Why It's Important to Appreciate the "Small Things" in Life

Why It's Important to Appreciate the "Small Things" in Life

A little gratitude can make a big difference on your whole mindset and overall outlook on life.
Jessica Zagacki
Jessica Zagacki Sep 1, 2016
3860
views

The feeling of hot tea gliding smoothly down one's throat, gently warming the inside of one's body, and soothing one's soul. Basking in the glory of a sultry sunset, the sun's rays radiating warmth and color onto the golden Earth below. The sight of cotton clouds spread across the sky in a swirling sensation of serenity. The sound of the rain pouring onto the ground, renewing and rejuvenating the Earth in every little droplet. The fresh smell of rain absorbing into the hot asphalt after a storm. Beautiful blades of bright green grass glistening with dew and delicate flower petals dancing in the breeze. Heartfelt smiles and hugs from friends and family members whom one hasn't seen for awhile. The first sip of an ice cold glass of water after not drinking anything for a long time and standing out in the heat. Salty ocean waves crashing onto the shoreline while coarse granules of sand slide in between one's toes. Colorful leaves painted from brushstrokes of beauty rustling in the wind while the scent of spiced cinnamon, apples, and pumpkins lingers in the crisp autumn air.

These are just a few of the "small things" in life I have such a deep appreciation for. You don't need to have a lot of money or an extravagant array of materialistic possessions to be content with life. The most important and ultimately the most fulfilling "things" in life aren't really things at all. I find myself to be the most at peace, the most happy, and feeling the most blessed in life when I am simply surrounded by people who I love and when I am reveling in the pure beauty of nature.

There are a myriad of reasons why it's so crucial to go throughout your day enjoying the simplest of things, but I will give you three reasons I find to be the most prevalent. The first reason is that you never know what could happen in life, good or bad. There are so many "simple things" in life the majority of people take for granted every day. Just being able to get out of bed in the morning, shower on your own, and dress yourself is an absolute blessing. Not everybody has that "simple" luxury. Being able to express yourself by effectively communicating your thoughts and feelings with others and having your independence to simply walk around this Earth everyday in good health is also a miracle in its own right. Although we should never live our lives in fear of all that could go wrong or all the bad things that could happen to us, we need to always remember how fortunate we are for all of the good we have in our lives, both big and small. The second reason why simple gratitude is so significant is that it keeps you from expecting too much out of life and setting yourself up for disappointment. When you are only focused on what you would consider "bigger things" in life, you don't take the time to appreciate all the smaller but equally beautiful things that are right in front of you. If those other big things in your life don't work out or go exactly the way you planned, you might set yourself up for a lot of unnecessary stress and disappointment. That's why it's better to just live your life going with the natural flow of things, appreciating everything that comes your way, both big and small. The third major reason why it's so pivotal to find pleasure in the simplest of things is that is helps you to remain humble. It helps you not to take the people in your life for granted as well as the world around you. The world is full of adventure, opportunity, beauty, and incredible things to do and see. When you start each day just being thankful to be alive and when you go about your day appreciating every little wonderful thing, your whole perspective and view of the world and life itself changes. You will find yourself to have more moments of pure joy and contentment with life, yourself, and others. To me, appreciating the "small things" in life is priceless. No amount of money can buy you permanent gratitude or happiness. That is just something you have to simply discover and find within yourself and within the world around you. The sooner we are all able to do that, the better off we will all be.

Cover Image Credit: Google Images
Jessica Zagacki
Jessica Zagacki Sep 1, 2016
At Bergen County, NJ

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To The Boy Who Will Love Me Next

If you can't understand these few things, leave before things get too involved
Danielle Stallins
Danielle Stallins Apr 27, 2016
22922
views

To the boy that will love me next, I need you to know and understand things about me and my past. The things I have been though not only have shaped the person I’ve become, but also sometimes controls my life. In the past I’ve been used, abused, and taken for granted, and I want something real this time. The guys before you were just boys; they didn’t know how to treat me until it was too late. They didn’t understand how to love me, until I broke my own heart. Before you truly decide to love me I want you to understand these things.

When I tell you something, please listen.

I’m my own person, I want to be loved a certain way. If I ask you to come over and watch movies with me please do it, if I ask for you to leave me alone for a few hours because it’s a girl’s night please do it. I don’t just say things to hear my own voice, I say things to you because it’s important to my life and the way I want to be loved. I’m not a needy person when it comes to being loved and cared for, but I do ask for you to do the small things that I am say.

Forgive my past.

My past is not a pretty brick road, it is a highway that has a bunch of potholes and cracks in it. I have a lot of baggage, and most of it you won’t understand. But don’t let my past decided whether you want to love me or not. My past has helped form who I am today, but it does not define who I am. My past experiences might try and make an appearance every once in a while, but I will not go back to that person I once was, I will not return to all that hurt I once went though. When I say those things, I’m telling the complete and honest truth. I relive my past every day, somethings haunt me and somethings are good reminds. But for you to love me, I need you to accept my past, present and future.

I’m just another bro to the other guys.

I have always hung out with boys, I don’t fit in with the girl groups. I have 10 close girlfriends, but the majority of my friends are guy, but don’t let this scare you. If I wanted to be with one of my guy friends I would already be with him, and if you haven’t noticed I don’t want them because I’m with you. I will not lose my friendships with all my guy friends to be able to stay with you. I will not cut off ties because you don’t like my guy friends. I have lost too many buddies because of my ex-boyfriends and I promised myself I wouldn’t do that again. If you don’t like how many guy friends I have you can leave now. Don’t bother trying to date me if you can accept the fact I’m just another bro.

I might be a badass, but I actually have a big heart.

To a lot of people I come off to be a very crazy and wild girl. I will agree I can be crazy and wild, but I’m more than that. I’m independent, caring, responsible, understanding, forgiving, and so such more type of woman. Many people think that I’m a badass because I don’t take any negatively from anyone. Just like we learned when we were younger, “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all.” Most people can’t do that in today’s world, so I stick up for myself and my friends. I don’t care what anyone thinks about me, or their option on how I live my life. The only thing I care about is being able to make myself happy. Even though I’m an independent woman, understand that I do have a big heart. Honesty when I truly care for someone I will do just about anything they ask, but don’t take advantage of this. Once you take advantage of this part of me, all respect will be lost for you.

I’m hard to love.

Sometimes I want to be cuddle and get attention, and sometimes I don’t want you to talk to me for a couple hours. Sometimes I want you to take me out for a nice meal, but sometimes I want a home cooked meal. Every day is different for me, sometimes I change my mind every hour. My mood swings are terrible on certain days, and on those days you should probably just ignore me. I’m not easy to love, so you’ll either be willing to find a way to love me, or you’ll walk out like so many others have.

I’m scared.

I’m scared to love someone again. I’ve been hurt, heartbroken, and beat to the ground in my past relationships. I want to believe you are different, I want to hope things will truly work out, but every relationship has always ended up the same way. I’m scared to trust someone, put my whole heart into them, just to be left and heartbroken again. I sick and tired of putting my whole body and soul into someone for them to just leave when it is convenient for them. If you want to love me, understand it won’t be easy for me to love you back.

When “I’m done.”

When I say “I’m done” I honestly don’t mean that I’m done. When I say that it means I need and want you to fight for me, show me why you want to be with me. I need you to prove that I’m worth it and there’s no one else but me. If I was truly done, I would just walk away, and not come back. So if I ever tell you, “I’m done,” tell me all the reasons why I’m truly not done.

For the boy who will love me next, the work is cut out for you, you just have to be willing to do it. I’m not like other girls, I am my own person, and I will need to be treated as such. For the boy that will love me next, don’t bother with me unless you really want to be with me. I don’t have time to waste on you if you aren’t going to try and make something out of us. To the boy who will love me next, the last thing I would like to say is good luck, I have faith in you.

Cover Image Credit: Danielle Balint
Danielle Stallins
Danielle Stallins Apr 27, 2016
At Southern Illinois University Carbondale

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The Things I Found At Rock Bottom

It was the darkest, but the dawn did come.

Meghan Rand
Meghan Rand May 21, 2019
87
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About 3 months ago, my whole life was uprooted by a breakup.

My ex ended a relationship with me very suddenly that I had the full intention of being in for the rest of my life, and even thought I knew it was a necessary loss, coming down from that high and detoxing our toxic relationship from my system was the hardest thing I have ever been through. There was a day I finished up in class and zoned out and started driving, until I found myself three hours away from home. I didn't eat for days, and I woke up every day having panic attacks when I remembered everything that had happened. The first few weeks were a dark, horrible blur, with pain at levels I would never wish on anyone. On top of that, I was also forced to move an hour away from home and quit a job that I loved as a result of the breakup.

I wasn't just losing a person, I was losing everything that I built my identity up to be. Our relationship was my whole life, and that's why I knew that us breaking up was necessary, but that didn't take away the two and a half years of memories I was left with. He also chose to end it in such a violent and excruciating way — telling me he never loved me, cutting off all contact with me, and basically telling me to kill myself. Sitting in the rubble of all of this, I had never felt so empty and void of happiness before.

But when you're completely shattered and sitting in nothing but rubble, you're presented with a beautiful opportunity — a blank canvas. There are no morning and night routines laid out for you, you don't have the same people texting you as before, you don't have the good morning text that you were used to. You have nothing. Because of these things, your own interests and desires become the default setting you're programmed to operate on, and you get to know yourself in a way that you didn't before.

Here's how I found my way out of the void.

1. Small distractions are so helpful.

.There were a few things that I turned to that were absolutely crucial to me when I was struggling to keep it together: New Girl, playing the game Words With Friends, and journaling (free-writing, and writing in these that I found at Target). Honestly, these things rarely actually made me feel better. However, the value I found in them was creating new habits and filling my life back up with things that didn't involve my heartbreak.

2. You need a support system.

I have always had a hard time trusting people and talking about my feelings. So I thought, naturally, the way to cope with that is to find one person you can trust, and for them to be your ride or die. That's what my ex was for me. When he was gone, I had to learn how to open up to people again, which was extremely foreign and uncomfortable for me. It was an odd feeling to text a friend and say "I'm not okay right now and I need you", and even more uncomfortable when they were nice and supportive back. But all of the dozens of people I leaned on ended up being literally a support system for me- giving me advice, keeping me in check, and telling me all of the things I didn't want to hear, like how pathetic I was acting at some points.

3. You absolutely cannot avoid pain in life.

A quote I found by Jon Kabat-Zinn reads, "You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to swim" and that became a guiding philosophy for me in dealing with pain. As comforting as it would've been for me to tell myself I'll never let anyone hurt me again, or I was never going to be in another relationship again, I instead decided to tell myself that I was never going to let something break me so deeply again, because I would have a stronger foundation of me and a stronger sense of self. So that when the next person left my life, I would be sad, but I wouldn't feel shattered to the core ever again. Life involves constant rejection, constant disappointment, and constant anxiety. You will never escape that. You will hurt so much throughout life. But if you can build yourself to be strong enough, it won't matter.

4. You can empathize with somebody and forgive their actions and still want nothing to do with them- and that's okay.

When my ex and I were together, he messed up and did a lot of things wrong. He would scream at me and tell me he hated me and apologize with so much fear and hurt in his eyes and say, "I'm sorry, sometimes my anxiety causes me to demonize you" and in the moment I wasn't strong enough to say "it's okay, but you're abusive and I need to be away from you". I instead would say, "It's okay, let's not worry about it and just go to bed" and it would keep on happening. I empathized too much with his demons and gave him too much understanding at my own expense. Now I've learned that I can still feel that way about him, but when he reaches out asking for another chance, I can say no. And I don't feel guilty anymore.

5. Your relationship with yourself should be your top priority.

To explain my experience of learning to love myself, it would take pages. Simply put, I started being okay with things just being me, myself, and I. If I had a rough day, I would at first come home wishing I had my ex there to talk to and be there for me. Eventually I started going to Target, picking up a bottle of wine, and taking care of my damn self. I stopped thinking "oh I'd love to do this but I don't have anybody to go with me" and started eating at restaurants alone, going to bars alone, and going on hikes alone. I bought myself jewelry that I wished a guy would buy me. I said yes to every guy that asked me out on a date just to put myself out there. I spontaneously went and got a new tattoo completely by myself. And now that I steady to the core in my own being, anybody in my life is there because they're a complement, not a supplement. This will protect me from ever staying in a relationship again that manages to gut me in the way my previous one did.

A quote that I love from J.K. Rowling reads, "Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life", and that is absolutely true of what the past three months have been for me. Day by day, I've pieced together a new identity and healed my soul. I wouldn't have been here if I hadn't hit rock bottom.

Meghan Rand
Meghan Rand May 21, 2019
At University of Washington

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