As I walked into my yoga class today the instructor asked me the following question: What’s the best thing that happened to you today?

People have accused me of being too literal, of over-thinking, and of other general traits wherein I take something apparently simple and make it difficult. I’ll run through my thoughts about that question and then you let you decided if I do exhibit such traits.

So, what did I think when asked that seemingly simple question?

Today is the day I published my new website and that was pretty nice but the act of publishing was not a particularly great accomplishment. All the work I did in making it, building the pages, styling, creating the navigation, writing the content, and more led up to a relatively simple moment.

Once the site was published came the task of trying to figure what was wrong, with the help of Dave Mueller, and fixing it. Eventually most of the mistakes were ironed out but a few tasks need still be finished.

So I asked myself, what was the best part of all of that, and was any of it better than the fact that on a snowy, blustery, bad driving sort of day I timed every light perfectly and barely slowed down all the way from my driveway to my favorite parking spot at work?

So much happens to us in a day and most of it is good. The alarm goes off when it could have failed. The power stayed on overnight and everything was warm when I awoke despite the cold outside. Was this the “best” thing that happened to me all day? For if the power went out and I woke to a frozen house with bursting pipes,well certainly that would have been much worse than delaying my website for a day.

Many people when asked about the best thing that ever happened to them will recall weddings, graduations, births of children, and things of this nature but none of them happened in isolation from the rest of life. You did not instantly marry your spouse but made a series of decisions, presumably good ones, that led to that moment. Is there in fact such a thing as a best thing in a day or a life?

Each incident is part of the whole. How am I to rank them? In my drive to work which of the several green lights I arrived at in succession was the best? Were they all equal? Was the last the best? The first?

I ran these thoughts by my yoga instructor who looked at me with wide eyes, I didn’t think I was asking that complicated a question, she said.

That’ll teach her. Ha!

Then I realized my answer. The question was the answer. For the question inspired me to think, and thinking is the thing I love the most. It also inspired me to write this blog and I truly enjoy writing this blog.

What’s the best thing that happened to you today?

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Ideology
Current Release: The Spear of the Hunt
Next Release: The Broken Throne