Personal Best: Leaning in to life’s simple pleasures

Things that I hate: jokes, lists, irony, lists, repetition. And if I had scrawled that on a wall, then I would add vandalism. OK, we’re off piste already.

I was having breakfast with my daughter on Sunday and told her that I had another column to submit and was struggling to find a topic. The big day is looming – I’m turning 50 on St Patrick’s Day – and I’m going all ostrich on it suddenly.

Amid this plea to my daughter for inspiration as we dined out for breakfast, I also told her how it is one of my favourite times of the week. Then the light shone through the window and hit us both; we had our Blues Brothers moment and decided that I should write a list of the things that I love doing. Not all of the things, but working through a formula of the activities that would appear in the top-left quadrant of a graph where the X axis is ‘cost or effort’ and the Y axis is ‘result or reward’.

I’m definitely interested in simplifying things and making life less chaotic and I realised recently that I’m not at all bothered by the things that I would have defined as success or happiness as a younger man. And so, here’s a non-exhaustive list of 10 of my life’s simple pleasures, and their justification.

Breakfast out with my daughter

Hannah and I share a particularly daft sense of humour, and we often easily disappear down the rabbit hole in an increasingly weird conversation. Taking time away from others to just be a pair of idiots hanging out, talking bollocks and making each other laugh is heavenly. There is a cafe near where we live and we’ll grab a table there on a late Sunday morning and check in with each other properly, no screens allowed. We are fully present in the moment, undistracted and just laughing.

Finding and retelling a decent crap joke

I will refer you to the first line of this article.

Crap jokes don’t mean rubbish. I mean the dad jokes, the ones that elicit a groan, an eye-roll emoji, or a response with some well-crafted puns related to the original. At their very best they are social glue and at worst they offer a glimmer of light in the dull everyday. Either way, they make me happy.

Listening to an entire album

Spotify is great in that it exposes me to everything I can think of and gives me the ability to make lists of must-tries etc, but this is offset by the ‘stackable’ nature of listening, layered over other activities. You wander down to the shops with earphones on, just popping out.

But there is nothing quite like listening to an album from start to finish exactly as was intended on a record player with headphones on – immersing yourself into someone else’s art and not having a care in the world whilst doing it.

I can’t decide whether or not the magic is having the time to do it, or being taken on the artistic journey. Either way, it’s very low effort, and very high reward.

A long, quiet, hot bath with a smelly candle

Like the rest of us running around all over the place, I’m mostly a functional shower-in-a-hurry man. But there is a magic window on a Saturday afternoon when the kids have been dropped at their activities, my wife is out at orchestra, I’ve been to the gym and the chores are done, and I get an hour to myself to soak. It is such a joy to just turn off for a while and do some osmosis-ing. This is interchangeable with 20 minutes in the steam room at the end of a workout – which, if you are lucky enough to find the room empty, is nirvana.

A cup of tea in bed

I don’t wake up fast or particularly well, so I need something of a gentle nudge to get myself going. It used to be coffee but, with age, I’ve found that a little harsh and, nowadays, frankly jittery. So now it’s a couple of cups of green tea before the day is faced. The bed-tea complex is also where I now limit my social media use, as that time drain needs blocking.

This simple pleasure is even better if the tea is brought in – and even, even better if brought in unrequested. And in all scenarios it is the right start to the day.

Watching a box set with my boy

In a similar vein to breakfast with my daughter, this is about hanging out with the little dude, and just being. We’re watching The Walking Dead at the moment (Negan is the best baddie) and dip in and out of Jackass and a few other things that we can gently chat through and enjoy the shared experience. It is a great time to just check in and make sure he’s good.

We are lucky enough to have relationships with our kids that are such that they will tell us if something is bothering them. And we’ve learned along the way that spending time together and not forcing them with questions will instead gently surface everything that needs to come up.

Making things with my hands

I work in advertising, the media planning and buying side of the business, and it is really hard to show what we do to anyone not in the industry, so I often turn to things that produce tangible results to make me happy, whether it is putting down a floor, building a shed, painting a portrait, decorating or whatever I can set my hands to. Even if someone has to come in after to do it properly, I always have this urge to have a go. Long may it last!

Monday morning yoga

I’ve mentioned this before, and I’m still not sure about downward dog, but this week was the first Monday yoga session I missed this year and I’m feeling a degree of annoyance about it. In the more wintery months, stretching out and watching the sun come to life really felt rather magical. As with all exercise, I’ll grumble whilst doing it, but the immediate result is worth it. To start the week positively and with strength is definitely good for my soul and outlook. With the cost of just over an hour, the payback echoes for the rest of the day.

A foggy walk

I don’t mean ‘foggy’ like the day after a couple of Paddy’s Day Guinnesses, I mean proper old Hammer House of Horror slightly eerie English countryside foggy. I do love the sun, but the fog somehow frames the British countryside beautifully.

This simple pleasure is free and available nationwide practically on demand. I like to stroll, ideally, through or around old monuments, graveyards and old farms. (Definitely nowhere near The Slaughtered Lamb though.)

Farting in the car

If the list was just one thing, it would be this. Nothing has me quietly streaming tears and chuckling to myself more than driving everyone around only to quietly let one go and wait for the complaining.

Yes, I’m a child. Yes, it is stupid. But I can’t see anything ever trumping this one.

So far, 50 isn’t looking that bad. I’m happy, I’m content, I’m grateful. Slayer is still on my record player. My jeans still have holes in them. I’m wearing a Metallica shirt and I’ve just drawn a knob in someone’s daybook.

Things don’t really change, except for the gratitude of being able to enjoy the small things. I would have added Wycombe Wanderers winning, but that would have ended the list on a joke and, as you can clearly tell from the last item, I’m being more sensible and mature now.

If you’re struggling to find time for the good things in life, check out our masterclass on burnout and time management with life coach Aoife McElwain.