My Best Obsession: Four Days to Five Thousand

A few weeks ago, in conversation with a colleague, I made an offhand joke about being obsessed with including everyone. It’s a good obsession to have, they quipped. My close friends will know I have a lot of obsessions. My daily two minute morning plank. My weekly ferry commute. My 2025 month by month obsession of baking around the world. Routine, and therefore, obsession, come very easy to me. 

Happiness may be my best obsession. 

When I was 17, I was driving home from high school down the same country roads I’d ridden on my entire life. It was unseasonably warm for November in Western Pennsylvania so I had my windows down and my radio up. I still remember the exact turn on P. Road where my brain filled in the sentence that would change my life: Day 1: Happiness is.. those perfect car rides where the radio just plays all the right songs.

I went home and logged onto our shared family desktop computer (2011, folks) and posted that Facebook status. Then I did my homework and went to bed. 

A couple months ago I turned 31. I don’t drive much any more and I don’t live in Western Pennsylvania. A lot of things look different from 17. But one thing I will, with certainty, do at some point today is post another Happiness is.

Because I didn’t stop after that routine car ride on November 9, 2011. I kept posting. Every single day. For nearly 5,000 days now. 

Remember the experience of being a kid and saying a word so many times it loses its meaning? I can recall racing around a playground, purple, purple, purple, purple, purple, oh my gosh it doesn’t even sound like a real word anymore! Am I saying it right?! 

I’ve been saying Happiness for many, many recesses. So how do I know I’m still connected to its meaning? Have I lost sight of what I set out to define?

Or, have I added new words to the mission.

Happiness used to just be Happiness. But as I’ve grown over this last nearly 5,000 days, it has become so much more. It’s about living life to the fullest and being true to your authentic self. It’s about enjoying our days and finding gratitude in the mundane. It’s about building resilience for when things get hard and it’s about the belief that tomorrow can be better. 

It’s never been about the absence of sadness… but rather the pursuit of things that can stave off that emptiness. The pursuit of things that bring us joy. 

In a couple days, I’ll write my 5,000th consecutive post. I’ll grab my journal and write “Happiness is..” for the 5,000th time. I’ll type it across our social media platforms and press post. I’ll do something I’ve done for over 13 and a half years. And, seeing as I’m getting emotional typing this out now, there’s a good chance I’ll cry.

Because how do I put into words this thing that has radically changed every area of my life? How do I convey with the right level of urgency the way this silly little sentence upended my world? Would you believe me if I said Happiness saved my life?

It is sometimes hard to see what we are working for. Hard to see that things can ever be different than what they are right now. Hard to believe that small efforts day after day can yield big results. 

But they can. And they do. 

When I first started posting in high school, classmates would come up to me and ask if I was doing an assignment or if it was just for fun. If I was going to stop after a month or after 100 days. And I told them I wasn’t sure what I was doing. And I told them I’d probably just stop when I ran out.

I’m starting to think I won’t run out.

I’m starting to think this chaotic decision to be relentlessly aware of the beauty in this world has made it so that I am surrounded by beauty infinite. 

That there is so much good and so much joy in spite of all the darkness. That we can choose to live happy, compassionate, and justice-oriented lives that hold space for all of us. That we can, at our best, take care of each other. That we can create and share the joy we want this world to be full of.

That we can wake up and choose our obsessions. That we can wake up and choose Happiness.