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KosAbility: Balancing present horrors by savoring tiny pleasures [1]

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Date: 2025-05-25

I wouldn’t claim that my parrot’s charcoal water dish gives me a reason to live, but it does make me smile and softens my heart. It’s a little burst of pleasure that depends on nothing but an inanimate plastic cup and is especially welcome now that living in the world of factual reality has become so difficult, especially in the last five months.

The onset of Trump 2.0 increased the conflict I feel between staying aware of current events and being happy about life. In January, I was determined to not let the cruelty of this Trump go-round drive me into despair and I leaned into coping measures learned during my chronic Lyme years.

To support a healthier perspective, I’ve focused on relishing the tiny sparks of mundane joy in my life, a measure I learned from Dr. Rick Hansen while flailing around to find anything to help me cope with chronic Lyme dismantling my life. He calls it “Taking in the good.”

Hansen talks about our negativity bias: “Humans evolved to be fearful—since that helped keep our ancestors alive—so we are very vulnerable to being frightened and even intimidated by threats, both real ones and ‘paper tigers.’”

Even in my most desperate Lyme-brain-addled days, I could remember Hansen’s catchphrase about the negativity bias.

In effect, the brain is like Velcro for negative experiences, but Teflon for positive ones. That shades “implicit memory” – your underlying expectations, beliefs, action strategies, and mood – in an increasingly negative direction.

Obviously, knowing this doesn’t transform anything. I know (because I tried it) that the “power of positive thinking” doesn’t help when it’s fake, just a bandaid over a painful wound. Hansen isn’t promoting toxic positivity, he’s saying to notice what actually does feel good and positive no matter how minor and to savor that feeling when it arises.

Hansen offers three simple steps that tilt us towards the “’good’ in the practical sense of that which brings more happiness to oneself and more helpfulness to others.” You still see the negative aspects of life but tilting towards the “good” provides perspective.

1. Look for good facts, and turn them into good experiences – like the taste of good coffee or getting an unexpected compliment – and positive aspects of the world and yourself. When you notice something good, let yourself feel good about it. 2. Really enjoy the experience — try to stay with it for 20 or 30 seconds in a row – instead of getting distracted by something else. 3. Intend and sense that the good experience is sinking into you — Some feel it in their body like a warm glow spreading through their chest … some might simply know conceptually, that while this good experience is held in awareness, its neurons are firing busily away, and gradually wiring together.

I found the trick is to be aware when that tiny pop of joy arises. Some of my tiny pleasures are random one-time-only fortuitous moments, others are routine mundane events that I relish anticipating, like the meaningless joy of my parrot’s water dish.

I have three parrots and each has a set of six dishes that rotate two a day, from the cupboard, to their cages, then into the dishwasher, and repeat on a three-day cycle. One set is white, one is speckled grey/white, and the third set is black except for a charcoal colored water dish that is distinct from the other five. I noticed that I smile when I take the charcoal dish from the cupboard—oh you odd little dish, here you are again sweetie—so I decided to intentionally soak in that spark of pleasure.

Now, every sixth evening at birdie bedtime, as soon as my fingers take that dish from the cupboard, I smile and let that tiny trickle of joy suffuse my body. I don’t have to think ahead and plan to smile, it’s like seeing your dog welcome you home after a day’s work or nearly losing your grip on a glass of water but easing it down onto a table without spilling a drop. No big deals in the grand scheme of life, but I relish that warm glow and I’ve come to anticipate that moment.

Hansen claims that “the good,” these tiny pleasures, “collect in implicit memory deep down in your brain. In the famous saying, ‘neurons that fire together, wire together.’ The more you get your neurons firing about positive facts, the more they’ll be wiring up positive neural structures.”

Recently, I encountered a couple subreddit discussions of people finding similar joys through romanticizing or being whimsical in tiny moments.

In r/CasualConversation, a redditor posted this: “I didn’t realize how healing it is to romanticize the tiny moments of your day until I started doing it—pouring coffee, folding laundry, taking walks… it’s changed everything. What’s one tiny thing you do now that makes your life feel softer or more you?”

Redditors replied.

I’m a construction worker so my days are usually pretty intensive. So I snapshot a quick 5 seconds. Whether it be a bird chirping in the morning, the smell of honeysuckles in the middle of a navy base full of activity (it becomes) my beauty in the day of darkness.

Swishing around in a satin robe, coffee on the porch, greeting my plants and turning on the fountain for them.

When there is a working crosswalk light, I wait for it. I look around and take in the surroundings and acknowledge there's all these people living their lives, and think about how I am on one of my little adventures.

In r/justgalsbeingchicks I read this one: You gotta make sh*t whimsical sometimes.

Sometimes I watch horror/mystery/murder YouTube videos late at night, and make a strong cup of hot coffee to drink while watching because it makes me feel like a detective in a sleepy mountain town who is burning the midnight oil in order to solve the case.

One of our dogs likes to watch me cook, so I always announce the cooking show starts in 5 minutes. My wife invented a theme song and just starts singing it, and our little doggo comes running.

At breakfast, I'll put on a Spotify playlist from a "country or city + cafe". Yesterday, I ate my same ol' breakfast at a cafe in Mexico City. It's fun to imagine.

If my doggo stares out of our front window for an extended period of time I ask him if his husband will ever return from war.

Try it! If you have trouble noticing a personal tiny joy or want an exogenous on-demand source, become a voyeur at the subreddit r/benignexistence — “A cheerful corner for the unremarkable slices of everyday life.”

What’s one tiny thing you do that makes your life feel softer?

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