This weekend, our house was full again.

This time it wasn’t Franztoberfest. It was another annual tradition—our fantasy football draft with a group of my college fraternity brothers.

We’ve been doing this for 24 years.

Twenty-four years.

At some point this weekend, as I looked around the room at guys I’ve known since we were young men in college, that number hit me a little differently.

When we started this league, we weren’t creating a tradition. We were just getting together with our buddies to draft imaginary football teams, talk a little trash, eat too much, have a few drinks, and laugh at one another.

Then we did it again the next year.

And the next.

And somehow, nearly a quarter-century passed.

A lot has happened during those 24 years. Careers were built and changed. People got married. Kids were born and then somehow became teenagers and young adults. We’ve celebrated successes, endured disappointments, lost people we loved, watched our bodies become slightly less cooperative, and accumulated the kinds of stories that only make sense to people who were there.

Yet every year, we come back.

Ostensibly, it’s to draft a fantasy football team.

But I think we all know it’s about something much more important.

It’s about us.

There is a phrase people often use when reminiscing about the past: “Those were the good old days.”

We say it about college. We say it about when our kids were little. We say it about neighborhoods we used to live in, jobs we once had, vacations we took, and people who are no longer here.

The strange thing about the good old days is that we almost never recognize them while we’re living them.

When the kids were little, we were exhausted.

When we were in college, we were broke.

When we were starting our careers, we were stressed.

When we bought our first homes, we worried about the mortgage.

Those seasons didn’t necessarily feel magical while we were in them. They just felt like life.

Only later did we realize how precious they were.

As a psychologist, I think there’s something important in that. Our brains are remarkably good at adapting to whatever becomes normal. Psychologists call this hedonic adaptation. The extraordinary gradually becomes ordinary, and things that once brought tremendous excitement or gratitude simply become part of the background of our lives.

The people we love can become part of that background, too.

Our spouse is there every morning. The kids are running through the house. Our friends are a phone call away. Our parents are still around. Another birthday comes and goes. Another annual gathering appears on the calendar.

Until someday it doesn’t.

That’s not meant to be depressing. Quite the opposite.

It’s an invitation to pay attention.

One of the things Logotherapy has taught me is that meaning is not reserved for life’s dramatic moments. Viktor Frankl described several pathways through which we encounter meaning, including what he called experiential values: what we receive from the world through love, beauty, nature, and our encounters with other people.

Meaning isn’t always something we accomplish.

Sometimes meaning is sitting around a table with people who have known you for 30 years, arguing about who drafted the better running back.

Sometimes it’s hearing your kids laughing in another room.

Sometimes it’s drinking coffee with your spouse on an otherwise unremarkable Saturday morning.

Sometimes it’s calling your dad.

Sometimes it’s having dinner with friends and realizing nobody is in a hurry to leave.

These moments rarely announce themselves as important.

That’s the problem.

We keep waiting for the big moments while life quietly happens in the small ones.

I think this becomes even more apparent as we get older. My recent cycling accident has certainly sharpened that perspective for me. When your plans are suddenly interrupted and your body reminds you that you aren’t quite as indestructible as you once believed, ordinary things begin to look a little different.

You realize how much you miss the things you barely noticed before.

Walking without thinking about it. Getting on a bicycle. Carrying something upstairs. Sleeping comfortably. Going wherever you want whenever you want.

Ordinary life starts looking pretty extraordinary.

Maybe that’s one of the gifts hidden inside difficult experiences. They can recalibrate our attention.

They remind us that someday we may desperately miss what today feels completely ordinary.

There’s an interesting connection to what I wrote about last week. I encouraged you to always have something to look forward to, because anticipation gives us hope and pulls us toward the future.

I still believe that.

But there’s another side to healthy living.

We need something to look forward to without overlooking what is already here.

Hope looks forward.

Gratitude looks around.

A meaningful life requires both.

So this week, take a moment and look around at your own life.

Not the life you hope to have five years from now. Not the vacation you’re planning. Not retirement. Not someday when the kids are older, work settles down, the mortgage is paid, or life finally becomes less complicated.

Look at today.

Who is still sitting around your table?

Whose number can you still call?

Who still walks through your front door without knocking?

What traditions are you still able to celebrate?

What ordinary experience would you give almost anything to have back someday?

Then appreciate it now.

Take the picture. Stay a little longer. Make the phone call. Tell the old story again. Laugh too loudly. Put the phones away. Be there.

Because twenty-four years from now, you may look back at this season of your life and say:

“Those were the good old days.”

And perhaps one of the secrets to a meaningful life is learning to recognize them before they’re gone.

You aren’t waiting for the good old days.

You’re already living them.

Until next Monday,

Dr. Dan