Celebrating one thing for 2015

There are many things to celebrate in this new year . . . 

— the revving economy

— my improving good looks (yes, perceptible only to me)

— no more holiday shows

. . . but today we’re here to celebrate one thing.

A popular recent addition to The World Is Freaky Beautiful has been the weekly post titled One Thing Better. Each week someone answers this question:

What one thing have you been doing recently that’s making your life better?

The answers have already been varied. Ranging from improved sleep patterns improving creative output to an epiphany of ‘I quit!’ to two wonderful meditations on . . . meditation. (Mollie Player and Corina Pelloni.)

What I’m struck by in scientific research that’s attested to in these personal accounts is how you can tweak your life into a better place one small thing at a time. 

In fact it is preferable. Small changes lead to the most permanent changes. 

We love to hear stories about those who’ve quit Wall Street, gone to an ashram, lost 100 pounds and are now breast-feeding abandoned baby gorillas in the wild . . . stories of big reversal and change are dramatic. They’re movie epic.

Yet it is the small changes made and stuck to and folded into your life till it becomes part of you that make the difference. 

This truth is borne out in research, in my own life, and in these One Thing Better stories.

So today we celebrate how easy it is to shift one thing by one thing into a life worth living.

I’m sitting here today living a far better life than my late teens druggie days or my mid-twenties social drinking till sex or exhaustion stopped me . . . 

You probably are too.

Small changes over time rock your world. 

In fact they reassemble your world particle by particle till you find yourself ensconced in a whole new place.

That’s worth celebrating.

For you —

Evan Griffith
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Click here for (occasional) notes at the intersection of creativity and spirit. Once a month, maybe.