“These are the good old days” - Carly Simon (Anticipation, 1971)

I’m as guilty as anyone. I can allow myself to focus on what I don’t have, what I am working to create, to be. I can fall into a “deficiency loop” that places me squarely on the hamster wheel of wanting “more.”

Our dopamine motivation system (addictively) enforces such rumination.

But we can also consciously, intentionally reframe our mindset to transform feelings of lack into revelations of abundance.

This Is What You’re Missing

We are so focused on the next great adventure, the next vacation, the weekend, that we fail to grasp the lesson of hindsight’s perfect vision:

Your life is happening right now, not “someday,” and it provides some pretty great moments.

But we don’t see them until we look back.

Part of it is escapism; the drive to break free from the mindless grind that consumes so much of so many of our days.

Part of it is the anticipation of that next dopamine hit (which itself is generated by anticipation, not reward), the frequently empty promise of “coming soon.”

And—tragically—much of it is a factor of our infinitesimal attention spans: we just don’t notice our lives as they are irretrievably unfolding.

It’s OK for Things to Be OK

At the risk of being too personal, I’ll share part of a recent journitation with you:

What if everything is actually optimal?

This might be the best my life has ever actually been, and I want to be mindful to pay attention to it.

- My health is good, mentally and physically.
- My kids are happy and healthy and I am an active part of their lives.
- I do meaningful work that I enjoy, and that aligns with my purpose as I have defined it.
- My days are full with writing, composing, and playing and teaching music.
- I enjoy my friends and my hobbies.
- I’m financially stable.
- I live within a day’s drive of all my favorite places in the Southwest.

These are real events and situations for which I am genuinely grateful, and I consciously choose to focus on them.

We all possess the awesome power of choice.

It is easy to let our protective, innate negative bias drive our attention to thoughts of scarcity and comparison. Choose instead to intentionally acknowledge the good in your life.

A quick look at social media can convince you that you need more money, a bigger house, a better car, a private jet.

Instead of, “I wish I had a bigger house,” choose to think “I’m fortunate to be able to live where I do.”

None of this is to say you should simply settle for an undesirable situation. In fact, one of my mantras is “Never give up. Never give in. Never settle.” It’s vital to have a purpose, a drive to reach (or sustain) meaningful goals. But choose to focus on what you have, not what you lack, along the way.

And actively express gratitude for where you are on the path.

Positive Psychology

There are measurable, tangible benefits to this Hardcore Happiness mindset. In cognitive psychology and therapy, this shift of attention is called reframing, and it involves changing the interpretation of a situation rather than the situation itself.

For example, the thought “Life will be better someday,” can be reframed as “Someday I will wish I could return to this moment.”

Mental reframing, best done with a mindset of gratitude, can enhance emotional resilience and perception of self-agency and purpose.

Research on gratitude practices (Emmons & McCullough, 2003) shows that consciously recognizing the value of the present can significantly increase life satisfaction.

If you pay attention to the good in your life as it unfolds, the present becomes imbued with the same emotional value we normally reserve for memories.

This is what we call savoring—the active appreciation of positive experiences—and it has been shown to significantly increase well-being and resilience (Bryant & Veroff, 2007).

Existential Well-Being

In Man's Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl describes life not as something that merely passes, but is stored permanently in the past. Every meaningful action we take becomes part of what he called the “treasury of the past.”

This is important, because the past is secure and permanent: what has been meaningfully lived can never be undone.

Frankl wrote: “Having been is also a kind of being, and perhaps the surest kind.”

His insight also adds something deeper.

If every meaningful moment becomes part of the permanent past, then life is not merely something we experience; it is something we create and leave behind—a kind of existential record.

Like most existentialists, Frankl emphasized personal responsibility.

We are responsible for what we place into that record.

Moments feel more significant when we recognize their place in the narrative of our lives; meaning crystallizes when we see our lives as a coherent story unfolding through time.

These Are The Good Old Days

Carly Simon wrote the song Anticipation in “about 15 minutes” in 1971 while waiting for Cat Stevens to pick her up for a date. Her massively hooky final lyric embedded itself into the consciousness of a generation (or two, at least), and reminds us to be aware of our lives as they transpire.

Your life isn’t a matter of “fake it ‘till you make it.”

The deficiency loop may tell you that the good life is to be found in the future.

But the days you are living right now really are the “good old days.”



My novel, The Calling is available now in print and as an eBook.


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To learn more about how to use these concepts or to inquire about working with me, go to the Jeff W Welsh website, subscribe to my Substack or Medium accounts or the Hardcore Happiness blog page, and follow my Instagram account for daily insights.




- JWW