23 Wonderful Things That Made Me Happy in 2020

This has been a very fucked up year for a lot of people in this country and around the world. With that being the case, I am choosing to go in a different direction with my thought process.

I am listing 23 things that made me happy in 2020. Let’s focus on the positive for a bit.

Here goes:

1. My cousin proposed to his super amazing girlfriend during the very first minute of the new year.
2. Journaling every day which allowed me to focus on very positive things.
3. Taking my daughter to see Brahms: The Boy II in an actual movie theater on February 29, two weeks before the country shutdown.
4. My Daughter and I watching a Bucks/Lakers game then the new Hillary Clinton docuseries on March 6.
5. My Daughter turning 200 months old and me filming a video of her in the same manner as one I filmed in 2011 when she turned 100 months old.
6. My 43rd birthday on April 1st and all the love and thoughtfulness that I received in the form of calls, texts, voicemails, online messages and comments from tons of people.
7. Launching my daily writing habit on April 4th which resulted in a 129,000 word manuscript, about 200 articles written and a renewed level of focus and productivity that I’ve never had.
8. Michael Jordan’s hilarious responses to former basketball rivals and their comments about him in the amazing docuseries, The Last Dance.
9. Watching Scoob on Amazon Prime with Daughter on May 15th since the shutdown was in full effect and theaters were closed.
10. Daughter getting me hooked on The Walking Dead (causing me to binge watch all 9 seasons available on Netflix), then 13 Reasons Why.
11. The unbelievably thoughtful and loving cards that I received from my daughter and her younger siblings on Father’s Day.
12. Launching my daily reading habit at the end of June with 5 minutes of reading per day, which increased to its current 1 hour of reading per day (I’ve read 19 physical books so far).
13. Launching my daily audiobook habit which has resulted in 22 audiobooks “read” so far since June.
14. Achieving what was a huge, self imposed challenge for me during the month of June: Zero alcohol for the entire month. First time in 20 years.
15. Somehow managed to achieve an even more difficult, self imposed challenge in the month of July: Zero fast food (including all restaurants) for the entire month. Never happened in my history (past age 5) previous to that.
16. Spending the morning and afternoon with Daughter on her 17th birthday on July 10th. Awesome day.
17. Announcing my “retirement” from drinking alcohol, effective September 1st.
18. Watching my daughter do an excellent job during her job interview via Zoom on September 12th. She was hired that day and started her first ever job six days later.
19. Finally went to the gym to work out on the morning of September 21st for the first time in more than a year. That led to a consistent commitment which has now become 61 workouts in 14 weeks (5 days per week for the past 10 weeks) at the YMCA and 65 workouts overall.
20. Invested in myself multiple times in buying important digital courses.
21. Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the presidential election.
22. Watching my daughter evolve as a young woman in the three months since she started her job.
23. Challenged myself to launch my podcast, web series, digital course, email list, and publish 100 articles — all in the month of December!

What about you? How many awesome things happened in your life that made you smile this year? Leave your answers in the comments!