Before you leave 2015 in the dust…
Before you leave 2015 in the dust, consider honoring it with this exercise:
Make a list of everything that was satisfying in the past year.
My wife Ann never makes it to midnight on New Year’s Eve . . . so there I was at 10:20 alone on the couch. Our 12-year-old son Zane was gaming with our second son Sebastian, 20 (in reality, our nephew, but in a broader reality he is indeed our second son :).
As I floundered around for what to do next, something my friend Gil said hit me. In the week prior to 2016 he’d been working on a 2015 Accomplishments list.
Always up for a list, I grabbed pen and pad and scrawled this atop the page:
2015 Satisfactions
. . . And then went to town jotting quick notes on all the satisfying experiences from the past year. Some were real, over-the-top achievements — like how far we’d come financially. And launching the Burn Baby Burn bookito.
Other entries were happy-making additions to our household: Bibi the rescue Vizla. The suddenly affordable new kitchen when Lowe’s dropped its kitchen models to 75% off to clear the way for new models. Two hammocks my Mom (MomJo!) gave us.
Memorable moments with family and friends dotted the list. Art biz team members splashed across the page . . .
By the time I rounded the corner on page one Sebastian peeked out to see what I was doing. He joined me on the opposite couch in no time, writing out his own list of 2015 awesomeness.
Midway through page two Zane slid onto the couch next to Sebastian . . . and there we were, three dudes whirring away silently with our pens to paper, recounting to ourselves all the amazingness we could recall from the previous 12 months.
You could feel the appreciation index in the room rising. I looked up mid-smile at one point . . . to witness half-smiles smeared across their faces too.
I had yet another wonderful moment to record from 2015 — the one I was living.
By Midnight O Two I had scrawled 5 pages worth. My hand was achy, my heart was breaky— in the best kind of way.
Yes, we accidentally missed the advent of the new year, but no one was complaining. Methinks a new tradition was born in our household.
The New Year’s weekend won’t officially draw to a close till you go to bed Sunday night. So you still have time to create your own 2015 Satisfactions list. Hell, you can do this any time this week. There are no constraints.
Try it. You’ll feel like a slowly-inflating bliss balloon.
For you —
Evan Griffith
__________________________
Add a little creative soul to your life. Click here to join the subscriber list for — you know — the occasional thing in your inbox.
Check out this little book:
