Now tell me: Is there anything quite so nice as wrapping yourself up in a pair of steaming skivvies just out of the dryer? It’s like skinny-dipping in a hot tub, jumping on a horse that’s been in the sun all day, and wearing a microwaved diaper…combined! Sure the moment doesn’t l … | Continue reading
Let’s face it, there’s a lot going on in the nose area: 1. Breathing: You might have figured it out by now, but breathing is pretty high up there on the Reasons Your Nose Exists list, together with smelling stuff and holding up your glasses. Yes, your nostrils provide safe transp … | Continue reading
My friend Mike has rules for hosting parties. They go like this: • Under 25 years old: Party is BYOB. You can tell people if you want, but they should know. Bring your own beer. Bring your own mix. Bring your own bulk pack Cheetos. • 25 – 30 years old: Host should have wine … | Continue reading
Very occasionally, a kind soul will come over toting a homemade dessert made from some combination of apples, brown sugar, brownie batter, Skor bits, marshmallows, cherries, and oatmeal. They set their heavy glass dish down on our kitchen counter, and peel back the plastic bag to … | Continue reading
I used to follow expiry dates like gospel, figuring the sour cream would sweeten, the ice cream would melt, and the rice would crumble into dust the morning after after the the block-stamped date on the bottom of the package had passed. If the expiry date was closing in, I’d just … | Continue reading
Don’t you love it when you pull up to a red light in the right lane, and the guy in front of you notices and squeezes out into the intersection a bit, just so you can make your right turn a bit faster? What a great thing that is. Careful though — now it’s your … | Continue reading
No two nachos are created equally. When somebody offers you a nacho from their appetizer plate at a restaurant or while on the couch at home in front of a movie, you need to move fast: First up, quickly scan their entire plate. What stage is this offer being made? Are you in the … | Continue reading
Put your hand up if you’ve ever driven your car up to a gas pump only to notice after you’ve parked that your gas cap is on the other side. My brother, if your hand is up right now, you are not alone. See, some cars I’ve driven have the ol’ gas hole on the … | Continue reading
When you wake up with your ol’ nose holes filled to the brim with thick, slow-moving night-phlegm, there’s only one solution. That’s right. Get up, stumble to the shower, and let’s get down to business. First, that hot steam needs to get the job started. Those tiny flying water m … | Continue reading
I’m the world’s worst Scrabble player. Every time it’s my turn I see other players lose interest as they get ready for a long wait. I feel bad, so I stare intensely at my pieces trying desperately to conjure up a word longer than three letters or else suffer their complaints that … | Continue reading
Found in dusty kitchen cupboards and dishwasher top-shelves across this wide, great land, really, really old Tupperware is as handy today as it was twenty, thirty, forty years ago. That famous Tupperware “burping seal” still holds strong, and you can bet your boombox that banana … | Continue reading
Weddings can go one of two ways. Either you’re tight like twins with the bride or groom — a sibling maybe, college roommate, or grandmother. You’re on The Inside, recommending photographers, hosting showers, renting tuxes, giving toasts. For you, the wedding is a great day, a pro … | Continue reading
If you ever find yourself playing professional sports and someone from the stands yells out “Come on, Big Bopper!,” you’re probably a fat baseball player. Fat baseball player, thank you for giving us that simplest thing of all. Hope. See, because usually when we see those tricep … | Continue reading
On the whole, we’re pretty nasty to waiters and waitresses. We complain they’re wasting our time if the food takes too long to come, we complain they’re trying to rush us out if the food comes too early. We warn about allergies, make special requests, ask for more bread, and talk … | Continue reading
An old roommate of mine was sifting through and tossing out some old birthday cards once when a crisply entombed twenty dollar bill slid out of a faded card from Grandma. Her eyebrows perked up, her mouth formed a perfect O, and she raised her hand up top for a high five, which I … | Continue reading
Not too many things that aren’t soda sound like soda when they’re opened. But tennis balls do, and that’s part of their beauty. You just snap back that tab, hear that pshhhhh sound, and then catch a whiff of those vacuum sealed, Korean-factory packed, hot rubbery plastic fumes. T … | Continue reading
There are so many different levels to this classic gag. There’s Version 1.0 which involves a car full of people, a gas station bathroom break, the locked door, and the slow rolling drive away while the victim knocks on the window and pretends not to care. This version is Locking … | Continue reading
First of all, getting a grass stain means that you were running around at high speeds without proper equipment. Maybe you slid last-minute to avoid a frozen tag or made an awkward, somersault dive at a line-drive wiffleball. Either way, the grass stain symbolizes your large, devi … | Continue reading
Kick-starting a bag of potato chips is pretty much standard — you open with the double-pincer, squeeze-and-pop technique, start fishing out the prime, full-bodied chips at the top of the heap, and then start working your way down to the half-broken chips in the middle of the bag. … | Continue reading
About two years ago I noticed something funny as I flipped through a grocery store flyer. On the produce page was an ugly, green-looking cauliflower, with the caption “$2.99! Broccoflower!” It was hilarious. A green cauliflower labelled as a Broccoflower. The bizarre misfit child … | Continue reading
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AWESOME! — Hey everyone! This is Neil Pasricha. I originally wrote these 1000 awesome things for 1000 straight weekdays from 2008 to 2012. I’ve had so many requests to repost them so I’ve now done so … | Continue reading
Over dinner one night my dad started telling me about his first day in Canada. It was 1968 and he was twenty-three, arriving on a plane with eight dollars in his pocket to start a new life by himself in a country he had never visited. “A community group had a welcome dinner for n … | Continue reading
It’s where the wild things are. See, we’ll never really know how far the universe flies but maybe we should be wondering how far our minds go inside. Because when you let your thoughts run free … they bounce all over the place. When your brain slips into the basement … it zooms t … | Continue reading
Today’s the greatest day you’ve ever lived. Today’s the only day you’ve ever lived. The past is gone, the future is far, nothing else matters, except where you are. AWESOME! Thank you to the talented Misty Harris for a great tribute to 1000 Awesome Things. Photo from: here | Continue reading
Burn, baby, burn. Life’s not long and we only got so many moments we’re wide awake. So take, take, take — grab that run at sunrise, laugh with baby before the door, clock into work with energy, and clock out looking for more. Run to that soccer practice, grab ice cream when it en … | Continue reading
My friend Jason had a tradition. Every year on the last day of school he’d stop on the bridge over the creek on his walk home, pop open all his three-hole binders, and dump and shake all his pen-scrawled notes and sticker-covered tests into the bubbling rapids below. Somehow the … | Continue reading
We’re all just twisted messes. Sure, you might look fine in your pleated pants and your frilly dresses, but beneath all that we’re just twisted messes. Brown slippery organs, brittle bones, and bubbling blood cramp every tight little space in your body’s homeplace, fool. Sometime … | Continue reading
This is the end, beautiful friend. Late next week 1000 Awesome Things will hit #1 and we’ll have finished four years counting down one awesome thing every weekday. So… like Luke Skywalker’s triumphant final battle against the Fish Monsters, the Jamaican bobsled team’s mighty last … | Continue reading
Because you finally satisfy your toughest critic. Yourself. AWESOME! Photo from: here | Continue reading
Do you remember bank calendars? When I was little my sister and I always waited between velvet ropes with my dad to see the bank teller — while lines rounded, stamps pounded, and thumbs counted, bills. Sometimes we grabbed faded pink and green deposit slips — the ones printed on … | Continue reading
When my friends Chris, Ty, and I went on our cross-country road trip a few years back, we managed to stop in the small, hardscrabble dirt town of Paris, Texas. In addition to visiting the Kimberly-Clark diaper factory, miniature Eiffel Tower, and famous Jesus in Cowboy Boots stat … | Continue reading
My sister’s name is Nina. She was born sixteen months after me and we were tight from the beginning. When my parents brought her home from the hospital I couldn’t stop marveling at her thick chock of black hair, tiny smudge of a nose, and tightly closed eyes. We traveled together … | Continue reading
Welcome to the inner circle. AWESOME! Photo from: here | Continue reading
Everybody gets born. One day you popped into the world a tiny ball of crying wet nakedness and every year since then we’ve all stopped to celebrate your big day. Birthdays freeze time as you stare back at last year and get ready to celebrate what’s coming around the bend… When yo … | Continue reading
Come on in. We all know that being a regular doesn’t just happen overnight. No, it’s more like softly falling into a slow romance with a new friend… Stage 1: The First Glance. There are plenty of fish in the sea but you slowly choose one. Maybe it’s the big coffee cups, the wrink … | Continue reading
Bringing down the house. When your party spins till the disco ball stops and the lights go pop then you know you’re having a great time. Big toes peeking through nylons, tongues hanging out like dogs, bangs sweatglued to your forehead — you’re groggily stumbling out the door, itc … | Continue reading
“How often do you think?” My eleventh grade English teacher interrupted class one day with that booming question. Until then we’d been having staple fights, passing notes, and half-assedly working on book reports about Brave New World. “How often do you actually sit back and thin … | Continue reading
You know what’s the worst? Trying to figure out how to get somewhere in a city you’ve never been before. Yes, strange bus routes, new taxi systems, and mazes of complex maps welcome you to your business trip, weekend getaway, or family vacation. When you arrive you’re confronted … | Continue reading
Your life is a pinball. Shooting up high you start bouncing between bumpers and fly between flippers which smack you every which way. Your life soars and crashes in ways you can’t predict. First loves with teenage girls, secret kisses in college worlds, all shape your heart and w … | Continue reading
Get out of here. Lights flash, bulbs blast, and twisted thoughts race around our brains. But handshakes and smiles tire after a while and sometimes all you want is chill time on your own. That’s when it’s time to trade dress pants for sweatpants, sweatpants for less pants, and sc … | Continue reading
I met Gloria in September, 2008. I was camping out at an Arizona hotel for work and she was the hotel bartender. A sassy fiftysomething with frizzy white hair, classy black clothes, and bright red lipstick, Gloria was the soul of the place who had been there for years. Twice marr … | Continue reading
They show up in the dark. And when you look up in the dark you see their twinkling beauty, burning yesterday, light years away. Stars remind us how small we are, how far we’ve come, how fast we’re flying, and how we’re never all done. Atoms inside us were in outer space one day … … | Continue reading
Cruising through the streets with our music cranked and our cell phones ringing, it’s sometimes hard to communicate with other drivers sharing the roads. When speeds are high and time’s a ticking, we rely on silent gestures flashed through tinted windows to get our points across. … | Continue reading
What’s a birthday without some loot? Let’s get this party finished right: Level 1: The Factory Order. Here’s where mom orders the Barbie, Hot Wheels, or Sesame Street themed birthday kit and it comes with pointy hats, paper plates, and loot bags for all. Now, these bags are usual … | Continue reading
AWESOME! Photos from: here, here, here, here, here, here, and here | Continue reading
I was flipping past a reality show on TV and there was this group of dirty folks in rags stranded on some desert island. They had no food, no showers, and nothing to do except brutally fight each other to avoid getting booted off the show. In the span of a few minutes, I saw … | Continue reading
Butcher, baker, candlestick maker. No matter what, if you’re working for The Man, there’s a chance you’re getting paid every two weeks. Maybe every other Thursday or every other Friday, maybe dollars dropped into bank accounts or fistfuls of change dropped into sweaty palms. All … | Continue reading
What do you do? Me, I work in an office but if I try telling people more than that their eyes gloss over. “You lost me at spreadsheets,” my friends say, while yawning and giving the waiter a head nod and ghost pour for another beer. But I get that — jobs are complicated and … | Continue reading