Recently I’ve been thinking about a word. The word is satisfying. I associated satisfying with satisfactory and that word, to me, meant middle of the road and not great. Perhaps my perspective is shaped by report cards as a kid when Satisfactory was the middle grade (Commendable - C’s were the best, then S’s - satisfactory, then U’s - unacceptable or something like that). So elementary school grades are my first memory of the root of the word.

Today, the word satisfied makes me think about customer satisfaction surveys. Satisfactory service is definitely not the goal in any of my customer experience work. So again here, satisfactory is mediocre and a plateau from which you need to ascend. Almost unknowingly, I place satisfying in the same container as satisfactory. It’s average. It’s OK.

Have you seen those Geico commercials where “OK is not OK”? If you haven’t seen the commercials, click here for a smile. The point is in some situations OK produces bad results. But there are also times when satisfying IS more than OK and it seems that I’ve been overlooking the simply satisfying things that life brings daily.

Satisfactory shares the same root as satisfying. And associating the two words may have tainted satisfying for me. But recently the word took on new meaning. Possibilities for it emerged when I heard my kids using the word satisfying multiple times daily. They used the word for tiny moments I’d likely describe as nondescript and ordinary. The satisfying things were just plain. This one was also plain funny. The other day my daughter said, “Do you know what is really satisfying?” I replied, “No.” And she said, “Running over a bug on my scooter.” Now, aside from those worrying about destroying life (details), it was satisfying for her. She liked the crunch! Wow. Kids use this word every day for experiences that stand out to them. And these experiences aren’t Disney Cruises or trips to Dave & Busters, they’re creating stuff out of twigs, squishing bugs, and feeling homemade slime in their hands!

If you start to look you’ll see satisfied and satisfying in more places than elementary grades and surveys. Recently I noticed it in the Hamilton song “Satisfied” and in the book Atomic Habits. Author James Clear includes it as Key Principle #5: Make it satisfying. The book is written to help us create and continue positive habits in life.

I’d never thought of satisfying in the present tense. Satisfying in the moment is…well, extraordinary. Wouldn’t satisfying be a great explanation for a part of your day? For me, writing blogs like this is satisfying. That’s good. Actually, that’s great!

What in your life is satisfying that you haven’t noticed or held up as exceptional?

P.S. If it’s bug crushing you might want to keep it to yourself.