What positive events have taken place in your life over the past year?

I get asked similar questions at work.

“What’s something positive that has happened this week?”

“What successes have you had recently?”

So, you would think answering this question would be easy for me, but it’s kind of difficult because I always try to see the positive side of things even when they go bad. I usually do that to help those around me not feel so defeated or beaten by the challenge they’re facing, so in that regard it’s beneficial.

But now, looking at this prompt, I’m seeing that in doing this ‘silver lining’ perspective so often I elevate the negative events which makes them seem less bad, and subsequently I am mentally devaluing positive events a bit. Balancing everything like this makes it hard to pinpoint a memory of something I could talk about as a “positive event”. It’s like that meme of Syndrome from The Incredibles.

Beyond this, though, I also have to over analyze the prompt itself and think about what qualifies as ‘events’. So I have to stop and remind myself that no matter the scale or magnitude of importance, everything at any given time is an event.

At least, that’s how I’m going to look at it for this question.

Alright, anyways, here. A short list for you all of some positive events in my life this year.

• My roommates (one of my best friends and his partner) brought a little baby boy into the world. He is adorable and gets the biggest smile when I pop in and say “Hi!”
• Got news at work that a promotion is finally in the works for my team (which my manager has been working on the past few years)
• I fixed my motorcycle and got to ride it a handful of times after neglecting it for a few years
• Had one of my other best friends visit a couple of times
• I proved to myself that I have the capacity for sitting down and writing enough to meet the 50k word goal for NaNoWriMo, even though I didn’t hit the goal this year.
• I got to have a couple of my favorite burritos from the little family-owned burrito place near where I grew up in Colorado

Looking back, I think I need to do more to celebrate my successes and positive events so that they aren’t so hard to pick out. Well, maybe next year.