The 100 Happy Days Challenge
As is obvious from my last 100 posts or-so, I decided to take on the #100happydays challenge. At the time it seemed like a terrific idea, a lot of people I was following on Instagram had decided to take on the challenge and being a general follower of trends, I too decided to challenge it. It also gave me a reason to use my Instgram account on a regular basis for posting something as opposed to just stalking people. I have to say, I had all the best intentions with this challenge.
I’m not sure how much thinking people put into this before actually deciding to start the challenge. For me, there was the combination of the new year, planned travel and some exciting shows and concerts in the foreseeable future which led me to believe that this would be a piece of cake. How incredibly wrong I was…
A few days in and it was all so very exciting. I still remember that my first day started off with a picture of a bottle of wine and some wine glasses at my first girls night of the year. This is not to say it wasn’t a happy memory, which girls gossip night along with a bottle of wine is not a happy memory, but like all things, it just started off being really exciting.
I would be beyond surprised if people did not cheat when it came to this challenge. I sure as hell did. Who remembers to take a photo of something every day and post it? Well, I guess there are the few people on my Instagram who manage to post something every day. Honestly, kudos to you guys. That’s some real dedication right there.
Back to me – I definitely cheated. There were days I just forgot that I was meant to take a photo, so I ended up posting two photos that I took on the same day and just pretended that one of them was from the day before. DON’T JUDGE ME! IT COULD HAPPEN TO ANYONE! Atleast I’m coming clean about it.
My second cheat was remembering that there was a certain picture I wanted to upload from Day 43, forgetting to do it for a couple of days and then remembering 3 days later. This led to an Instagram explosion from me where I’d have uploaded 3 or 4 pictures at the same time. To the smarmy people who commented and told me that I was uploading pictures from a few days ago… YOU THINK I DON’T KNOW THAT? Clearly there was a reason for it and having to be reminded was just down-right rude!
There was a time that I came very close to quitting. Day 73 ish I think. I had literally been waiting for a picture to be sent to me from a few days ago… Those few days really amounted to almost a week of no pictures. During this time, I had mentally kept a diary of the pictures I needed to post for each day since past until I received this godforsaken picture. A week later still no sign of the picture and I had given up all hope. I know, I should have perhaps chosen a new picture, but hey, I was just choosing to be OCD about this and there was this glimmer of hope that I could just quit. But alas, I was then coaxed into finishing something if I start it… Damn that guilt-tripping.
The 100 days passed and yes, I finally finished it. Looking back on it now, it seemed stupid. Why did I need to do a challenge to realise what made me happy every day? In the end, what did I get out of the challenge? If anything, I think I just finished something that I started. Being a generally happy person, I don’t think this challenge really brought to me anything I didn’t already know about myself. My instagram account got a lot of use out of this, that’s for sure. I’m not sure I see myself picking up a challenge like this in the future.
