Best simple pleasures in Life

Laughing until you cry leads the best simple pleasure in life ranking with 1334 ELO points over 276 duels, ahead of Watching a sunset and The first bite of a dish you really love.

A 62-point gap separates Laughing until you cry from Watching a sunset at the top, marking the clearest divide in the ranking. With 1334 ELO points and a 67% win rate, uncontrollable laughter establishes itself as the pleasure voters value most. The first bite of a dish you really love sits at rank 3 with 1233 points, while Getting an unexpected text from a friend holds rank 4 at 1211 points. At the bottom, Walking barefoot in the grass lands at rank 10 with 1108 points and a 31% win rate, suggesting voters prefer social and culinary joys over tactile nature experiences. Finding forgotten money in your pocket ranks 9th with 1139 points, while The smell of fresh bread or pastries in the morning reaches rank 8 at 1152 points.

This ranking draws on 1313 duels submitted by 60 players across 10 contenders. The results were last updated on 11 October 2026. VAINKEURZ builds its rankings from direct comparisons: each duel asks voters to pick one pleasure over another, and every choice shifts the ELO scores that determine these positions. Head to the platform to cast your vote and shape this ranking with your own preferences.

Updated on October 11, 2026

How this ranking is computed

Every duel won lifts a contender and every loss drops them, by an amount that depends on the opponent's strength: beating the leader is worth more than beating the last. It is an ELO, the same principle as in chess. Duels are not drawn at random — an adaptive entropy sort puts the least predictable match-ups first, which settles the ranking far faster than a full round robin. A worldwide ranking is only published past 30 completed plays. Known limit: a contender who has faced few opponents keeps an approximate score, and the bottom of the table moves more than the podium.

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