The Good Things Habit

I did a lot of cleaning and organizing this weekend, mostly because it's hard for me to stop cleaning once I begin. I felt like an addict tonight--

Self(1):"It's just dusting the door jams"
Self(2):"Well, it was just scrubbing the shower. Then it was just cleaning the cupboards. When is it going to end?"

(Note: It is yet to be determined whether the talking to myself is cleaning-product-fume induced.)

Anyway, the organizing bug spread to my computer, and I started sorting through my documents. To illustrate the overwhelming nature of this task, I have around 5,000 items, including a folder entitled "Misc" and another entitled "Miscellaneous." If there is a distinction between the two, I don't know what it is. Especially since the files in these folders have names like "pizza" or, even better, "10-08-07."

One of these ambiguously named files is "good things," which turns out to be a list of at least three good things that happened each day over a two-month period. I made a habit of noticing and remembering good things--from deep talks with friends to a guy dancing like a ballerina at the bus stop--and then recording them.

One of the catch-phrases of my favorite tv show is "I hope you find what you're looking for." In my experience, finding what you're looking for is the easy part. The trick is to look for the right things. If we look for dust on the doorjams, we'll find it. If we look for the worst parts of ourselves and others, it will be nearly impossible to see the best. On the other hand, if we look for the best parts of ourselves, for the funny, joyful, and beautiful things in the world, I'm pretty sure that they will fill up our lives and we will not have any energy left for pessimism.

Self(1): "I think I'm going to pick that habit back up."
Self(2): "I think that's a good thing."