Love the Little Details in Every Ordinary Day
When was the last time you thought about the little details of each day? Not important events, like anniversaries, birthdays, or celebrations, but just the simple everyday happenings.
Most of us love the little details because they feed our strength, our humility, our greatness, our bonds, and our feelings.
The little things strengthen attachments and support our relationships with daily care, attention, and affection.
The little details make all the difference
The little details make a difference. They help us to feel the comfort that comes with feeling loved without needing cinematic proclamations or heroes that save us from the claws of a dragon.
True heroism means leaving a mark with little gestures, planting kindness to harvest greatness. In the end, what’s important is our ability to recognize the richness in each day.
We hope day after day that we’ll win the lottery, that a miracle will turn our lives around, but we realize that the true prize is found in the things we’re already able to enjoy each day.
For example: a kiss, a hug, a conversation with someone special, a favorite meal, following the path to a dream, an exciting movie, the happiness of being greeted by a dog, an afternoon watching a movie with popcorn and blankets, fantasies and ambitions, reading a good book in good company.
We can enjoy all these “little things” every day and not even realize it. We think what’s important is going on a diet, going to the gym, or finishing the report we need to do for work. That’s all well and good, but what’s truly important is that the pages of our calendars don’t fall away without us having collected moments and reasons to smile.
Start collecting emotional memories to enjoy the little details
If we make an effort to collect emotional memories, we’ll be able to enjoy the little things, which will help to strengthen our bonds and to feel better in general each day.
To do so, we can start a diary in which we write down all of the details that we enjoyed that day and connect them to our emotions.
In fact, on top of that, we can create a love map that floods us with little and beautiful details of life and the people we love the most. But, what is a love map ?
According to psychologist John Gottman, a love map is a list of the special things that we should know about the people that we love. Knowing these details explicitly will help us be more attentive to the daily opportunities we have to show affection towards them. Creating a love map about someone we love leaves an imprint in our minds that makes it easier to recall all the things we love about them.
What should you know about creating a love map?
When you create a love map, you should get answers to questions like the following:
- What is their favorite meal?
- What are their favorite movies, TV shows, or books?
- Which two people do they admire deeply? Why?
- What are their favorite animals?
- What is the first thing they would buy if they won the lottery?
- What can you do to improve your relationship with them?
- Where would they like to travel?
- What do they especially enjoy?
- What would they want to change about themselves? About others?
- How do they prefer to spend an afternoon at home?
- What are their desires and ambitions?
- Which tasks do they feel most competent at?
- What would they like to improve in their lives?
- What kind of books do they like to read? When do they like to read?
- Which magazines interest them?
- What is their favorite thing to do when they’re sick and can’t leave home?
- What would their ideal gift be?
- What do they really worry or feel especially troubled about?
- What reasons do they have to feel proud of themselves?
With these types of questions, we can create a huge love map that will help us to appreciate the little details of each day, which is necessary to make the people we love feel special, unique, and irreplaceable.
Images courtesy of Puung