IF THIS ISNT NICE, I DONT KNOW WHAT IS

On noticing the good moments while they are still happening.

"If this isn't nice, I don't know what is." Those words have stayed with me for many years. They were not mine. They belonged to the American author Kurt Vonnegut, recalling a piece of advice given to him by his Uncle Alex. Whenever life presented one of those unexpectedly perfect moments, a family meal, friends laughing together on a summer evening, children playing in the garden or simply sitting together over a quiet drink, his uncle would gently interrupt the conversation and say, "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is." He understood something that most of us don't. Happiness has a habit of arriving quietly. It rarely announces itself. There are no trumpets, no fanfare, no dramatic soundtrack. More often, it slips unnoticed into ordinary afternoons and leaves before we realise it was ever there.

As a younger man, I don't think I understood that. Like many people building a business and raising a family, I was always looking ahead. There was another drawing to complete, another project to begin, another deadline to meet. I thought satisfaction lived somewhere beyond the next achievement, just over the horizon. Looking back, I realise happiness wasn't waiting for me in the future at all. It had been quietly sitting beside me. I've often heard people say, "Those were the happiest years of my life." What strikes me is that they rarely knew it at the time. We look back on family holidays, Sunday lunches, evenings with old friends or afternoons spent with children who are now adults, and we recognise them as precious. Yet when we were living those moments, they often felt quite ordinary. We assumed there would always be another Sunday, another holiday, another opportunity to gather around the table. Life, however, has a habit of moving on.

Perhaps that is one of the gifts of growing older. Now that I find myself in what I like to call the afternoon of my life, I have become much more aware of these moments. I try, quite deliberately, to stop and notice them while they are happening. A cup of properly brewed tea shared with Rachel. Watching the late afternoon light drift through the windows at Woodlands. A house full of family voices and laughter. A quiet conversation with Oscar in the workshop after all the machinery is turned off. Standing with a client in their completed library, saying very little because the room itself says everything that needs to be said. These moments don't appear in annual reports. They don't win awards. No one applauds them. And yet, I have come to believe they are the true measure of a rich life.

Design has taught me this as much as anything. People often imagine that my work is about cabinetry, bookshelves or architectural detailing. It isn't. Not really. Those things are simply the setting. What people are truly seeking is a place where life can unfold well. A library is never just a room for books. It becomes the place where a child discovers The Wind in the Willows for the first time. Where someone quietly reads beside a fire on a winter's afternoon. Where friends linger over a glass of wine long after dinner has finished. Where difficult conversations are held. Where ideas begin. Where memories are made. The room itself doesn't create happiness. But it can quietly make space for it.

Perhaps that's why I've become less interested in perfection and more interested in presence. The Romans had a wonderful expression: Carpe Diem. Most people translate it as "Seize the day." For many years, I thought it meant squeezing as much achievement as possible into every waking hour. Now I wonder if it means something rather different. Perhaps it means, notice the day. Because you cannot seize something you never realised you were holding. Uncle Alex understood that. Kurt Vonnegut understood it. I'm still learning it. Whenever I catch myself sitting around the table with the people I love, sharing good food, telling stories, laughing over nothing in particular, I sometimes think of those simple words. "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is." I don't always say them aloud. But I do pause. I look around the room. And for just a moment, I allow myself to understand that one day I may look back on this ordinary afternoon and realise it was one of the happiest days of my life. This time, I would like to know it while I'm living it.

A Closing Thought

Perhaps the happiest moments of our lives do not look particularly important while we are living them. That may be precisely why we need to notice. Every now and then, stop. Look around. If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.