What did you get up to today? If you’re like me, the answer could seem routine, even mundane, on the surface: took the dog outside, made a tea before work, can’t even remember what I cobbled together for lunch, went to a boxing class after work, washed my hair, then ate chicken soup for dinner. Just another day, not bad but nothing out of the ordinary. But, what if we looked for delight, even beauty, in what we must do every day?
I read an article in the New York Times (My Antidote to Early Evening Despair) nearly a year ago when it was published and I still find myself thinking about the invitation is to find delight and beauty in the things that we must do, especially as we begin to lose daylight. The author writes:
If I love its minutiae, my life cannot be as hollow as it sometimes feels; if the material for delight is right here, surrounding me, I haven’t actually failed horribly at finding a rewarding path and place for myself.
She talks about the ritual of preparing dinner but it could be anything we must do. Walk up to the pharmacy for that prescription, cutting up an apple for a snack, sitting in front of a fan to stay cool on a hot day. And for me, this is more than about mindfulness. It’s a practice of bringing your body into the moment, too. Yoga is a practice and vehicle for tuning into our internal and external landscapes.
I still think about a time I was living in Minneapolis. It was a very cold day, as is typical in the belly of winter in Minnesota. I was walking downtown and saw a man standing in the bus shelter under the heat lamp. But he wasn’t on his phone, the standard mechanism for passing time until the bus showed up. His face was turned up toward the lamp, the heated red light casting a warm glow across his closed eyes and smiling face. This was truly someone finding delight in what he must do, and that is keep warm on a snowy, cold day in Minneapolis.
Like many of us living in the world in 2026, being overwhelmed, anxious, depressed, or a blend of all the things, has become the baseline. And so, it seems to have become even more necessary, as a form of self-care and mental health support, to have grace, slow down, and find beauty in what this moment has to offer, and bring it into mind and body. And as the author of the article says, it’s a practice and process of learning.
After a lifetime struggling with clinical depression, I accept that I won’t always feel well adjusted. So I’ve learned — am still learning — to seek intersections of what I must do and what I find beautiful or delightful, what makes life worth living.
So, when and if you remember, as you run through your to-do list tomorrow, pause and invite yourself to find beauty in whatever that moment has to offer. Let yourself linger there.
