🦆 CHILL THE DUCK OUT

Volume 011: The happiness ledger

💭 Cold Open

Our refrigerator is less of an appliance and more of a command center.

There’s the monthly calendar of events.

Daily boxes for meal planning.

My wife’s workout goals for the week.

Our son’s school schedule.

And of course, the pièce de résistance: an exceptionally cool magnetic notepad featuring one of those swimming pigs from the Bahamas. It’s the official keeper of everything we need to gather just to continue existing.

And that’s not even counting the work to-do lists, the digital reminders, the sticky notes quietly judging us from the junk drawer…

The point is: we all keep lists for everything. And while they help us stay fed, functional, and vaguely on time, there’s another list we rarely make.

The one where we keep a running tally of things that have gone right.

Not big, banner moments. Just the quiet little wins. The green lights. The right words. The way the air felt on a walk you almost didn’t take.

This week, we’re making that list. Because your brain keeps score and if you don’t show it the good stuff, it’ll keep pointing out everything else.

Let’s change the math. One remembered joy at a time.

🧠 The Science Bit

Keeping a list of good things might feel like a feel-good hobby, but turns out, it’s more like a brain-boosting super move with receipts.

Psychologists call it positive memory bias, the more you notice good stuff, the easier it becomes to spot more of it. Kind of like when you buy one houseplant and suddenly your apartment looks like a rainforest.

Here’s what’s happening behind the scenes:

• Regularly writing down positive moments helps shift your brain’s attention away from its default setting: “spot the doom.” Cognitive psychology research shows it can counteract our old pal negativity bias, the evolutionary trait that helped us avoid tigers but now mostly helps us spiral over emails sent without emojis.

• When you jot down a joyful moment, you’re not just noticing it, you’re helping your brain consolidate it into emotional memory. That’s long-term mood fuel. Basically, your brain starts bookmarking the good stuff.

• This practice also taps into something called savoring, which is the fine art of marinating in your wins, no matter how tiny. Research by Bryant & Veroff shows that savoring doesn’t just extend good feelings. It helps strengthen them like tiny reps for your emotional biceps.

• Neuroimaging studies show that recalling positive memories activates the striatum, a reward-processing region in the brain linked to better mood and emotional regulation. In non-nerd terms: remembering the good stuff literally makes your brain happier.

• All of this aligns with Barbara Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory, which says that positive emotions help widen our perspective and build up internal resources like resilience, creativity, and not yelling at the printer.

It’s like compound interest, but for your nervous system.

Each tiny note might not feel like much, but give it a week, a month, a year, and suddenly, you’ve built a whole stockpile of “I’m okay” proof you can pull from when life gets weird.

🍟 This Week’s Happytizer: Start Your Joy List

Your mission: Start a note on your phone called “Good Things That Happened to Me.”
Or whatever you’d like to name it — be weird, be poetic, be deeply sarcastic. It still counts.

Need ideas for your first joy list entries? Try one of these universal wins:

• The iced coffee that hit just right and briefly made you believe in magic

• The unexpected “thank you” from someone who usually communicates in sighs

• That duck meme someone sent you (which you definitely forwarded, twice)

• When your favorite song randomly plays like the universe is your DJ

• The one pair of pants that still fits like you haven’t given up

• A stranger complimented your outfit… and you’re still riding that high

• The moment your pet looked at you like you’re the snack now

Keep it simple. Keep it honest. Let it grow.

Because one day soon, you’ll scroll back and realize the list is a reminder that joy never left. It just needed a better filing system.

✨ Unsolicited Joy of the Week

Some people build a life brick by brick. Others? They legally change their name to Fire Exit and watch the blessings roll in.

Yes, really.

Deano Wilson, now Mr. Fire Exit, changed his name on a dare to “become famous.” And guess what? He’s now gone viral, gotten VIP treatment at concerts, and says the name change was the best decision he’s ever made.

This man is out here living proof that sometimes you can manifest joy, attention, and slightly chaotic greatness… one unhinged form at a time.

📖 Read the full Fire Exit origin story

💬 Tell me what you’d put on your list

What made you smile this week, even for a second? What little win would future-you want to remember?

📩 [email protected]

Oh, and this will be your last reminder about the T-Shirt giveaway raffle! For every new subscriber that you refer, you get an entry to win this chilltastic t-shirt.

The raffle is going on now through June 15th. That’s this Sunday.

Here’s your unique referral code to share far and wide: https://www.chilltheduckout.com/subscribe?ref=PLACEHOLDER

Share it… or prepare to receive motivational duck memes at highly inconvenient times.

🫶 Duckin’ Done

That’s Volume 011.
May your moments feel a little softer, your phone a little happier, and your joy a little easier to find.

Until next time: collect the good stuff, keep the receipts, and chill the duck out.

Jason

🧐 Behind the Curtain

I don’t just sprinkle joy. I source it:

1. Bryant, F. B., & Veroff, J. (2007). "Savoring: A New Model of Positive Experience." Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

2. Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). "The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions." American Psychologist, 56(3), 218-226.

3. Quoidbach, J., Mikolajczak, M., & Gross, J. J. (2015). "Positive interventions: An emotion regulation perspective." Psychological Bulletin, 141(3), 655-693.