On Having Something to Look Forward To

Dearest Reader,

There is a great deal to be said for having something ahead of you.

Not necessarily something impressive.

A journey may do, certainly. So may a celebration, an important opportunity, or the arrival of someone whose company you enjoy. But people are often mistaken in believing anticipation must be reserved for occasions worthy of photographs.

A breakfast you have been thinking about since Tuesday can be remarkably effective.

So can a book waiting beside the bed. A parcel expected in the post. A garden beginning to bloom. An evening for which you have made no plans beyond enjoying it.

These things may appear insignificant to those who have become accustomed to measuring happiness by scale.

They are not.

Something curious happens when a person has a small pleasure waiting somewhere in the future. Ordinary days acquire direction. Difficult weeks become less consuming. One remembers that the present circumstance, however tedious, is not the only thing that exists.

The future need not contain a grand transformation to be worth approaching.

In fact, I suspect people would be considerably happier if they stopped requiring their lives to become extraordinary before allowing themselves to anticipate them.

There is wisdom in arranging small reasons to be pleased that tomorrow is coming.

One should have a few.

Not for productivity. Not as reward for having endured enough. Simply because a life containing things one is glad to reach is generally more enjoyable than one spent waiting for happiness to arrive uninvited.

And if there is presently nothing you are looking forward to, perhaps that is worth noticing.

The future is much too large to leave entirely unattended.

Yours most sincerely,

Lady Staywell