How I Am Committing to Celebration

It might seem like a dick move to be talking about celebration when we're rounding the one-year mark of the COVID-19 pandemic. After we've lost so much, as we miss more birthdays and anniversaries, postpone weddings and drastically alter the way we mark transitions, what place does celebration have in our lives?

I'll be honest: I am…not great at looking back—especially at the good stuff. I tend to keep my eyes peeled for the next thing to do or change or fix, looking back only to see where it's gone wrong and how to keep that from happening again. I tend to gloss over the accomplishment and glom on to the mistakes. Suffice it to say, optimism is not my strong suit.

I decided years ago that I wanted to be better, more intentional, about congratulating myself and cultivating a less cynical attitude to my accomplishments. But so far, nothing's stuck. I've tried gratitude journals, but it's not yet become a true habit. It feels both too small and too daunting. I've tried booking lunches with friends to share our weekly wins and big dreams. (I'm sure you can imagine how that's going right now.)

After the year we've all had, I was surprised to find myself coming back to the idea of celebration in the last few months. Wouldn't it be flashy and insensitive? Quiet, reflective gratitude would appear to be the better choice, wouldn't it? So why did those attempts ring even more hollow than before?

When I couldn't find the answers in my own head, it was time to see what was out there on celebration: How it connected to gratitude and how it was different. Maybe this would help me figure out why now felt right to focus on celebrating when there seems both little to celebrate and many barriers to actually celebrating.

I think I was, indeed, on to something. I saw some common threads on how we can celebrate, even in the middle of *gestures vaguely* all of this. It doesn't need to be flashy or inconsiderate. It might even be helpful.

Mark it

This was the big mental shift for me. Celebration takes gratitude to the next level. It's more than just noticing the good things; it's taking time to acknowledge them. Maybe for some folks, the act of keeping a gratitude journal is enough to feel like acknowledging, but I need more. However…

Record it

It's important to keep a record of the things you're celebrating—big and small. For me, this goes beyond those things I am grateful for. It's also about remembering all the things that I did, all the good change I have seen. If I naturally see and remember all the garbage (and boy howdy, do I), taking the time to record the good stuff is helping me create some sorely needed balance.

Encourage it

I don't know about you, but part of the reason I love celebration is because I'm usually celebrating other people. Weddings, new jobs, baby showers, promotions, graduations, birthdays—I get to celebrate these for other people way more often than myself, so I can't believe I missed this one. The pandemic has completely changed our ways of celebrating, so now it's about making sure I don't miss another chance to reach out and celebrate others.

Share it

And this is where I find the heart of why celebration felt like the right focus in 2021. Sharing with each other helps lessen our troubles and expand our joys. There are plenty of supposed proverbs that tout this idea, and couldn't we all use less sorrow and more joy these days?  I am far better at sharing the sorrow to divide it than I am at sharing the joy to multiply it—and it's time to change that.

Schedule it

This came up everywhere when I was looking at celebration practices. It's so easy to skip celebration when we have so much happening all at once. Yet adding more things to our calendars can feel indulgent or overwhelming. I, for one, am great at overloading my expectations and/or calendar, and then immediately abandoning the attempt when I start to fail. (See again: gratitude journaling and weekly celebration lunches.) So this time I've added celebration habits at different times—and hopefully they're correctly sized for how often I plan to do them.

I'm excited to say that I now have weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly celebration time set aside in my calendar. And they all tie back to the other key points to celebrating. Not only will I be taking time to mark the celebrations, I am recording the little victories and making sure I look for the bigger wins instead of just moving on to the next project. There will be more thank you cards in my future, and I'll be taking the time to publicly celebrate others too.

So have I convinced you that celebration is a great way to double our joys in a time where they can be hard to see? Or have I just convinced you that I'm a naïve fool, hooked on toxic positivity? Tell me what you think!