have a chance to hunt them down or save up for them properly.

On that note, yesterday I took myself on a trip to Value Village, one of my favourite things to do. I came home with a beautiful vintage wire basket, a lovely woven plant pot, an retro radio that still works, and a ceramic vase to hold my pens & pencils. It took a while to dig all these treasures up, but I could never have found things with this much patina at a place like H&M Home. This is a note to self, for the next time I just want to run out and grab something as easily and quickly as I possibly can: Embrace the chase. Accept the challenge. Anticipation is half the fun. 

If you’re paying close attention, you might notice that I am writing this post in the evening instead of the morning. That’s because this morning I had to be up earlier than usual to run my email workshop (yay!) for a team of wedding photographers. It was a lot of fun, but it meant that I had to cut my morning routine slightly short, in order to make sure that I could both meditate and feed myself (the most important parts of my routine) before getting out the door on time.

But I’m here now, prioritizing this, because I know that it will make it more likely that I show up again tomorrow and stick to my habits. I call this practice a “bookmark habit”, because I envision it as “saving my place” in the book of life. Sarah Von Bargen, from whom I first learned this concept, calls these “a ‘lite’ version of your habit that you do when you’re on vacation, busy, or sick, so that you don’t lose the habit of your habit.” (You can see more about her habit philosophies here, and listen to me interview her here.)

Her thinking is that doing your habit today makes it far more likely you’ll do it tomorrow, that you won’t forget or give yourself an “out” or find a loophole. Similarly, James Clear tells us to think about practicing our habits as “casting a vote for the type of person you wish to become”. Which means that showing up to vote is pretty much the most important part of the process. Austin Kleon reminds us that our only job as artists (and humans!) is to not break the chain.

They’re all saying the same thing, which is this: Show up. Cast your vote. Do it anyways. Even if it’s small, even if it’s just keeping your place, even (especially!) if you’re tired, even if it’s not your best work. Doing it today will make it more likely you’ll do it tomorrow, which means you’ll be even closer to the goals and dreams you have for yourself. So hi! I’m here. I’m writing. I might be going to watch Stranger Things 3 now, but at least I know I’ve cast my vote for the day.

As a person who struggles with wanting to be productive and efficient as much as possible (definitely a form of perfectionism!), it’s important for me to have reframes and ideas that help me stay grounded and present and feeling good about myself, even when I’m not “getting things done”.

One of these reframes, which came to me this morning is, “Even your distractions are productive.” As an example, over the last couple of days I’ve been on a YouTube spree, watching almost all of these home design videos, getting caught up on the videos in this incredible website branding series, and exploring this new-to-me channel for entrepreneurs & coaches.

On today’s episode of the podcast, I’m talking about noticing what your behaviour is trying to tell you, what message it might be trying to send you from outside of your conscious awareness. And in the case of these “distractions”, maybe my behaviour (watching a lot of videos) was trying to tell me a few different things. Clearly, I needed a break from super-heavy brain processing work, a hit of some professional development, and a big dose of inspiration. 

Instead of thinking about these behaviours as distractions that belie my lack of self-control or willpower, I can instead choose to see them as important factors in my wellbeing & success. Taking a break, learning new things, and being inspired are all very productive things for me to do! So I don’t need to beat myself up or feel badly about the choice to watch something that’s interesting to me.

I was trying to think of examples where this might not be true, but short of obsessively playing Candy Crush for hours, I’m not coming up with many. Daydreaming is productive. Cleaning your house because you don’t want to write is productive. Going out for coffee with a friend is productive.

I know that being productive is NOT the goal of life,  but if this reframe will help me move towards more compassion for myself and less stringency about how I spend my days, I’ll take it.

Over the weekend, I somehow stumbled upon this YouTube channel and have since watched almost every single one of her videos. In her major series, “My Rental Reno”, she’s making over her entire apartment in a renter-friendly (ie. mostly reversible) way – and she lives here in Toronto!

I loved watching her put the spaces together with things that seemed so simple – a plant here, a decorative basket there. Her major message was to find beautiful versions of the objects you use every day (like a dish towel or bath mat) and add cute touches to areas we forget, like door knobs and entryways.

The results were always simple but beautiful, and it left me wanting to update and tweak and find lovely things for my own apartment. I changed a few small things right away and immediately felt a fresh burst of energy and affection for my apartment, despite its limitations. Strangely, it also made me feel much more appreciative of the wonderful one-of-a-kind pieces I’ve already thrifted over the years, which suddenly jumped out at me.

I was reminded that so often in life we think we need a big change – a new city, a new job, a new apartment – in order to be happy. We discount little changes that can make a huge difference in our happiness.

Because it’s also true that after an initial period of setting things up in our lives, we tend to stop actively working on it, leaving tons of room for improvement on the table. I remember once hearing a story about a woman who was moving apartments, but realized that she should have cleaned up and spruced up her place years ago because suddenly it had a new life and she wanted to stay in it.

Even though I still have dreams of one day living in an apartment with gorgeous outdoor space, I am inspired to bring more life and love to the place I already have. I know that there is more I could be doing to make it feel cozy and homey and intentional, and I’m excited to do a rental ‘reno’ of my own.