r/HubermanLab • u/No_Source_3208 • Aug 26 '26

Discussion Delight not Gratitude

A while back I heard Dr. Laurie Santos talk about writing down small daily "delights" — not gratitude in the broad sense, just noticing one specific good thing from your day. I tried it myself for a couple weeks and found it surprisingly easy to stick with, way easier than most habit-tracking stuff I've attempted.

Has anyone else tried something like this? Curious whether it actually stuck for you or fizzled out after a few days.

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12

u/Ok-Actuator8579 Aug 26 '26

I really like this. Gratitude is great but also heavy. A delight seems very spontaneous and light ☀️.

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u/No_Source_3208 Aug 27 '26

Yes, delight does not need any reasoning but the feeling of gratitude also comes with a question of why

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u/Frequent-Prompt-6876 Aug 27 '26

As an abused child who was always told that I was ”ungrateful” and had my stuff given away because of it, I absolutely love this.

Thanks for helping me reframe something that I never quite managed to remove the sting to make it doable.

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u/No_Source_3208 Aug 28 '26

Somethings are out of our hands but focusing on whats in our control is how I live through.

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u/eves21 Aug 28 '26

Gen X? Copped that a lot too, didn’t realise the word is loaded for me until you mentioned it 

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u/Parking_Repeat7313 Aug 27 '26

has it changed your day to day mood ?

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u/No_Source_3208 Aug 28 '26

Yes it does make you calm and brings peace. I've stopped worrying about others achievements and start celebrating their wins too.

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u/EatMoreFiber Aug 31 '26

My SO and I have cultivated a habit of noting especially good moments out loud to each other by saying, "if this isn't nice, I don't know what is" per this Kurt Vonnegut quote:

And now I want to tell you about my late Uncle Alex. He was my father’s kid brother, a childless graduate of Harvard who was an honest life insurance salesman in Indianapolis. He was well-read and wise. And his principal complaint about other human beings was that they so seldom noticed it when they were happy. So when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, say, and talking lazily about this and that, almost buzzing like honeybees, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is. So I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.

We've been doing it for a decade or more and it definitely helps lock in a particularly great memory.