45 days: 1

Loretta Breuning has written several books about the brain and the major neurochemicals it uses for motivation, reward, and aversion (she calls them your "happy" and "unhappy" chemicals). In Meet Your Happy Chemicals: Dopamine, Endorphin, Oxytocin, Serotonin, summarized here, she says it takes about 45 days to build a new habit. In Beyond Cynical: Transcend Your Mammalian Negativity, she suggests a worthwhile helpful habit is to look for positive aspects of one's life and make a list of them each day.

I like the simplicity and clarity of her approach. I have thought I needed to meditate and make gratitude lists and make optimism lists and reflect on my deepest value and a list of what went well yesterday and a list of what I expect to go well tomorrrow and ... unending lists of positivity and perkiness.

She boils it down into a simple, straight-forward daily practice. Just find what's good in your life and make note of it. Form the habit of noticing the positive.

So I'm taking that on as an experiment here. This is day 1. I'd like to find at least three good things to put on my list each day. Here's today's list:

• Today is the Butterflies for Hope bike ride that I signed up for a while ago and have been looking forward to. I hope to do the 62 mile loop but I'll settle for the 50 if the longer loop starts feeling like too much.
• The weather forecast indicates that we'll have clear, sunny, cool weather for the bike ride.
• Peanut butter sandwiches.

See you tomorrow...