About

So what is this site all about?

Simply put, my Dad is a genius. I was a teenager and had been suffering through many things, which if you read this any length of time you will probably figure out, but they include a lifelong battle with Diabetes, a introspective personality and other things that aren’t worth repeating. I had been down for so long that I was once again considering ending my own life. One day before jumping the bus to community college he handed me a hardbound journal and said, “Today when you get home I want to see 10 things today that made you smile.”

That’s it, it was really that simple, and that difficult. I still remember my first list…

1.  A dandelion growing in a small patch of dirt on the concrete. Silly Dandelion thinking it can survive.
2. A girl who beamed at me when I held the door for her before class.

That’s it, I could only find 2 things. My dad wasn’t having that and he more fully explained himself that evening.

“Son, you see what you expect, so I’m helping you train yourself to see the good things in life, they don’t have to be mindblowing, or even significant, they just have to bring a smile to your face for an instant. Ten things tomorrow, and every day for the rest of the week.”

So I did, and boy was it hard, I didn’t feel like I had much to smile about, but like a good detective, and because my dad wasn’t charging me rent, I set off each day looking for that thin sliver of something to make me smile. I happily handed over the 5 pages of 10 things at the end of the week. He grunted in his normal way and said, “Good job, next week make it 20 a day.”

My Dad encouraged me in his gruff way to write down the smiles, increasing the count by 10 per day every week until the end of the term, when I was writing 100 smiles a day. What I didn’t know then, or didn’t put together is that this is a practical use of what the psychologists call “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy”. Yeah, it’s therapy, but it’s also productive. The world is crap, believe me, I’m right there up to my eyeballs in it just like you. But if we retrain our brains to look for the dandelions then our reality changes too. We start to even out and not slog so much. I don’t do 100 a day any more, I stick to 10, but if you’re new to this, I encourage you to try it. Follow these steps:

First, be practical, don’t just make it 10 happy thoughts, make it 10 concrete smiles at first, and look for them hard. It’s like a game.

Second, Increase your count by 10 a day each week. So in week 2, you’re doing 20 a day. Do this until you’re up to 100.

Third, ask people who’ve known you a long time if they notice anything different. It’ll surprise you how much easier it is to look at the world around you.

If you want to share your lists here in the comments, feel free, please don’t use full names of others and be respectful.

Our Email is admin@10happythoughts.com

Seek Smiles™…