It is time to stop the countdown
Katie Samol | The Chronicle

What is the next thing you are looking forward to?
As soon as I pose the question, I would guess an answer pops right up. Maybe it is a holiday, a school dance, a weekend, or a vacation.
This past October, I redownloaded my Countdown app and began entering upcoming events into the system so I could watch the days, hours, minutes and seconds tick down until the event I was looking forward to finally arrived. I input things like Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving break, winter break, my siblings coming home from college, my dance studio’s Nutcracker, and Christmas. Now, I look at the app and instead of seeing a ticker counting down expectantly, I am faced with the clock depressingly counting the days since my anticipated events have passed.
This time of year, I find it easy to feel like there is nothing to look forward to. With the excitement of the holidays and winter break over, we are hitting the tough stretch where I find that I ask myself “What is the point of winter now?” The things I tend to look forward to – breaks from school, birthdays, school dances, holidays – are too far out to keep me motivated. The countdown is not doing its job.
As a society, we tend to live event to event. Do not get me wrong, it is good to have something you are anticipating. According to Gretchen Rubin, an author who studies happiness and human nature, having something to look forward to makes you feel good and may also give an atmosphere of growth to your life, because it makes the future seem bright. I agree with this, but why should the present not feel bright too? I think with a perspective shift, we can focus on finding joy and brightness in the everyday. I do not need to rely on the ticking clock to find joy.
In our culture, it seems to be common to go through the week trying to survive it, waiting for the weekend. It can seem like everyone believes that life only starts when the weekend hits. This is not how life has to be. If we remain present even in mundane and everyday moments, I think we can find joy and fulfillment on a normal Tuesday when nothing spectacular happens. Only finding joy in “high” moments like when we are off of school or hanging out with friends is not our only option.
A normal day can seem pretty great if we reflect on it with gratitude. I do not mean looking at your life through rose-tinted glasses and ignoring the bad, but instead taking notice of the small joys that are sometimes forgotten in the grand scheme of things. It is time to let go of the countdown. Constantly ticking down the time and looking at the clock is doing nothing for us. Life is not meant to be lived in any moment other than this one
At the end of the day we can ask ourselves, “What brought me joy today? What made me laugh? Who did I connect with? What made me proud?” There are joyful moments, humor, connection, and things that we should be proud of ourselves for every day. With a little more presence in and appreciation for the mundane, this year we can stop chasing the next big thing. Instead, we can focus on living more normal days that bring satisfaction and joy.
I deleted my countdown app, it is time you do the same.