Forget Tomatoes and Trump… and have a season of awesome

Last weekend in the UK was the Bank Holiday Weekend – the last long weekend of spring, incidentally what is also considered as the beginning of British summertime – the season those of us on the miserable isle off the European continent pray for sunny days, heat waves and endless blue skies and often – bar two weeks in July – get rainy days, high winds and fifty shades of grey skies.

Regardless of all high expectations and low returns, it is also the early British summer I love the most – when the sunsets are at their brightest orange, when the hazy blue twilit hours of dusk linger on late into the evening – in utter rebellion against the dying of the light. So often on the last long weekend of spring which ushers in the longest days of the year on the northern hemisphere, my mind turns to how to make little pleasures last longer, or, as “happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length” as one of my favourite poems says, how to magnify little joys scattered in between great lengths of tedium or stress.

Often we get so hang up on what is wrong in the world that, we miss sight of what is right, what is important and what counts; we lose out on little moments of joy, or we fail to extend them. Yes, I may say ‘tomahto’ and you may say ‘tomah… na wa o!’; yes, London tube delay may not be vexing me quite the same way Lagos go slow is trying your last nerve; but true to Leo Tolstoy’s words who said, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”, regardless of woes, our ‘awesomes’ are more or less the same.

I am currently reading The Book of Awesome by Neil Pasricha, the regular Joe whose website 1000 Awesome Things which he updated for some respite from his nine to five job became a cosy hub for people looking for a little bit of ‘awesome’. “I never imagined that writing about finding money in your old coat pocket, the smell of gasoline, or watching The Price is Right when you’re at home sick would amount to anything,” Pasricha writes in the foreword before he lists his ‘awesomes’.

In the same way the phenomenal social media movement with #100yearsofhappiness a couple of years ago made millions around the world consciously search for and showcase fleeting moments of happiness for a 100 days, The Book of Awesome also encourages the reader to be more conscious of such moments, to find joy in the trivial.

Inspired by what I have read so far, I have been looking out for my kind of ‘awesome’ all week, and here is what I have come up with so far:

The freshness of minty toothpaste first thing in the morning – need I say more?
The smell of freshly brewed coffee – wake up, wake up and smell it!
Waking up to get ready for work in the morning and then realising it is Saturday – happiest morning ever!
Then spending the morning in bed – just because you can!
Your favourite song of the moment coming on the radio as you step into your car – so you can sing along with a happy heart.
Scoring a past issue of a magazine you’ve been wanting to get your hands on from a street vendour for a mere N500 instead of the original price of N3,500 – This was inspired by a recent post from a Facebook friend.
Leaving work on a Friday evening dreading rush hour traffic and by some fluke, having the smoothest journey of your life – result!
The feel of freshly changed bed sheets on your skin as you step into your bed at night.

Imagine! It doesn’t actually take much to feel ‘awesome’ but often you are so hard wired towards the bigger picture – the big house, the flashy car, the designer clothes, the 5-star holiday we forget that the human spirit is soothed and uplifted by such fleeting frames of joy, those joyful moments of respite from the rising price of tomatoes in Nigeria, the increasing number of refugees from Syria, the growing threat to human civilization that is Donald Trump – if we remember to turn our eyes’ lens in the right direction.

I don’t know about you, but armed with the skill to seize the moment and with a long summer ahead of me, I intend to make this my season of ‘awesome’ and turn each flicker of joy into a bonfire of lasting contentment and gratitude. Why don’t you join me and share your ‘awesomes’ with me on Twitter or Instagram with #seasonofawesome ?