Here's what I learned:
1. It's hard to get decent pictures with the camera on a phone.
2. Selfies are also hard.
3. I get a lot of joy and satisfaction out of creating things.
4. My simple blog project may have only been followed by a handful of people, but I know it made a difference for a few people. When I started the project, I didn't know that would happen; I just wanted to prove to myself--and whoever else needs the proof--that there's always something to be happy about.
5. Some days, life is so hard that the things that bring happiness have to be simple, little, seemingly insignificant things. But that doesn't make them any less valuable than the things that seem bigger and better. Those bigger things are often just more memorable.
6. The most memorable happy things weren't things. They were people and the time I spent with them.
7. "Life is beautiful, especially when you are looking for the beautiful things that happen every day." The sentence concludes every blog post in this project. So, one could believe that as I was repeating the phrase day after day, it came to loose it's meaning. I actually had a keyboard shortcut for it on my phone so when I wrote each post, I didn't even type the whole sentence. I realized a few months ago that it had been a while since I thought about what I meant by that. So much of this life is good and beautiful and worthwhile. But if you aren't looking for that, it will pass you by and all there will be to remember is sadness.
8. This project isn't really over. I won't be documenting it every day anymore, but I have every intention of continuing to seek out things/moments/ideas/people that are those beautiful parts of this life.
Life is beautiful, especially when you are looking for the beautiful things that happen every day.
