What if you haven’t experienced your favorite day yet?
On curiosity, possibility, and the extraordinary beauty of an ordinary day
I’ve always had a theory about the best days of my life. They rarely begin with a plan. When I look back at some of my happiest memories, they’re often the days when absolutely nothing was scheduled. No reservations, appointments, particular destination, or itinerary telling me where I needed to be at 2:15. Just a day waiting to unfold.
I call these my shuffling days, when we shuffle our feet from one experience to the next without worrying about the time or what we should be doing instead. We might start with coffee, followed by a walk that turns into an unexpected conversation. We stumble upon somewhere we’ve never been, run into an old friend, or laugh so hard that we forget what was funny in the first place. Somehow, without anyone organizing a single thing, the day becomes spectacular.
I often recognize how wonderful these days are while I’m living them. Sometimes it’s a quiet realization in the middle of an afternoon; other times, it’s at the end of the evening when I think, “Goodness, that was a really great day.” Nothing particularly remarkable needed to happen. I simply enjoyed being there for all of it. Could some of the most beautiful experiences of our lives be the ones we never see coming? Could our favorite day still be ahead of us?
We have an interesting habit of dividing our lives into chapters, then assigning certain chapters more significance than others. Childhood, college, falling in love, marriage, having children, building a career. We look back at photographs, reminisce about adventures, and occasionally declare that those were the best years of our lives. But how could we possibly know when we haven’t experienced the rest of them?
At 35, you might meet someone who changes the direction of your life. At 52, you could discover a passion you never knew you had. At 73, you might make a friend who becomes one of your favorite people. And at 98, you might wake up one morning and have the most wonderful Tuesday of your entire life. I love that thought.
We tend to associate possibility with youth, as though it gradually expires with age. Our circumstances, bodies, responsibilities, and opportunities evolve, yet our capacity to discover, connect, learn, laugh, and love doesn’t have an expiration date. Sometimes all it takes to make a day unforgettable is the right conversation, a familiar song playing at exactly the right moment, or an unexpected afternoon with someone we love.
Here’s a thought I find particularly fascinating. Somewhere in your future, there may be a photograph that will eventually become one of your most treasured possessions. You haven’t taken it yet. The people in it might already be part of your life, or they might be people you haven’t met. It could capture friends laughing around a table, an adventure you haven’t imagined, or an ordinary moment that becomes precious because of what it eventually means to you.
Think about the people who’ve shaped your life. At one point, most of them were strangers. Your closest friend, your spouse or partner, a teacher who changed your direction, someone who helped you through a difficult time. There was a day before you knew each of them existed, and then there was a day when your lives crossed.
Years ago, I read a passage in Nicholas Sparks’s A Bend in the Road about fate intersecting with ordinary life. I couldn’t remember the exact words, but the feeling stayed with me. Think about everything that had to happen for two people to meet: the years they were born, the places they went, the decisions that brought them to the same place at precisely the same moment. Change one detail, and perhaps their paths never cross. Isn’t that remarkable? And how many meaningful relationships might still be waiting to enter our lives?
For years, through yoga, meditation, and the work Adam and I do, I’ve encouraged people to practice presence, to stop living in yesterday’s memories or tomorrow’s worries and return to the moment they’re actually experiencing. Wouldn’t imagining our favorite day somewhere in the future contradict that philosophy?
I don’t think it does, because there’s a wonderful relationship between curiosity and presence. Think about children. A caterpillar crossing the sidewalk can become a major event. A cardboard box can provide an entire afternoon of entertainment. A puddle is practically an invitation. Children become absorbed in whatever captures their attention. They haven’t yet decided which experiences are worth noticing and which are too ordinary to matter.
As adults, we become wonderfully efficient at categorizing things. We’ve seen it, done it, and know how it works. Familiarity can begin replacing wonder, but curiosity helps us recover some of that wonder. Despite everything we’ve already experienced, we genuinely don’t know what might happen next. And isn’t that exciting?
Just recently, I walked in to teach a yoga class scheduled for 9:15 in the morning. I walked out at 11:55, nearly three hours later! Nobody planned for that; the morning simply unfolded through movement, conversation, and connection. We had the freedom to continue, so we did. I walked away thinking about how much I love those experiences.
Of course, we have responsibilities, schedules, and people counting on us. We can’t abandon everything whenever an interesting conversation begins. But I wonder how often we overlook beautiful moments because we’ve already decided what kind of day we’re having.
We wake up on a Monday, glance at our schedules, and determine that the day will be exhausting before we’ve even gotten out of bed. Or we approach an ordinary weekend assuming nothing particularly interesting will happen. Our expectations begin shaping our attention, and our attention shapes so much of what we experience.
I have a saying I’ve used for as long as I can remember: “The world is our oyster.” I say it when I’m feeling especially free, when there’s a giant question mark in the air, I don’t have the answers, and the possibilities seem endless. I don’t need an adventure planned or even to know what I’m doing next. It’s a wonderful feeling of openness, as though life has left the door wide open and invited me to wander through.
Why reserve that feeling for special occasions? We could wake up on an ordinary Monday, look at the same schedule that usually makes us groan, and remind ourselves, “The world is our oyster.” Our responsibilities haven’t disappeared, but we haven’t lived the day yet. We have no idea which conversation might make us laugh, who might surprise us, or what little moment we’ll carry home.
Some days are genuinely difficult. Life doesn’t always give us the freedom to shuffle our feet wherever we please. Still, something wonderful might find its way into an otherwise ordinary day: a call from an old friend, a conversation that stretches far beyond the coffee you planned, or the realization, while sitting beside someone you love, that there’s nowhere else you’d rather be.
Imagine meeting the person you’ll become ten years from now. What might that person understand that you haven’t figured out yet? Which experiences might have changed their perspective, and what might they find hilarious about the things you’re worrying about today?
We spend considerable time reflecting on who we used to be, sometimes with pride, sometimes with regret. But we’re still becoming. Every experience, relationship, discovery, and unexpected turn contributes to who we are. Some of the most interesting things we’ll ever learn about ourselves may still be ahead. I find that enormously encouraging.
I don’t know whether my favorite day has already happened. I’ve certainly experienced some extraordinary ones. But I love the possibility that somewhere ahead of me is another day I’ll someday look back on with the same affection.
It could involve traveling somewhere beautiful, watching my daughters experience something wonderful, or meeting someone who changes how I understand the world. Then again, I might wake up on an ordinary Sunday, drink my coffee, shuffle my feet through the day, and discover that I wouldn’t have wanted to spend it any other way.
I don’t need to know. In fact, I think that’s part of the beauty. Life is constantly unfolding, whether we’re paying attention or not. Believing our favorite day might still be ahead of us can help us approach each day with a little more curiosity, more willing to be surprised, more interested in the people around us, and more aware of the extraordinary possibilities hiding within perfectly ordinary moments.
So the next time you wake up and begin deciding what kind of day it’s going to be, give yourself a moment before making that judgment. Smile, remember that the world is your oyster, and leave a little room for life to surprise you.
After all, what if you haven’t experienced your favorite day yet? And what if it’s today?