It’s been rough. This morning I wasn’t able to get out of bed until I remembered there was an unfinished KitKat bar on my desk. Yesterday I wasn’t able to go to bed until I remembered how nice the freshly cleaned sheets would feel. I know that seems stupid and small, but that’s the point. Lately the small and somewhat stupid things have been what’s keeping me happy.

I was talking with a friend the other day about this and she felt the same way. Sometimes, she said, the most comfort she had was looking outside and being reminded that at the very least, the sun was still there. We went on to list all the little things that before went unnoticed, simply taken for granted. Now that all of the big things in life are gone (school, human contact, etc.) there is finally room in our sights to notice the small ones. I wanted to share these with you so maybe you can start to notice them too and begin to make the most of this time.

That brings me to my first thing: looking on the bright side. No matter how bad or how hard things get, they could always be worse. That is something to appreciate in itself but aside from that, try to find something about your current situation that lets in a sliver of light. No matter how small that ray is, it’s still something to appreciate. For instance, my silver lining to school’s cancelation was that I finally could sleep in. 

My second thing is nature. I wouldn’t say this is “small” but in our suburban town, it sort of is. Unless you want to drive out to Wimberly, there’s not much of it you’ll see here apart from the local golf course. But still, there are little things from nature like the birds chirping and the sun shining that really makes a difference. Yesterday I went sunbathing and although I look like a candy cane now (I’m not a great sunscreen applicator apparently) the sunshine made a huge difference in my mood. 

And finally, I’d like to appreciate family. Yes, I know this isn’t a “small thing” either but amidst everything else that’s big in our lives they can easily get lost. As of late though there’s pretty much nothing to distract from them. While this was initially seen as a bad thing (sorry Mom), I realized that I could make the most of it and make up for lost time with my little sister. 

All the time we’ve squandered before can be rectified now. You can either get caught up complaining or you can change your outlook. Adjust your optics and see all the small things that make life great.