Look Again

Here's a simple one. The next time you're in a room that you spend a lot of time in--maybe the room you're in right now--do this little exercise.

Look around carefully at each thing that's there, the things you don't notice on a daily basis. Take stock of what each is.

Ask yourself why it's there, or why you put it there, or what you do with it. Ask yourself if it's pretty, ugly, functional, useless, or something else. In other words, reassess the things you don't notice. Dopamine buries our appreciation for the everyday, the quotidian, the normal. Some of the things we stop noticing are pretty amazing. If you purposefully choose to consider them, you'll find happiness in a way you didn't expect.