What Did Neil Pasricha Start Counting After the Worst Year of His Life?

In 2008, Neil Pasricha's best friend committed suicide. His marriage was falling apart. He was 29 years old and had no roadmap for grief.

So he started a blog. One post per day. Each post about one small thing that was awesome.

Bakery air. When you hit a string of green lights. Snow days. The smell of rain on hot pavement. Finding money in your old coat pocket.

He didn't pretend life wasn't hard. He counted anyway. One thousand things, one at a time, across three years of some of the worst days of his life.

The blog became a book. The book became a bestseller. But that's not the point.

The point is that he made a decision — not to be happy, but to notice. To look for the thing worth counting even on the days when counting felt impossible. That's not optimism as a personality type. It's optimism as a practice. As a choice.

What would you count today, if you started keeping track?