The One Question That Shows What’s Truly Important

I’m writing this from the UK during Lockdown 3.0. I have had this theory long before the COVID-19 crisis and the pandemic has made me think about it even more. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

About 3 years ago, I started asking people a simple question:

‘What would your perfect day look like?’

I believe the answer to this always shows what is truly important to someone.

You might initially think about those moments where you’ve felt pure happiness in the past. Not when you’ve just been content, but those moments of pure joy that stand out on your first day of a holiday or vacation, opening results and finding out you’ve passed an important exam, or going to a music festival. You might think of a dream scenario where you wake up and win the lottery and jump on a private jet to an exotic location.

What if I told you that most people I’ve asked haven’t responded like that? They haven’t replied with the things that give them rushes of joy, and instead those smaller things that, in fact, make us feel content?

80% of people I asked to describe their perfect day spoke about routine things. They would start their day with their favourite breakfast, or with a cup of coffee and a book watching the sun rise, or waking up to their cat lying on their bed.

Their day would progress with a trip to the countryside for a walk and a cream tea (that’s scones with jam and cream to any non-Brits reading), dinner with their mum who lives in another country, or drinks with their closest friends. The best bit about these perfect days? They were all possible. They weren’t dreams that would never happen, they could become our realities.

The other 20% of people I asked spoke about traveling — with their friends or family. In an ideal scenario it was with all of their friends or family.

Relationships and connection were at the heart of every single answer.

I revisited this question with people at the end of 2020, when we had all been in one form of isolation or another for nearly 9 months. Had our experiences of the pandemic shaped our answers? In the most disconnected year of our lives, did we crave connection more than ever? Or were we over the ‘simple’ things like a sunrise and we missed the busy hum-drum of life? Did we now long for the freedom to travel and the luxury of our own space?

It turns out, no we did not. Everyone described similar perfect days to what they had pre-pandemic. Those who had been separated from loved ones for a long period of time stripped back their days even further. They no longer talked about where they could go or what activities they would do; they simply wanted to be together.

Those who had spent much of the year with their nearest and dearest still centred their perfect day on relationships and connection with them, as well as other people.

The main difference in answers was the number of people present in their perfect days. Depending on their experience of the pandemic, people tended to either focus their circle of people to 1 or 2 (typically immediate family) or they were the opposite and included every single person they’d missed. The former had been separated from family, living alone, or had lost loved ones, while the latter had been living with family or partners.

When we describe our perfect days, are we really just talking about doing the simple pleasures in life with the people we love or miss the most?

What does your perfect day look like?

Would your answer have been different pre-pandemic?