CAN you be happy for 100 days straight?
When I asked myself this question, I thought: come on, 100 days – I can do this for 365 days, then someone cuts me off in traffic and my entire day is ruined.
Then I one day spotted a post on my timeline on Facebook by a friend who had started this 100 happy days challenge. I went through his photographs of all the simple things that brought joy in his life and about three weeks later, I decided to take up the challenge.
It was a simple challenge: upload a photograph every day of something that makes you happy via your choice of social platform for 100 days. The web site asks a few questions before signing up and then you are ready to go.
What got to me is that 71 per cent of people who took up the challenge failed citing time as a reason why they could not complete the task. Time to be happy. I laughed too, thinking, are we that busy that we have to schedule laughter and smiles? It seems we are – our days are filled with deadlines looming, deadlines missed and just so much to go through on that never ending to-do list.
We hardly find time to stop and just watch the sun rise in the morning before pushing through traffic to get to work.
I go through my days talking to people from all walks of life and each time I get into my car after an interview I find something to be grateful for. I’m touched by the lives of people I meet: a teen with muscular dystrophy who loves hip hop dance or being given a gift by a six-year-old girl despite her just attending the funeral of her four-year-old sister who was raped and murdered.
I realised I have a lot to be happy about.
Every day we find everything that is wrong in the world and although there is an abundance of that, I believe there’s so much more to smile about despite that – the whole silver lining around clouds concept isn’t too far fetched.
While reading the benefits from people who’ve completed the challenge, I couldn’t help but want that for me and people around me.
So, as I embark on my 100 days of happiness, I hope you will too in your own life find the things that bring you joy. Yes, cupcakes count!
Sign up here https://100happydays.com/ and start sharing happiness.
