What Was Your Favorite Part of the Day? (#33): Questions for Children & Adults Alike Series

A friend shared an article from the Huffington Post entitled “50 Eye-Opening Questions to Ask Your Grandchildren.” In reading the piece, I realized it could serve as inspiration for this childless 30-year-old. It would be a good exercise for me… for all of us. So here’s to a new series of questions. I’m going to pick my favorites and share over the coming months. May you also be inspired to reflect deeply on your own answers. 

Question: What was your favorite part of the day?

When I worked at camp one summer, I was introduced to “Rose, Bud, Thorn.” There are various versions of this in the camp world, but in this iteration, ROSE is the best thing to happen that day; THORN is the worst; and BUD is the thing you’re most looking forward to tomorrow. 

I’ve written previously about how, after that summer when I traveled for ten days with two of the counselors, we shared Rose, Bud, Thorn each night. I also, as readers of this blog know, have recorded a different kind of Rose each day since November 9, 2011. My daily Happiness is feels very different from Rose, Bud, Thorn because despite doing it for 13 years, I still make a really intentional effort to be unique each day. With Rose, Bud, Thorn, if I have really good carrot cake two days in a row, that’s a valid duplicate Rose.

Roses are shared in passing, in a fleeting moment at the end of the day, tucked beneath the covers. “Happiness is” lives forever in the database, on the website, on social media. 

Since moving in with my partner in April, we share our Rose, Bud, Thorn most nights. But, because there are no rules when you’re in love, our Rose—our “best part of the day—often becomes Roses… a list of every good thing that happened.

And it's only once we begin talking about the Roses that we realize just how special the day was—even if it felt routine in every way.

It is this habit—the speaking aloud the things that are joyful—that has changed my life. It is these routines that make each special, that remind me that each day has a holy favorite. 

So perhaps my favorite part of the day is the recollection of these Roses. And my favorite part of my life is that I am living abundantly surrounded by joy.