On the first Monday of 2015, I decided on a whim to get humans to stop dreading the week and start meeting it differently. I handed fresh flowers to strangers and offered nothing more than a smile and a “Happy Monday.” I didn’t know it then, but that small act would change the way I moved through the world. It proved how quickly kindness can soften a moment and how powerful it is to show up with intention.
That single Monday became a weekly commitment. Weeks stacked into years, and The Happy Monday Project grew into a rhythm of creating. What started as flowers slowly grew into something bigger, stranger, and more meaningful. Over time, The Happy Monday Project evolved into a ritual of making and giving—hundreds of handmade totems each week, paired with words meant to encourage, steady, or spark a little wonder. Flowers turned into pennies polished back to life, marbles for lost happy thoughts, bubbles, jars of wishes, notes, reminders, and objects that could be held onto long after the moment passed.
Eleven years later, I’m still here, still creating, still handing out totems to strangers at the start of every week. I still spend late nights cutting, gluing, tying, writing, and wondering what message needs to be made tangible this time. The materials change. The messages deepen. But the purpose has never shifted. Sometimes the words feel like a promise. Other times, a plea. But every week, I make something that can hold them. Because that’s how I understand faith. Not as belief, but as action. The quiet persistence of creation.
The Happy Monday Project isn’t about pretending life is easy or forcing optimism. It’s about choosing to show up anyway. It’s about creating connection where none is expected, offering a moment of care to someone who didn’t know they needed it, and reminding myself—week after week—that there is magic in the mundane.
And when the last totem is handed out, when the streets are quiet again and I finally rest my aching hands, there’s a stillness that hums with satisfaction. I think of the strangers who held these tiny objects, if only for a moment, and wonder if a spark of magic took root in their day. That connection is everything. Silent, invisible, fleeting.
This is the work.
To make hope tangible.
To keep showing up, one small totem at a time.
Eleven years in, The Happy Monday Project remains a way of life.
And I’m still just getting started.
Happy 11th Birthday, Happy Monday.
