How to Celebrate Life Every Day and Make Each Day Count

Life is brimming with magical holidays, special events, and occasions worth celebrating. But beyond those unique occasions, in the space in between, lies something even more precious: the joy of celebrating life every day.

Each day is a gift, and learning to receive that gift enthusiastically with your whole self opens doors to joy, fun, a sense of peace, and connecting with others. Here’s how it works.

Why You Should Celebrate Life Every Day

Celebrating life daily can take many forms. Sometimes it’s something easily recognizable as celebrating, such as throwing a party or dancing with loved ones. Sometimes it’s something sillier than that, like making up a new holiday complete with its own rules, thematic colors, and unique rituals. Other times, celebrating can be subtler, like telling someone how much you appreciate them or sitting out on your porch to enjoy a summer storm.

For me, celebrating often involves colorful lights, fun music, and moderately priced Irish whiskey. But it certainly doesn’t have to, for me or anyone else. 

There’s no right way to celebrate life. The means are as diverse as the celebrants and can continually evolve. What’s most important is the attitude you bring to it. Celebrating life means being thankful for what you have and optimistic about what is to come; it means respecting traditions and novelty alike. It means bringing yourself fully into each day, ready to absorb all it has to offer you. Here’s why.

Boundless Opportunities to Be Happy

Think back to a memory that brings you joy. Maybe it’s a family trip, a special birthday, a visit to somewhere new, or a cherished holiday. Each of these was a celebration, and celebrating the things around us makes us feel happier!

Typically when we celebrate a specific person or event, it is a reminder to be grateful we have that positive force in our lives. Gratitude centers our attention on what is good in our lives, amplifying its potency.

The great news is that we don’t need to wait for a particular date on the calendar to be thankful for the beautiful things in our lives. Instead, a habit of regularly celebrating gives you endless opportunities to be appreciative of all that goodness. 

Peaceful Appreciation

We spend a lot of our lives pursuing things: a better job, a bigger house, new stuff to fill it with, etc. Expressing thankfulness for what you have by celebrating helps you to wake up excited for each new day. 

Celebrating your blessings makes them burn all the brighter and can even bring new ones your way. When you make a habit of leaning into the good in life this way, it shifts your attention away from the negative and can make you feel far more peaceful.

Consciously and actively enjoying where you are and what you have empowers you to quit running on that endless treadmill.

Inspiring Others to Feel Joy

Choosing optimism is inspirational to others. Making a habit of choosing a more fun and enjoyable path through your life has the power to change your life and the lives of others around you, too.

Joy is simply contagious. Try to hang out near someone who is having a great time, being silly, dancing the night away, or enjoying a special occasion without feeling that joy yourself. You may succeed for a while, but no one can resist it forever.

How to Make Every Day Special

Life will always come with adversity, struggles, and all manner of nonsense for which we deserve to be entirely ungrateful. Yet every morning, we each wake up with the opportunity to love ourselves, let go of old pains, and turn our focus toward the sunshine. 

Of course, it is essential to reflect on the difficult things in life and occasionally do the hard work necessary to move through them. Usually, overcoming these challenges means letting go of what no longer serves us and moving on to everything around us that is worth our energy. Here’s how.

Express Gratitude

Expressing gratitude continues to be one of the most powerful ways to embrace optimism and adopt an improved sense of well-being. Thanking your deity or higher power of choice for all you have helps you appreciate those things.

There are many ways to practice being grateful. For example, many people like to write down their thanks in a gratitude journal, while others may recite or affirm their thankfulness aloud. But, again, the crucial point here is not to do something the right way; it’s to appreciate as much of your life as you can, as fully and enthusiastically as possible.

Find the Beauty in the Ordinary

If you find yourself celebrating a special occasion or significant holiday, that’s terrific. But landmark days like these are far from our only opportunities to celebrate and give thanks.

Practicing positive thinking and adopting an attitude of gratitude can reveal many beautiful things that we might otherwise take for granted: a wonderful meal, a funny idea, a game, indeed almost anything. We can even learn to practice positivity in negative circumstances with the right mindset.

When going about your daily life, don’t wait for the universe to give you a reason to celebrate; instead, learn to discover and create your own.

Celebrate With Loved Ones

While each of us is a complete person and fully capable of enjoying and celebrating life on our own, there is potential to add new layers of joy by involving family and friends in your celebrations.

Happy people attract other happy people, who in turn can feed further smiles and laughter. Consider this when cultivating your practice of gratefully appreciating life. Don’t hesitate to share the gift of celebration with anyone willing to receive it.

Show Unreasonable Kindness

Compassion is an underrated virtue and tends to benefit everyone with whom it comes into contact.

Some holidays seek to remind us of the importance of particular virtues. For example, Christmas leans heavily on the importance of generosity and kindness to others. Likewise, Thanksgiving is an entire occasion dedicated to the spirit of gratitude. 

But what if we didn’t limit these virtues and feelings to specific times of the year? Breaking down the barriers of when you can celebrate enables you to break down the limits on experiencing the positive emotions that come with celebration. 

Give in to Silliness

We learn one of life’s most precious ways to feel good very early, usually before we have even learned to speak or walk. That magical gift is silliness. Silliness is a superpower that enables one to turn the most mundane and ordinary moments into a wellspring of delight.

Unfortunately, as we age, we adapt to various cultural norms and rules of etiquette, and we allow this gift of silliness to fade slowly. But we each still have that flame within us, waiting to be stoked back to life.

Embrace the unconventional. Create the unexpected. Instead of waiting for life to drop fun into your lap, create it for yourself wherever you go. With this, you can turn any moment into a daily celebration. 

Let’s Start Celebrating Every Day Together

I cannot tell you precisely what celebrating means or looks like for you. But, I can tell you that you deserve to — and should — do it as often and as enthusiastically as possible. Of course, there will always be bad stuff out there and problems for us to solve, and we’ll get to those too, don’t you worry. But for this moment, bring your full attention to all the beautiful things, days, and people in your life that are well worth celebrating, and then do it. 

If you wait until you’ve solved every problem and won every battle, you’ll miss out on all the opportunities for joy and excitement. Celebrate life every day, in whatever way it calls to you.