Spice up your life

After being told this blog could be about truly anything, I considered writing about my family dog Georgie (legally Giorgio and usually just George). Then, I thought surely I have more to talk about than just my dog. Then, I accidentally cried in medchem at the shock that we had Dr. Beleh’s last lecture and didn’t know it until the end, so I thought I’ll write about adapting to change and surprises poorly. All of this to say, Dr. Beleh and my dog are very important to me (I cry over him too). I’m not writing about either of these things!

Consider this my personal campaign for everyone to spice up their life and love the little things just a little bit more. Life is so hard. Add pharmacy school and that’s hard too. I won’t begin to wonder what’s hard in your personal lives, but I know it’s not always easy. I’m a pessimist. But if I worried and pessimist-ed every hard thing in my life, I don’t think I’d get out of bed in the morning. Or I’d become the worst combination of the Grinch and Ebenezer Scrooge (both pre-hearts growing three sizes) and be miserable to be around (I’m choosing to believe nobody feels that way about me now).

Instead, I try to pull out the most joy from the random parts of my day. People I talk to regularly know I ask if they saw the moon, the sunrise, etc. if it was pretty. And if they didn’t see it, I have photos or videos to share. Squirrels digging in the dirt, squirrels cracking open a nut, squirrels hanging out in a tree not moving when I come close to them, the frozen pond at West Park, the first turtles on a log after the pond unfreezes, making pigs in a blanket for the Super Bowl, my mom sending an unexpected selfie with a Dora Snapchat filter on, seeking out the Dambo trolls, cheap Bo’s Bagels from the Too Good to Go app, my best friend finally finishing busy season in her accounting job, tigers themed everything at Comerica Park (carousel, gargoyles, baseball Ferris wheel), George getting his nose stuck in a pup cup, the drawing of the Rho Chi founders on the wall in the third floor COP stairwell, a really good brownie from Weber’s, jelly stickers on my living room window for every holiday. Unintentionally, that was my stream of consciousness list of things that excited me in the last fourish months. I guess we could pull out nature as a theme and say it’s easier for me to find joy in life because nature is everywhere. But I really think joy is everywhere for those open to it.

So, I hope you’ll join me in loving the little things. Perhaps we can call it gratitude because that’s how my list reads. Even if it starts with wow, the sky is blue today, and the sun feels warm on my skin (I write this while staring out the window of CCCB on Wednesday). I swear being open to the little things compounds and if you start with one, you’ll start seeing more.

By no one’s fault except the difficulty of our program, it’s easy to be negative, pessimistic, and complain about day-to-day life. And that compounds too; it’s hard to be joyful or even neutral when everything feels meh around you. I’m not immune to feeling, sharing, or being affected by negativity either. My wish isn’t that life gets easier (because honestly, I don’t have that power and it’s looking bleak), but that you can pay attention to the amazing little things we have around us. Maybe you’ll even share them with me, and we’ll delight in them together. 

I’ll leave you with a quote I found on February 1 amidst anxiety about the U.S. and its policies, school stress, and on the verge of becoming so sick for the rest of the month. It helps me when life is oh-so unbearably hard.

Thanks for indulging my glorified journal/blog entry. Please enjoy photos of some of the joyful things.







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