Happiness isn’t earned, it’s noticed. You can put a lot of energy into getting to a position where happiness is easier to notice. But if you’ve ever felt underwhelmed about an achievement, you know that the happiness isn’t automatic. Instead, you need to practice noticing happiness around you. It’s actually a rather common and accessible emotion, we just usually tune out most of the sources for it because they are trivial.

Every rock around you has a story, has an architecture, has a texture. Will those details ever matter in the bigger context of your life? Probably not. But that’s no reason not to enjoy them anyways. Pick up a rock and look at it until you find something you like. Then drop it, grab another, and do it again. With just a little practice, you’ll build an entire little system in your own head for appreciating rocks, and pretty soon you can get a little bit of happiness just looking at a rock.

That extends to everything. Flowers, trees, wind, clouds, knots, cars, rain, rural diners, children’s sports matches, library bathrooms, parking lots, garage sale signs, everything. The universe has an infinite supply of detail, and there’s no good reason not to learn to appreciate that. When you do, you gain this kind of superpower where you can find small joy in any situation. The only reason most of us don’t learn to practice this skill is because we were told it’s a waste of time by people who never figured it out.

With a lot of practice, this can even help you out during times of intense grief, sadness, panic, or pain. When your mind is drowning in a negative experience, it’s a very powerful trick to be able to say “Wow, this sucks in a neat way. How interesting that a person can hurt like this. What a world!” It doesn’t make the bad feelings go away, it doesn’t fix whatever problem caused them, but even in the depths of despair you can shine a little light and remember that your mind is yours to orchestrate.