100 Things That Bring Me Joy
Sunday Dec 19, 2021 in life wellness
The 100 Joys Mini-Project
The 100 Joys List was a mini-project inspired by the presentation on Joy given by April Wensel (Compassionate Coding) during the WWCode SD Anniversary event in 2020. The goal of the project was to compile a list of 100 things that bring you joy or happiness; things you are grateful for.
How Hard Can It Be?
Somewhat hard, I would say. Especially if you take into consideration that some things may be quite similar and may or may not be considered a separate list item. For example, “chocoloate” and “chocolate ice cream” or even “running” and “trail running” could be one or two items each. Or maybe not. So if you make you own list you’ll have to set up some ground rules on how you will handle this or maybe decide on a case by case basis.
Session One [Get On With It!]
The talk was so inspirational that it stuck with me. I thought about it often throughout the months that followed and even came up with a few initial items for the list. However, I didn’t actually start my physical (i.e. digital) list until March the following year while hosting a 2-hour Get On With It! Bring Your Own Project (GOWI) session for Women Who Code.
That night I came up with 53 items for my list. The initial few really quick to add—Life, Family, Friends, Coding, Coding Job. However, as the number increased I found the rate at which a new addition was placed on the list started to grow. This was a warning that April shared during the presentation. Although, I remember thinking to myself “How hard can it be?” before actually starting the project.
My 77 Joys List
While hosting yet another a 2-hour Get On With It! Bring Your Own Project (GOWI) session for Women Who Code in June, I was able to make some more progress on my list; left untouched since March. In this session I was able to edit/clarify 3 previous list items and add another 24 items to the list. Ending with #77: Circuit Training.
The 24 item addition fell way short of the mark when compared to the initial 53 items. The time it took to select an item more than doubled. From here the difficulty increased.
My 80 Joys List
While hosting a 3-hour Get On With It! Bring Your Own Project session for Ladies of Code this time in November, I was able to make more progress on my list. In this session I was able to take a time out and add 4 more items to the list. Although I was intending to finish the list, I found that items were much harder to select at this point. Also, these 4 may have been greatly influenced by events in the session. But I’ll let you be the judge:
- Lightening Bolts
- Lightning Bolt Moments
- GOWI
- Dark Chocolate Raspberry Cream See’s
The 24 item addition fell way short of the mark when compared to the initial 53 items. The time it took to select an item more than doubled. Given this, I wondered how much longer it would take for me to finish my list.
Third Time’s A Charm
It took three more sessions for my 100 Joys list to be completed. Adding 7, 4, and 10 items, respectively. With the last item added in December at the GOWI holiday party. I finally completed my list with the last item (Cinnamon Ice Cream) resulting in a 101 Joys List.
Key Takeaway
There are a lot of things to be grateful for at any given time, both big and small. Although, some may remain constant others can appear or fade with time but the list will always be evolving and growing. Always growing.