I recently finished reading A Beginner's Guide to Dying by Simon Boas, who died in 2024 at the age of 47. Simon wrote the book while living with terminal cancer, drawing on articles he had published in his local newspaper and expanding on his thoughts about life, death, and what really matters.
It's a remarkable little book, filled with humor, wit, and a surprisingly joyful perspective on life from someone who knew his time was limited. Several things stayed with me, but one idea in particular caught my attention. In fact, Simon returned to it more than once.
It's the happiness we can find, and create, through our everyday interactions with other people, including complete strangers.
Think about the last time someone you didn't know made your day a little better. Maybe they held the door when your hands were full, offered an unexpected compliment, smiled as you passed on the sidewalk, or struck up a conversation that left you laughing. These are such small moments, often lasting only a few seconds, yet they can change the way we feel for the rest of the day.
And what I love about Simon's perspective is that we don't have to wait for these moments to happen to us. We have the ability to create them.
We spend so much of our lives searching for happiness and fulfillment. We look for it in our relationships, careers, accomplishments, and experiences we hope to have someday. But I wonder how often we overlook the happiness that's available to us in the course of an ordinary day.
There's something wonderful about making our own day a little brighter simply by making someone else's day better. And perhaps the most beautiful part is how that happiness can spread. Someone makes us smile, and we carry that good feeling into our next conversation. One small interaction has the potential to reach far beyond the two people who shared it.
Of course, life is complicated, and happiness isn't always easy to find. There are circumstances we cannot change, losses we cannot prevent, and days when the weight of what we're carrying feels overwhelming. Simon certainly understood that. But his writing reminded me that even when we cannot control the bigger things happening in our lives, there are often little things within our reach.
We can choose to smile. We can offer kindness. We can notice another person and make them feel seen.
I finished Simon's book thinking about how much of life is made up of these seemingly insignificant moments. The big things matter, of course. But so do the little ones, and perhaps more than we realize.
What a lovely thought that we don't always have to go searching for happiness. Sometimes we can find it right in front of us. And sometimes, we can be the reason someone else finds it too.
