After a weekend of lots of little happy moments and lots of pondering my future, this email from Alexa at LearnVest was especially poignant.

Dear LearnVest readers,

I want to wish you a happy Thanksgiving and let you know how grateful I am to have you in our LearnVest community.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about gratefulness and what really makes us happy. This has been a truly happy year for me personally—the LearnVest audience has grown 310%, our company is celebrating its two-year anniversary, our team has tripled in size, and, to top it all off, I got engaged last month to the best guy I know.

All of this has reminded me of the “happiness lab” I worked at back in college, where I witnessed one psych study that changed my life:

When given the hypothetical choice between lots of big wins in a short amount of time (like all of your dreams coming true in a week) and one consistent thing they already liked, guaranteed forever (like a warm cup of coffee every morning), most people chose the big wins: a bigger house, a fancy car, a promotion, winning the lottery. 

But the lab’s researchers found that the coffee-every-day-forever approach really makes people happier when push comes to shove. Why? 

We say we want a bigger house, but then we have to maintain it. We say we want a promotion, but it comes with more stress and longer hours. Meanwhile, one reliable, comforting constant in our lives—like a soothing cup of coffee every day—can make us feel great. In general, the big things we strive for don’t necessarily make us happier. 

This study proves scientifically what many of us have always known: Money can’t buy happiness. 

This Thanksgiving, I encourage you to think about what really makes you happy. Is it writing? Taking pictures? Giving back to the community? I have a feeling you’ll find that many of the best things in your life don’t cost a thing, or are well within your reach right now. 

I hope you can find the laughter and the joy in every situation. May this year and every year bring you a lot to be thankful for.

Toward a richer life,

Follow @alexavontobel

 via HUM Creative.

Pink Yellow Futura

{a man­i­festo of in­spi­ra­tion, ex­cerpt from “Look Build Ques­tion re­peat”}

Ev­ery­thing has al­ready been done, you say? Why both­er, you ask? Be­cause it is all amaz­ing­ly beau­ti­ful, and it’s dying for your at­ten­tion. Well it’s dying, any­way. If it’s not given new life, it will die. Some­day, some­where, alone. Or worse! Sur­round­ed by all it’s dying friends.

No need to stop mak­ing. The world al­ready made is enor­mous, glo­ri­ous, and full of in­spi­ra­tion. Mine it! Ref­er­ence it. Quote it. Cut it up, Put it back to­geth­er, and make it your own. The world is your oys­ter. It’s also your milk­shake and your pasta salad. Make it your donuts & teriya­ki stand!

Lis­ten to music. Lis­ten to Jay-Z. Find every sam­ple sam­pled. Lis­ten to Griz­zly Bear, have your mind blown (I was not ex­pect­ing that gum­by-es­que psychedel­ic clay­ma­tion video!) Lis­ten to Girl Talk and She & Him. They were lis­ten­ing to some­one else. Find out who, then lis­ten to them. look at the album cov­ers. How eff­ing cute were they? What type­face is that? Why are so many pink & tan? Brown & or­ange? Good, go with that. Hel­lenic Wide…. yes.

Visit the book store. Bet­ter yet, visit the li­brary. Check out every sin­gle book, scan the en­tire thing. Table of con­tents? Check. How about the sides of eight books held to­geth­er? A quilt­ed flag of spines. The end pa­pers too? Yes, please. where’d that pat­tern come from? It looks like a table cloth my grand­ma had. I won­der if she knew that au­thor? Per­haps they made casseroles to­geth­er?

oh, god. Casseroles. ebay, NOW.

Shapes of dish­es. Col­ors of dish­es. Pat­terns on dish­es. Com­mem­o­ra­tive plates!! Kennedy fam­i­ly Cape Cod plate is only 39 dol­lars. They’re all wear­ing white ex­cept for Car­olyn’s red shoes. Could any­thing stand out more? Note that: red and white. Lots of white, and a lit­tle red. OH! Her hair clip is red too. RED AC­CENTS. Got it.

What’s hap­pen­ing at the mall? You can’t for­get the mall. I know you want to, be­cause it’s all so… new. But it’s shelf life is short. It will be old and dying any minute, and YOU CAN SAVE IT. What’s hot right now Guess? Shim­mer and leather. Fresh col­ors to re­vive the clas­sics? JCrew says plum and cin­na­mon plus neon ankle socks. Tex­ture, tex­ture. Cor­duroy all over. Note to self: tiny stripes as tex­ture. muted fall col­ors, neon punch!

You’re tired, take a break. Try the cin­e­ma. Who the shit made that gor­geous type­face for Pub­lic En­e­mies? Neville, were you at the li­brary too? In­glo­ri­ous Bas­ter­ds, your type treat­ments are so over the top. How’d you pull that off? Can I do that? Do I have the guts to do that? (try that when you have a rea­son.) Oh, but the movies I have at home. Vir­gin Sui­cides. Wes An­der­son. PINK. YEL­LOW. FU­TU­RA. Yes, Yes, Yes. He didn’t in­vent that, you know.

Close your eyes. Ev­ery­thing from child­hood is right there. Are you at school? blue pens smudged on trans­par­ent sheets. Over­head pro­jec­tors. All those ridicu­lous but­tons on those huge PCs. Icons for ev­ery­thing, and ev­ery­thing in squares. Round­ed cor­ners. In­fo-graph­ics. Wide ruled paper. Foot­notes. LI­BRARY CARDS. (Don’t even get me start­ed on the sci­ence equip­ment). Maps nest­ed into maps, nest­ed into more maps, rolled up into the wall. Those shoes on the kid next you! what makes kid-size vel­cro nikes SO cute? Re­con­sid­er odd pro­por­tions. Bold stitch­ing, Vis­i­ble grids. Fast, slant­ed let­ters!

Read blogs re­lent­less­ly. Scratch that. LOOK at blogs. Skim them quick­ly, ab­sorb the pic­tures. Read­ing too close­ly will re­lease the com­pe­ti­tion in you, and the re­sent­ment. What are they all doing? Skin­ny Ships, Make Some­thing Cool Every Day. Grady Mc­Fer­rin, more pink and brown. Add tiffany teal. Pro­ject Pro­jects. I see Melis­sa Small from last year! and Chris Ro! They’re all doing work I’d roll up in. The oldies are there too: Char­lie Harp­er, Rod­chenko, Warhol!

Did Warhol eat from fall leaf pat­terned pyrex? Did he eat TV din­ners? The prod­uct pho­tos, elec­tric. Buzzing peas, vi­brat­ing pota­toes, Mys­tery meat. Over-sat­u­rate, mis-reg­is­ter, dot pat­tern! It will all die, if you don’t do some­thing. If you don’t re­vive it, you know. Every sin­gle thing, ev­ery­thing here to in­flu­ence. Find them all.

Tar­tine. Des­tiny’s Child. Mc­Sweenys. Don’t for­get trav­el stamps. And boyfriends and girl­friends. Your boyfriend’s broth­er’s wives who makes the sweet­est hand craft­ed cards, and her big eyed baby.: cream skin, green eyes, or­ange one­sie. Yes, note that. Even bet­ter, note: ba­bies in an­i­mal cos­tumes. BABY AN­I­MALS IN BABY AN­I­MAL COS­TUMES. Cup­cakes with whiskers, charms in the shape of cup­cakes. GOLD FROST­ING.

Do not let any of it go. Eter­nal life of ob­jects and im­agery. rein­car­na­tion and reuse. The glo­ri­ous world of all that came be­fore you. Mine it! Ref­er­ence it. Quote it. Cut it up, put it back to­geth­er, make it your own. The world is your milk­shake.