I started writing this Substack in the winter of 2023/24, posting a few times each week to about 25 readers at the start, inching up to 40 or so over the course the first year. Until November 2024, two years ago at this very time, when I doubled down and started talking about Tell Me 3 Good Things everywhere I went, and this Substack began to grow.
Following the election that year, I don’t know about you, but it felt to me like divisiveness and vitriol and despair were heavy in the air. We felt fractured, as a nation, and as human beings in relationship with each other.
Over and over again, I’ve said that I don’t know how to fix what’s broken in the world, but I do know that holding onto hope and beauty and love - and our connection to each other - is essential if we want to build a bright future.
And I know that this practice, where we Notice, Name + Share the simple good things of our lives with each other, is one great way to hold onto that hope and beauty and connection.
Whenever people ask me why I do this - why I write this Substack, why I send five posts a week and make paintings and reply to comments and so on - and whenever I ask myself why I do this, the answer is that it’s because I believe this simple practice can change the world. And while that might sound tongue in cheek, I’m not actually kidding.
Because when we live, work, or act from a place of fear, anxiety, outrage and overwhelm, the potential for what we can create and how we can relate to each other narrows. In contrast, when we live, work, and act from a place of possibility, of openness, love, and connection, we expand the potential for what we can create, what we can build, and how we can relate to each other.
We needed this practice in the fall of 2024. We need this practice today. And we will need it tomorrow, and next year, too.
Because we will never not need to hold onto beauty and goodness and hope. And we will always need to recognize ourselves in each other.
I’ve written before that this practice is an antidote to anxiety and overwhelm - and it is, but that’s not all that it is. It’s also a powerful act of cultural activism, a way of recalibrating and reclaiming our attention, and returning us - day after day - to the people we want to be, to the world we want to live in, to future we want to create.
This is why we practice.
Wednesday:
Democracy is alive and well.
On my walk this afternoon, the sky was bright with wispy clouds and one fat contrail running nearly vertical above the horizon, a beautiful sight. Also, it was 72 degrees and I was in short sleeves - on the fourth day of November.
My order from the art supply store arrived today, and now all of my favorite paint colors are replenished.
Now you? Tell me 3 good things?
