What If We Subtracted: Joy
Actually, let's keep joy, but let go of the shame, grandiosity, and naïveté we pile on top of it.
Joy has always meant joy. Pleasure, good feelings, inner gladness.
If you’ve been here before, you’ve noticed that I love etymologies, and I’m finding that many words’ origins are actually the good, helpful version of their definition. On top of which, we’ve distorted their meanings to become less useful. (Like economics, from oikonomia, the same root as ecology. Or romance, originally meaning ‘in the local language’, not superficially showy.)
In the case of joy, its meaning has been stable for centuries. And yet, we’re still not getting it quite right.
When I was asked to give a TEDx talk at an event with the theme of joy, I started reflecting on if and how subtraction can link to joy. It didn’t take me long to decide the ‘if’. And some ‘hows’ emerged pretty quickly too.
For starters, what if we subtracted the idea that joy somehow can’t coexist alongside suffering — ours or others’? And the shame at feeling joy, looking for it, or working to fabricate it, when there are so many terrible things happening in the world.
Or what if we let go of the association of joy only with elaborate, epic events?
And what if we dropped the dismissal of joy as naïve or immature?
Those subtractions cleared enough space to ask a better question: what actually is joy, and who has figured it out? I started doing some research into people who study, write, and talk about joy. And had the privilege of speaking with or hearing from some of them live already. I’ll be sharing those conversations over the course of the month.
We’ll start with Diane Shiffer, the internet’s favorite nana, who was featured in the NYTimes this weekend for her advice to embrace our weirdnesses as a path to joy.
I got to see the wise, faith-filled (and hysterical) Kate Bowler right here in Greenwich. Cross your fingers with me that she might join us in a Live later this month!
Her religious perspective led her to see that the apparent tension of joy showing up alongside, or right in the middle of, the darkest moments of our life is actually its very essence. She has found it to be God’s way of asking a fundamental question: Is it good, just that you are alive right now?
She, and Diane, also led me to consider letting go of the idea that joy comes our way when it so pleases. Or as a reward for doing hard work. Or in direct correlation with how lucky (or rich, beautiful, or astrologically favored) we are.
These experts say we’ve gotta set ourselves up to notice joy, which is already blooming all around us, waiting to enliven our day, no matter how dismal it might otherwise be (and continue to be).
Kate actually advises that we put ourselves in the way of joy as though we’re walking in traffic (subscribe and read her book if you like that kind of sardonic metaphor as much as I do). More than playing frogger in the street, though, what she means is amplifying our practices of the precursors to joy, which she defines as hope, gratitude, and mostly just presence in the moment.
Diane recommends building Happy Traps: little ‘surprises’ around the house that you can plant for yourself to find later. And filling a Trunk of Joy with all the images, experiences, tastes, and jokes that have brought you joy over the years, so that you have a reserve to draw on in the darkest times when finding new ones might be tough.
Acknowledging the seeming conflict between joy and suffering has already come in really handy for me.
And getting permission to build joy into my days intentionally, or at least set myself up to be struck by it, has opened me to something I want to explore more.
I’ve been using Diane’s Sit and Stare ritual (as simple as it sounds — I set a five-minute timer and nurse matcha) to start my work days , and very much enjoying it. The label helps me actually do it, as a Thing.
Then Nic’s Joy Audit suggested that an area of improvement for me is leaving white space for joy to emerge more spontaneously (didn’t I just learn that lesson last month, in subtracting rush 🙄)…
Well, that’s why we’re here folks — hopefully by May 31, we’ll have some insight about when it helps to construct joy, and when it’s a matter of leaving space for it to crash in. As well as who knows how else we can subtract the noise to make joy purer, more powerful, and more present in our lives.
This week’s practices are designed to help you check in with your relationship with joy. We’ll get more specific over the month, as we consider joy in each of the three dimensions (Me, We, World). And as always, I’ll be practicing these subtractions right here along with you.
