The holidays are behind us, 2026 is here, and we’re all walking into the new year with our usual bundle of hopes, desires, and half-baked resolutions. But as I’ve been thinking about what I want this year to look like, something dawned on me.
So much of our happiness comes down to one thing – our perception.
How we see a situation shapes how we react to it, how we navigate it, and ultimately how it turns out. And nothing reminded me of this more than my holiday habit of scrolling social media far more than my own common sense would recommend. Like so many others this holiday season, I too had a miserable cold and cough – and somehow decided I deserved more social media time than usual.
One post stopped me in my tracks. Someone had just posted that they were now 40 and was complaining it was all downhill from here. My friend commented to the post – and I loved her comment because she flipped the whole narrative.
My friend replied, “Downhill is what we’re all hoping for! We’ve spent decades climbing the mountain – working, raising families, losing sleep, fighting uphill battles. Reaching the top is victory. Downhill means we made it! Smooth sailing ahead.”
She was absolutely right in her analogy. It reminded me of a roller-coaster ride. The slow, steady climb… that tick-tick-tick-tick of the car on the tracks… the anxiety, the anticipation, the wondering if you’re ready for whatever comes next.
Then suddenly – you’re at the top. There’s a moment of relief mixed with excitement, because you know what’s coming.
The downhill.
The part everyone actually loves.
It goes fast – just like life does, but that’s the moment to stop and feel the wind in your hair, granted you still have some. You feel the exhilaration in your chest, and the gratitude for the ride as it eventually pulls back into the station.
Most people don’t even think about “downhill” until they’re closer to retirement age, so it’s sad to imagine a 40-year-old already believing the best is behind them. That’s perception at work. But even at retirement age, when we say it’s downhill from here, we mean it in the good way – the part where life isn’t over at all. This is where things get good – less climbing, more coasting, and a whole lot more time to enjoy the scenery. We can now savor what we once rushed past.
In my last blog, I talked about how powerful the brain is – how placebos can change our physical experience. But perception itself is a kind of placebo. It can change our mental experience – how we see things. You can choose to make it a positive one or a negative one.
In the same scrolling session, I came across another post that made me laugh out loud. It was concerning a baby in a highchair who had just discovered the joy of dropping things on the floor. You know the look – wide-eyed wonder.
We’ve all been there as parents: picking up the spoon, the cup, the toy, the cracker… only to have it dropped again with great enthusiasm – from the child that is. The parent – not so much.
But think about it from the child’s perspective:
I let go…and it moved! All by itself! It went from HERE to THERE!”
Of course they want to keep doing it. It’s magic to them. They’ve never seen it before. They’re discovering gravity for the first time.
Imagine if you opened your hand and something flew upward instead of falling. You’d be grabbing everything in sight to see if it would also take flight. You’d be texting all your friends.
Maybe a bad analogy, but you get the picture – the awe of discovery!
When we wake in the morning, we can growl and grumble about our joints as we walk down the stairs, holding the banister because that knee is creaking or the back is tight… or heaven forbid, another workday is calling our name.
OR we can open our eyes, stretch, and think, “Thank you, God – I’m still breathing. I have a job. I have a car that gets me to that job. And, I remembered to put a new toilette paper roll on the holder before I went to bed.
Same body. Same routine – just a fresher perspective. Better day.
Haven’t you ever noticed that when you are down in the dumps, mad at the world and feeling “woe is me,” everything is exacerbated to the extreme. Every pain is compounded. Every worry is magnified. But, when you take a minute to dissect those worries and woes, realizing they are minor in the scheme of things, and the world won’t end because of them, you change your perception to a positive one and everything suddenly seems lighter.
I remember the morning I was getting ready for a dental appointment. I don’t like going to the dentist. In fact, the older I get, the more anxiety I feel. I was grumbling about going when my husband in a perturbed sort of way said, “Why do you talk like that?”
I said, “Who likes going to the dentist?”
And he replied, “Why don’t you look at it as: I’m grateful I get to go to the dentist. Someone is taking care of my teeth. I have insurance. I can prevent bigger problems. A lot of people wish they had that.”
Well… that shut me up. And, it changed my whole drive there. I think of that short conversation every trip over to the dentist and while sitting in the chair, as I watch the drill coming towards me.
Here’s my challenge for 2026 – for you and for me:
Be aware of your perception. Flip it. Find the opposite way of looking at what you’re grumbling about.
No, it won’t fix everything. But it will fix something. And those small shifts add up.
Yesterday I did six loads of laundry because we had three extra bedrooms full of kids – home for the holidays. Was I thrilled to see the huge pile on the laundry room floor? I was not. I asked the kids to strip their beds and not only did the sheets come off, but so did the blankets and comforters. Oh, was there a pile!
But having this “perception concept” on my mind because I had already begun drafting this recent blog, I took my own advice, I approached it differently. I flipped it.
We were fortunate our kids came home.
We were fortunate we had the space for them.
We were fortunate we have a working washer and dryer.
Same laundry. Different perception. And that’s the magic.
A toast to the new year: Here’s to 2026 – to seeing the magic in the ordinary, to remembering that downhill is not defeat but relief.
To laundry – it means our people came home.
And to dentists who keep our teeth in our heads whether we like them or not.
Here’s to flipping our complaints upside down, to finding gratitude in the places we least expect it, and to waking up each morning with the kind of wonder usually reserved for toddlers dropping spoons off highchairs.
May we notice the small things, celebrate the big things, and shift our perception just enough to make this year lighter, brighter, and a whole lot more magical.
Cheers to seeing life differently – because sometimes that’s all it takes.
I needed this reminder. Thank you🙏🏻