Simple Ways To Brighten Your Life & Exercise Your Imagination

Give an ordinary object a positive association. Find something you own (and if it's something you use on a semi-regular basis, all the better!), and spend perhaps half an hour holding and looking at it while thinking of something positive - maybe a song that makes you feel good, or a happy memory, or a virtue you aspire to, or a quote that inspires you. When you see or use this object later, you'll be reminded of this positive thing.

Give an ordinary object an extraordinary story. For example, maybe some piece of costume jewelry you own was blessed by a fairy queen to repel evil creatures. Maybe your favorite coffee mug used to be owned by a glamorous space captain before it found its way to you. Or maybe your scarf is really some sort of strange creature that pretends to be a scarf except when everyone's asleep, at which point it becomes active to patrol the house and devour bad dreams it finds drifting around.

Give an ordinary object a personality and voice. Imagine what it would say, if it could talk. Imagine how its voice would sound. (What does your hairbrush think about celebrity fashion? What does the refrigerator think about about the world overall?)

Take something ordinary and describe it positively. For example, you might take a pen you like and describe how it has nice colors or liken its colors to something positive. If it's shiny, you might describe how the light reflects off its surface. You might describe how nice, cute, elegant, pretty, etc., that parts of the design, or that the design overall looks. You might describe how well it does its job. You might describe a way that it brings you happiness or does something positive for you. If it's worn or damaged, you might point out how that shows that it's been used a lot.

Do all of the above with places and landmarks. Look at a large tree and think about what you aspire to be. Make up a story that happened in an empty lot. Give an old building a voice and personality. Positively describe a local library.

Create a set of symbols that represent positive things. Whether they're traits you want to have or strengthen, dreams you want to realize, ideals you admire, or similar. When you've created your symbols, you can draw or paint them on your things. (You might want to keep them fairly simple so they're not too difficult to remember or to draw/paint later.)

Write a silly gratitude list. Make a list of things you're thankful for - but make them as silly as possible. For example, it might contain things like, "I'm really glad that my floor isn't lava right now," "I'm thankful my roof protects me from flying jellyfish," or "I'm really glad I don't live next door to a teleporting goat who wants to murder me in my sleep." (And when you're done, you can use what you came up with as story ideas!)