Where it all began
About Small (Certain) Happiness
Once a week, I cook a big batch of organic rice, wrapping and freezing it in portions. Since it’s a rare occasion, I look forward to the days I can eat freshly cooked rice. Apparently, I’d mentioned it several times on our walk today because my partner, Niels, laughing, asked, “Is that what you’re looking forward to the most right now?” Without hesitation, I nodded and said, “Yes!”
Daikon miso soup with seaweed and soy sauce on the side. It may seem small, almost embarrassingly so, but sitting down to enjoy it fills me with a warmth that feels like true happiness. At times like these, I’m reminded of the word 小確幸 (shōkakkō)—an abbreviation of 小さいけど確かな幸せ, or “small but certain happiness.”
Old fans of Murakami might recognize it from his 1986 essay Afternoon in the Islets of Langerhans. Murakami gives examples of these small but certain joys:
tearing off pieces of a freshly baked loaf of bread,
seeing neatly folded clothes in a drawer,
listening to Brahms' chamber music as the afternoon sun glows,
drinking a cold beer after exercise.
By extracting the kanji “small” (小), “certain” (確), and “happiness” (幸), he captures the essence of dependable, quiet joy found in the everyday.
I didn’t come across this term until a few years ago in the film Little Forest (リトル・フォレスト, 2014). After years of city life in Tokyo, the protagonist Ichiko returns to her small hometown, Komori. Surrounded by forests and farmland, far from any supermarket, she lives alone in her childhood home, growing food and deciding each day’s meals by the season and her mood.
We watch her prepare each meal with love and care, savoring the results. During the rainy winter, she bakes warm, glutinous bread using the residual heat from her stove. In cool autumn, she collects walnuts to make fragrant walnut rice for her bento. And on sweltering summer evenings, after a long day of work, she enjoys a pot of ice-cold rice wine. These moments, humble yet intentional, are her shōkakkō. They aren’t grand, but they are undoubtedly happiness.
Watching her life, filled with these small moments, you’d never guess the challenges she’s faced—the family and lover who left her. In spite of it all, she finds healing through these small joys, creating her own happiness with a sense of ceremony.
During one of the harder times in my life, I found this deeply inspiring: the idea of living with a sense of ceremony, of finding resilience through the small things even when life feels uncertain. I realized that a sensitivity to happiness didn’t come naturally to me. After years of living fast and focused on achievement, I’d become detached from the quiet joys surrounding me.
Since then, I’ve worked to cultivate a sensitivity to happiness. It’s an ongoing journey, but slowly, I’m grounding myself in these subtle, sensory moments—my own shōkakkō.
I started shōkakkō Small (Certain) Happiness as a tribute to these small, certain joys, a place for those who seek courage in the gentle rhythms of life, who yearn to find happiness in life’s overlooked details. Here, happiness is less about grand achievements and more about a warm bowl of rice, a freshly brewed cup of tea, or the quiet satisfaction of something made by hand.
Through thoughtfully curated items, sensory rituals, and gentle reminders to embrace life’s subtle joys, Small (Certain) Happiness invites you to find your own moments of shōkakkō. It’s not a call to slow down or escape, but an invitation to notice the happiness that’s already here—in the glistening light, the season’s first harvest, and the taste of something simple and fresh. This is happiness you can hold, savor, and carry with you, quietly, into your everyday life.
