crunching the numbers

Happy Day #3
In Simonstown
visiting my fabulous,
dolphin-friendly friend (who
doesn't read my blog so I won't
bother saying nice things about her :))

Earlier this year one of my friends posted something on their Facebook page about doing a 100 hundred happy day challenge. Given my personal PhD frustration and general 'meh' feeling I decided that looking for something to make you happy every day for a hundred days is a challenge I could do with in my life. (I mentioned it in January). So, I signed up at the official webpage and embarked on my 100 hundred happy days journey. This involved me taking a photo (a poor-quality, Blackberry photo) of something that made me happy every day (bar one when I was so happy I forgot to take a photo) and posting them to my Facebook page for 100 (or 99) days with the #100happydays tag.  And now it is over, well actually it has been over for a little while but now I thought I would talk about it a little more... because it is Winter and cold and I need to be reminded that I still need to look for happy thoughts every day! My blog post was one of my #100HD moments, and now my blog post is about #100HD experience.

Happy Day #16 wine tasting with L and the Italian navy...
OK not all of the navy, just a couple of couch surfers.

First off, it was actually quite difficult to find something, at least a little different, that made me happy everyday for 100 days. There were days when I wasn't happy, not even necessarily sad, just not happy either. There were days when there were so many awesome things happening I couldn't decide what to take a photo of. And there were things that made me happy that I couldn't take a photo of. And of course there were days when I didn't think of it until 11 pm at night when I was already safely tucked into bed. I also started to feel like I was spamming the world with random pictures of glasses of wine, but, then I sign up for a challenge I want to finish it!

Happy Day #31 in the lovely KZN
with the equally lovely L and my
amazing parentals! 

Now that it has been over for more than a month, I find myself missing the challenge a little. I have had friends repeatedly ask if what ever we were doing at the time would be my #100 happy day moment so maybe they miss it too, although those Blackberry photos are really annoying. I also found that because I was bored of trying so hard to find something to be happy about every day, during the challenge I made an effort to go do things so I didn't have to post another picture of a cup of tea. Of course, I did this challenge in Summer, if I were to do it now, my pictures would all be of my hot water bottle bear or my blanket or the cat curled up on my lap while I write this (I am not on campus) or fabulous 'S' who gave me a lift to my car so that I didn't get drenched by rain twice in a day... or tea... still.





During the challenge I tried to be real and genuine in my moments, I don't think the challenge is about bragging about how stunning your town is, but of course, my town is stunning so that snuck in a little with or without intention... So, below, the break down of what made me happy for 100 days earlier this year. The categories are fairly broad and (for instance) "Food" doesn't give justice to many awesome evenings, out or at home with some amazing people. "Music" refers specifically to live music events, "Sport" to pilates or watching live sport and "Art" refers mostly to various awesome works my very talented mom has created for me but also includes cheesy pictures of my TYPO calender, "Alcohol" pretty much means wine and I stopped using wine as my #100HD moments when I got embarrassed by how often it came up (and that is despite the fact that I wasn't drinking for the first ~20 days of the challenge)!

Uvongo Beach happy day hashtag

A frequent Happy Day theme... 

I have to admit that I found actively seeking happiness actually lead to a little increase in happiness in my life. And I appreciated the daily challenge. Of course for every couple of happy thoughts I could have substituted a sarcastic or snide moment, but I resisted and was happier for it. The official website suggests that people who have completed the challenge have reported being happier every day, being more optimistic and receiving more compliments (can't say I noticed that). It also says that people fell in love during the challenge... so maybe I should do it for another 100 days... They do say that you can get a 100 happy day book at the end, which I didn't (because I am cheap and they are poor quality photos), but it was worth it for all the happy memories that can keep me warm through the Winter months! Although I think tea will help too...

Are you up for the challenge???