I'm listening to the soundtrack from La La Land as I write this, and the instrumental at the Planetarium makes me smile. It won't make me smile every single time I listen to it. If I listen to it on repeat a hundred times, I'll probably get tired of it. For a while. Maybe a month later, it will make me smile again when I listen to it.
The feeling is similar when I play football, or when I write something good, or when I visit a new city, or when I try a new cuisine, or watch a ballet performance, or when I release a new feature.
This is very different from the feeling of the adrenaline rush and excitement. That is about getting excited. This feeling is needed before embarking on something new. But, this is not all I crave for.
For example, when I set out for a hike or for a game of football, what is to come over the next hour or more gives me the adrenalin rush as I feel excited to go out and do the thing well. If I don't have this adrenalin rush when I set out to do something or see someone, I know that I would rather be doing something else if I had the choice. But when I have the adrenalin rush, I know there is no place else I'd rather be.
But once I complete the hike or the game of football, and am looking down upon a simple town by a river from the top of a hill, or am standing in the shower reliving the game I've just played, I smile. If I don't, I haven't really enjoyed what I just did and it will fade away from my memory very quickly. But if I do smile, then it is something that will stay with me for a long time.
It is easy to get sucked into the demands of the routine and just go about doing things that don't make us feel either of these things.
Once a day, or at least once a week, seek out to do one thing that makes you feel the adrenalin rush and one thing that makes you smile.
CONVERSATION