I never have tears of joy, my expectations are really high for myself so if something good happens it’s as expected. Let’s just say, I don’t get a lot of as expected

Not “tears of joy” level, but I just got a promotion today!

Tears of joy? Nothing, ever. But this moth is really cute.

I can’t remember tears of joy, I think I’m just too jaded.

The last thing that brought me happiness was getting to ride a skateboard pump track for the first time this weekend.

Been wanting to try it for years, but there just weren’t any in my area.

Scary and challenging at the limits of my skill, which is just what I had hoped for.

Been a lot of tragedy in my life recently, I’ll take what I can get.

I thought i clogged the toilet at the police headquarters in Brisbane when i was doing my entrance exam. The water rose almost up to the seat and i was freaking out. The water just stayed there and I thought “this is it, i’m fucked, what do i do, who do i go to, what do i say” - and then it just randomly went down and everything was fine.

The speed my pupper jumped up to come get his morning loving from me when I said “good morning” made me feel happy. We have a routine where he puts his head in my lap for neck massage then I check his eyes for sleepy stuff before anything else. It brings us both joy. Dogs will change one’s life.

I haven’t cried in decades, but I got very excited last week when I get a call back from a company I applied to without even a vacancy. Not the first time I applied there, I just like the company. I’m a SWE with 0 YOE, so the market sucks for me. I’ve been job hunting for 6 months, with a couple interviews, but no concrete offers. I do have a couple years of semi-relevant experience (where I’m currently employed) and that’s what they liked in my profile. Now I’m excited to see if this leads anywhere.

I feel like I was able to calm my dog today after a big thunderstorm

what made me really happy is that I realized that she trusts me and feels calm with me

she’s a really smart and sensitive dog

A friend of mine that I’m growing closer to asked if I wanted to borrow her house while she was away on vacation so I could feel a bit about being a homeowner. I have recently started looking at buying one after living in apartments for the last 20+ years. Just that invitation and handing over responsibility made my heart melt. Made me all woozy-warm-cozy inside.

My daughter sprinting across the playground to give me a cuddle when I collected her from preschool.

That was earlier in the week.

The garden I’m growing. Just keep throwing seeds on the soil and add water regularly. Some shit will grow. There’s these incredible beans - the flower starts out a buttery yellow, then turns a whitish violet when it opens. Or pansies - first time I grew one from seed and I could just stare at them for hours! While humanity disappoints often even the smallest of plants makes me incredibly happy.

My band played a show recently with a bunch of more experienced bands and we got a lot of really nice compliments after our set. More than one person made it a point to make eye contact and say something like “seriously, that was really original and cool”. I’ll ride this high for weeks, if not months.

Back when my son was a baby, I used to play cricket with him. I’d take his feet and rub the soles against each other and go “CHIRP CHIRP!”. But as he grew older, he naturally didn’t enjoy this as much, and we’d do it less and less. He’d sometimes still ask me to do it, but occasions got scarce. He’s almost six years old now, and i had kind of accepted that he had grown out of it. Well, yesterday in the evening, just before he went to sleep, he asked me to do it again, and we both thoroughly enjoyed it, and we laughed, and it was beautiful. It may be the last time, as he grows older and won’t want to do such childish things anymore, but the pure fact that I got to experience it one more time AND KNOW it was the last time and I got to experience and savor it very consciously made me enjoy it just SO MUCH more, it brought tears of joy to my eyes. Yeah OK, I’ll admit it, I ugly cried. Hard. And I’ll cherish this memory forever.

My Autodesk login is attached to my old student email, which I guess finally got deleted by my old college. I was incredibly grateful that I had a PC that was still actively logged into Fusion 360 when I learned this. I was able to preserve and export all the 3D design and modeling work I’ve done over the last 8 years before I get locked out of that login for good. I don’t use 3D modeling every day, so it was very lucky that I realized my login was now sitting in limbo while I still temporarily had access to everything.

Very grateful for that. There’s hundreds of hours worth of work there.

I’m sorry to say I never was joyful enough for tears, it is probably me tho. There are big joys like having a healthy child and then, they are succeeding in life or such.

But if you want ordinary joy, small things that makes you happy I can share my latest one!
My gambling is basically throwing 1 dollar bids on a local auction site and see if it gets stuck.
I was thinking an emergency kit for the car would be great - you know some basic tools, some torches, some electric light maybe a reflective triangle.
They had an ‘emergency kit’ listed and there was a very sus photo of an army green bag… $1.25 out of the door and I had my gambling (honestly I call it cheap joy)!

It was a small backpack, a half saddle bag - green, totally military looking with velcro and those nylon things you can hook more things to. And it was heavy! Stuffed with STUFF!

It was like Christmas - as a five year old.

I pulled out first a temporary shelter tent. I knew this is going to be great!

Next ting was probably the emergency reflecting blanket. Then a knife then a poncho…

And the bag kept just giving!

There was a showel, fire making stuff - everything you would want and need in a situation in the wildernes, a wire-saw, fishooks … medical supplies

They thought of everything.

And I found my most favorite hybrid tool ever: its a hammer, pliers, wire cutter, axe, and some other tools in the bottom of its handlebar!

Honestly it wasn’t the biggest find of the century - I believe you can get it for about $40 from amazon. And it will probably never going to get used at all. But the experience of going through and opening - discovering the whole kit one piece by ther was a great joy for me. I couldn’t stop smiling for about 3 hours afterward. I am stil smiling thinking about it :D