Today was a pleasant balance of free-time and structured time, me-time and time shared with others. All in all, it had several elements of my ideal Saturday 🙂
Allow me to enumerate:
- 6am: up and at ’em while still dark out (see featured image above), 10 mile run along the American River Parkway. Bee-you-tee-ful sky, and enjoying the cool fall air. While I ran, I appreciated the well-being of our cat Leeloo.
- 8am: Delicious post-run breakfast, then time spent creating my latest monthly update of our financial progress.
- 10:30am: Enjoyed helping produce a Zoom meeting with the investment group I am a part of, the Sacramento Bogleheads. Great talk about index funds… my favored investing vehicle!
- 1pm: Magnificent lunch prepared by and enjoyed with my wife!
- Afternoon: resting for awhile, then out on front porch reading a fine novel, “Where the Crawdads Sing.”
- Evening, out to Safeway to get a few things (“Wifey needs gum!”) and a DVD (yep, we still enjoy those) to watch for tonight. Sitting down to write this blog.
As you can see, there wasn’t anything especially exciting or incredible about today’s events. But there were a lot of “joy triggers,” ie things that give me satisfaction:
- Exercise. Creates: endorphins, piece of mind, sense of accomplishment, high-minded mood.
- Appreciating a beloved animal. Creates: love and appreciation, well-being, peace of mind, sense of family.
- Good Food. Creates: pleasure of eating, camaraderie and interactions with my wife.
- Shared Experience with My Wife. Creates: well-being, love, peace of mind, satisfaction, happiness.
- Financial Progress Report. Creates: sense of progress toward personal goals. Progress=happiness 🙂
- Positive Social Interaction. Creates: sense of well-being, being of service, community.
- Sharing Common Interests with Others (Ie Investing). Creates: enthusiasm, joy of learning, satisfaction of being recognized by like-minded people, inspiration.
- Rest. Creates: ease, peace of mind, relaxation.
- Reading for Recreation. Creates: inspiration, fascination, stimulation of imagination, well-being.
- Light Errand. Creates: sense of getting out, satisfaction of getting my wife gum (!), getting a movie to enjoy… entertainment.
All in all, it’s pretty cool to see just how many pleasing elements were in place today.
Just another mellow pleasing day.
A long time ago I decided that was enough for me.
