Delightful December is a challenge to make yourself happier by eliminating negativity and focusing on the positive on social media.
There are two parts to Delightful December:
- Avoid saying anything negative on social media for the month of December.
- Every day in December, post the following:
- Something you’re grateful for
- Something in the last day that made you happy
- Something you’re looking forward to in the upcoming day
The purpose of Delightful December
One of the most well-supported ideas in psychology/self-improvement is that a gratitude journal will dramatically improve your mood.
When you write what you’re grateful for, you train yourself to focus on reasons to be happy. Which makes you happier.
But most people treat social media as an ingratitude journal.
They complain, mock, insult, and argue. They focus on all that is wrong in the world. Which trains them to be miserable.
This explains the great paradox of the modern world.
The world’s the best it’s ever been and continually getting better. There are more opportunities than ever. And the gains for the poorest and most marginalized have been the biggest of all. Even with the temporary setback of COVID.
Yet so many insist everything is terrible and getting worse, life is hopeless, and the gap between the haves and have-nots is so huge that the 99% should just give up.
My own experience with negativity
I’m guilty of this myself.
I’m open about my struggles with internet argument addiction. While I usually avoid full-blown arguments, I often make snerking comments without thinking.
I’m not proud of that. I’ve even written that people should make it a rule to avoid snerking. But I’m not perfect.
When I do this, it makes me unhappy in several ways:
- It prompts angry responses from others, which are unpleasant for me, and triggering for my addiction.
- It hurts relationships with people I care about.
- It leads to me obsessing about upsetting issues.
It might be worth sacrificing happiness for a larger goal if social media negativity improved the world. But that doesn’t happen.
Often my critical comments are about global issues we have no control over. I can’t enact policy, and neither can my Facebook friends. Our views on these issues simply don’t matter.
Moreover, insults don’t change anyone’s minds. They make people hold their views harder.
When’s the last time someone insulted your beliefs, and you said, “You’re right. My beliefs are stupid. Thank you for explaining that to me.”
I’m guessing never.
The same is true for people who disagree with you.
Attacking people doesn’t convince them. It’s just a performance with yourself as the audience, and your only reward is making yourself miserable.
The benefits of avoiding the negative
I’ve done social negativity detoxes before – Genial January, Affable April, and Jovial July. These did wonders for my happiness.
Every time I stopped myself from posting something negative on social media, I was glad I had done so. As the month went on, I broke the habit of negativity, and needed to actively stop myself less and less.
This shift away from negative perspectives made my mood much better. It also let me get much more done. I wasn’t wasting time and energy screaming at the internet or brooding over global problems, so I could do useful things instead.
Bringing a positive focus with Delightful December
Avoiding the negative is great. But I can do even better by actively focusing on the positive.
Hence the second component to Delightful December – daily positive posts.
Every day in Delightful December, I’ll post to social media:
- Something I’m grateful for, to remember the many wonderful things in the world and my life.
- Something that made me happy in the last day, to focus on the joyful immediate experiences.
- Something I’m looking forward to in the next day, because anticipation of happy experiences brings their own happiness.
These don’t have to be huge. I could be grateful I have comfortable socks, happy I pet a kitten, and looking forward to watching a TV show I like.
No matter how bad a day is, I can find something.
Conclusion
The goal of Delightful December is to make the effort to find reasons to be happy.
To turn happiness into a habit.
Because when it comes down to it, happiness is a choice.
You can’t simply choose to be happy. But you can choose to find reasons to be happy, and stop seeking out reasons to be unhappy.
Happiness is a choice.
You can’t simply choose to be happy. But you can choose to find reasons to be happy, and stop seeking out reasons to be unhappy.
I hope you’ll join me in making that choice.
Use the hashtag #DelightfulDecember with your daily posts of what you’re grateful for, what made you happy in the last day, and what you’re looking forward to in the next day.
And avoid posting anything negative throughout the month.
I love this idea is delight December, thanks so much for sharing on my thread.
Thank you for saying so!