All the Small Things Really Add Up
“Savoring is the process of up-regulating positive emotions by redirecting your attention in the moment to stimuli or events that lead to the experience of positive emotions… savoring is a strategy we can use to experience more frequent… positive emotions by repeatedly drawing our attention to the experiences and sensations in our present environment that make us happy, proud, grateful, and connected.” (Cheavens, Feldman, 2022, p. 133)
When Blink-182 members Tom DeLonge and Mark Hoppus released their album “Enema of the State” in 1999, one of the most renowned pop-punk albums in recent history, they included a track that they had written which truly exemplifies the positive psychological principle of savoring — “All the Small Things.” This thought pervaded my mind this morning as I was preparing to blog and wondering just what would be an appealing subject to discuss. After a bit of pondering, listening to Spotify, and re-reading course material, I realized that, though today is still young, it has nonetheless been occupied by a multitude of “small things” that could elicit pleasure. Last night was incredibly difficult, as I knew that I would need to get up at an early hour but found myself unable to sleep due to a sudden onslaught of nerve pain. When I was brusquely awoken this morning, the first words that I heard were, “you need to get up — we have to leave in five minutes” and “wow, you look rough” (and I certainly felt rough, too!) I did not even have time to grab the extra insulin that I needed before it was time to go. Perhaps just as badly, I received an incredibly unpleasant phone call from a disagreeable debt collector asking me about medical bills. It had all the warning signs of being an exhausting day — feeling like more of a sequence of air raid sirens than a couple of red flags. It undoubtedly started off rather difficult, and I am still quite exhausted, but there have been many positive things that occurred and I have been trying my best to savor them.
Firstly, I had the opportunity to get an iced espresso on my way into the library — caffeine may act as a placebo to me and not really do much, but I honestly relish any that I can get. It was cold and bitter… in other words, just what I needed. Next, I realized that one of my all-time favorite Twitch streamers was live (she is immensely sweet and talented, so you should absolutely go follow her at twitch.tv/cirilla_vt and youtube.com/@ciri_ → and if you have Amazon Prime, you get a free subscription every month to use on a Twitch channel when you link your account) and got to catch the end of her stream, which, without fail, always improves my day tremendously. Lastly, I am finally going to see the new Spider-Man movie tonight — something that I have been looking forward to for a couple of weeks now. So, despite the rough beginning of the day, all the small things have started to turn it around — and that is something to savor.
Word Count: 521
References:
Cheavens, J. S., & Feldman, D. B. (2022). The science and application of positive psychology. Cambridge University Press.
