I saw an old bus yesterday and it made me smile. I’m not into buses and I’m not about to start sitting in lay-bys on a camping chair waiting for them to go by, not that there is anything wrong with that, live and let live and all that.
But there was something about this rickety old bus trundling n along holding the traffic up that snapped me out of my thought process and made me smile… It was my first day back after a lovely holiday so I was running around like a blue arsed fly. So, when this big green double decker bumbled over the bridge in front of me it was a welcomed site which snapped me out of whatever nonsense was rattling around in my head.
I struggle sometimes to enjoy the small things in life, I’m always so focused on the end goal, the completion of a project, the arrival of something cool that I forget to or don’t allow myself to enjoy the small things along the way.
I guess this is a common thing, society has trained us feel like joy has to be something massive, like a holiday, a new car or a pay rise, but if that’s the case you’re only going to allow yourself to be happy a few times a year, and I guess the only way to snap out of that is to go and buy something new for yourself…. Welcome to this consumer society we live in!
Chill out TM let’s not get into conspiracy theories, let’s go back a step…
Like I said, if we’re hanging on for those big things to make us happy, we’re only going to be happy a handful of times, and that’s really daft when you think about it, because life is full of little moments that can lift you up if you let them.
A kid belly laughing at something ridiculous.
That first pint on a Friday after work.
A dog hanging out of a car window with it’s tongue flapping wildly in the wind.
The first warm evening of the year.
And…. An old double decker bus!
Tiny little moments or things, nothing life changing. But maybe life doesn’t constantly need to change to be good? Maybe happiness is more about noticing than achieving? (Sorry to be tacky…)
The bus didn’t really fix anything, but for a brief moment it pulled me out of my own head and made me smile. Maybe that’s all we need, maybe life gets better when you stop waiting for massive moments of happiness and start collecting the little ones along the way, because enough small bright moments strung together can make the whole world feel lighter.
So, from now on I’m going to try and pay more attention to the small things, smile at them and celebrate them, because when you think about it everything big is built from tiny things.
Whole lives are really just millions of little moments stacked together. A silly joke, the sun through the trees or the sea breeze on your face… On their own they don’t seem that big, but neither do atoms, and they build entire worlds!
Go smile at the little things.
Take it easy!
TM
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