Tool For Tuesday: Want Joy? Practice These 11 Really, Incredibly Simple Things Every Day

Even Happy is happy being who he is

11 Really Simple Things To Do Each Day

Ah-hah, voila, presto! It really is easier than we think to make this day a great page in our best chapter of life.

1. We can start our day with Please. Please let this day be a good one.

2. We can try to be pleasant with everyone. No exceptions.

3. We can go out of our way to do a good deed or be kind to someone today.

4. We can demonstrate gratitude in our lives.

5. We can totally, absolutely, unequivocally reject resentment of any kind (whether we think the resentment is justified or not).

6. We can stop thinking the PLOMS. (That’s Poor Little Old Me!)

7. We can keep away from indulging in our favorite negative behavior–just for today.(See the Wall Street Journal article on the best way to change a relationship.)

8. We can choose not to chill with someone who likes to share misery and stories of “ain’t it awful,” and instead, we can stick with people who search for solutions.

9. We can resist the temptation to criticize or gossip.

10. We can remember why we want to achieve our goals—the how will take care of itself.

11. We can end our day with Thanks!

About dianabletter

Diana Bletter is the author of several books, including The Invisible Thread: A Portrait of Jewish American Women (with photographs by Lori Grinker), shortlisted for a National Jewish Book Award. Her novel, A Remarkable Kindness, (HarperCollins) was published in 2015. She is the First Prize Winner of Moment Magazine's 2019 Fiction Contest. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, tabletmag, Glamour, The Forward, The North American Review, Times of Israel, and is a reporter for Israel21C, and many other publications. She is author of Big Up Yourself: It's About Time You Like Being You and The Mom Who Took off On Her Motorcycle, a memoir of her 10,000-mile motorcycle trip to Alaska and back to New York. She lives in a small beach village in Western Galilee, Israel, with her husband and family. She is a member of the local hevra kadisha, the burial circle, and a Muslim-Jewish-Christian-Druze women's group in the nearby town of Akko. And, she likes snowboarding and climbing trees.
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4 Responses to Tool For Tuesday: Want Joy? Practice These 11 Really, Incredibly Simple Things Every Day

  1. juliabarrett says:

    I’d add laughter. The best medicine.

  2. Diana, your positive spirit always encourages me. 🙂

  3. Between #1 Please and #11 Thank you, I’d add only one thing (12 is a good number anyway…)
    LAUGH. My parents (and Julia, too) believed that laughter truly is the best medicine. And once you learn to laugh at yourself–and especially, when you’re young, to laugh at the dramatic acts you resort to–well, you’re halfway to a sunnier day!

    • dianabletter says:

      Hi Marylin and Julia, Ha ha hee hee haw haw! Yup, I done forgot the belly laughs at myself! Like today when one of my sons did a load of laundry and left it in the basket, thinking he’d fold it later. I thought he hadn’t done it yet and felt a wee bit disgruntled and so I threw it in and did it all over again. Shows that people always surprise us and I can laugh at myself.

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