There are events happening all day in all of our lives. The majority of those moments will be completely forgotten and lost to our memories. The moments we highlight and the patterns we recognize become the story of our day. Depending on our mood, the weather, and a million other small things we can choose to label our day as good one or bad. The day can be either, or some variation in between, depending on our perspective. If we look for the good things and the joy in our days we are more likely to highlight those patterns and consider the day a good one. What we look for is what we will find which is why I want to look for patterns of joy.

Therefore, in order to help us all practice looking for the good in our days I have an idea. This is something new – I haven’t even tried this yet but I’m excited to test it out. Every day this week I am going to  take a picture of the best part of my day. I am going to do that for two reasons. First, because it immediately has my mind on the look out for good things. Secondly, it keeps me wondering, engaged, and present. I am not looking for the day to fall apart. I am looking for more and more goodness and opportunities to create more joy in my daily life. 

The act of looking for joy primes the pump and has me already shifting my focus towards looking for the good. This practice may even turn into a running collection or album of these photos. It may result in a variety of joyful images – laughing with friends, a beautiful scene out the window, the dog cuddled on my lap. Not every day is a vacation photo image but there are beautiful moments that make up our lives. A quick photo reminds us to look for joy first. And on days when we’re feeling down or disheartened it’s a lot easier to scroll through happy photos than it is to try to remember all the good things off the cuff.

The simple act of focusing on and amplifying the joy in our lives helps us appreciate what we have already. To our brains, life is made up of patterns. But we get to choose what patterns to seek. Let’s look for patterns of joy, laughter, friendship, fun, and see how our perspectives and our lives shift.