30 perfect days
Julie Zhuo, writing about the book Chasing Daylight, talks about a question the author poses in the book.
“If I told you to aim to create 30 Perfect Days, could you? How long would it take? Thirty days? Six months? Ten years? Never?”
This question is a different spin on the concept of too many bad days in a row that Steve Jobs talks about in his famous talk at Stanford. He talks about how he asks himself each morning in the mirror whether he’s excited about the day ahead of him and when the answer is ‘No’ for too many days in a row, he knows it’s time to change something.
The idea of 30 perfect days is similar. Looking back at how our day went, we can reflect on whether it would qualify as a ‘perfect day’. And then make an observation as to how many calendar days we need to get to 30 such perfect days.
Expanding on what a perfect day is, Julie Zhuo says that it’s a day that is filled with perfect moments. And she describes a perfect moment thusly:
“See, a Perfect Moment is one that you utterly and wholly feel, where the very concept of time recedes into the distance. It’s where both you and your surroundings are alive, brimming with tiny details of mesmerizing beauty. It’s when you bask in the bliss of the present and choose the very best version of the truth to wrap around yourself. It’s the languorous breath, the feeling of the sun on your skin, the treasures of the past, the laugh of your companions. It’s the gift of choosing how you want to savor the instant.”
The key takeaway from that is that the perfect moment is a feeling. That is, it is practically all in our head. And we have full control over defining what a perfect moment is for us, as we have full control of how we react to the situation that we are in.
Reflecting back on my days to see if it was filled with perfect moments is a fantastic idea and the beginning of a new year is as good a time as any to come across this idea.
I think I’ll be tracking my days to see how long it takes me to hit 30 perfect days.
