One morning at the gym last week, I reached for a dumbbell and saw a tiny alligator propped on top of the rack. I put it in my pocket to add to my collection. I don’t always have room for big souvenirs when I travel, so I have started to collect tiny things that bring me joy. They are proudly displayed in the living room inside the display case my girlfriend carefully picked for me last Christmas and it’s almost full already. Inside, there are shelves full of wildly different items - everything from arrowheads to a tiny plastic soldier and dice made of amber from Latvia. Now, this tiny green alligator, too.

As I placed the alligator next to another item of a similar size, I remembered the big bags of tiny toys used for pranks online. They have everything. Ducks and even body shapes I will not name here. I went on a search for my own big bag of tiny plastic animals. I wasn’t feeling picky. I wanted something I could take on trips to spread some tiny joy. 

For less than $10, I am now the proud owner of over 200 glow-in-the-dark dinosaur figurines. They arrived just in time. On Monday morning, I drove to Notre Dame for my keynote armed with my bag of tiny dinosaurs. In route to the first networking event, I put three in different spots. On a light fixture in the hotel. One in the lobby. Another on my host’s desk as I explained why I was carrying around a pocket of tiny dinosaurs. "For some reason, it makes me really happy,” I said. “Maybe it’ll make someone else’s day, too.” I even put one in the game day locker room on a tour of the stadium.  

I'm sure you can imagine some of the curious looks I got as I reached in my pocket, grabbed a dinosaur and set them up. Only one of the people attending the conference actually said something to me - a student working as an intern in the career development office at Illinois University. After I told them why I was carrying around all these figurines, they actually said: “That’s cool.” I’m confident that will be the first and last time I will be called cool by a 20-something in my forties. 

I remember when I was their age, graduating from college. I thought I was finally an adult. I was convinced my joy was a waste of time in my race toward the next best thing. I told myself that the playful things I did when I was 20 like shooting a basketball or spontaneous road trips were a distraction. I saw no joy in the mundane, just rushing ahead.

The problem with running that far that fast for that long is that I stopped noticing anything but the problems I believed stood in my way. I didn’t notice things like beautiful flowers or unique art for years. The consequence of that attention was whatever the opposite of rose colored glasses is. I believed the next worst thing was always around the corner. 

Now, I'm not saying that a tiny dinosaur is a one-to-one exchange for all my big worries or finding joy in my life again. But I hope that the tiny dinosaurs interrupt me and other busy people as a reminder. A dinosaur sized nudge that joy is in the details, not just when we arrive at our next destination.