Joy Is Still Possible
Joy is still available.
It’s still here. Joy isn’t off the shelves or out of stock like paper towels or disinfectant spray or toilet paper.
But then we never could buy joy, could we? It wasn’t ever for sale, although some of us tried our hardest to buy what we thought passed for joy.
We’re all discovering new things about joy now and we’re finding it in unexpected places, like dogs with bones that we buried so long ago and now we unearth, happy and panting that what we thought was lost was really there all the time, below the surface, but we just couldn’t see it.
Joy is being unearthed and found:
- In our simple morning coffee in the dark, before the sun and the rest of the family has risen
- In the movement of our bodies
- In baking and cooking and making things with our hands again
- In reading and snuggling on the couch together
- And those evening walks as the twilight settles over the land, sinking into our thoughts and preparing for another day.
Finding joy in these moments of a world slowdown makes sense because the word “joy” comes from the Latin word “gaudia” which comes from “gaudēre” which means to rejoice. We are learning to rejoice again in the simple pleasures of nature and time and connection with our fellow human beings.
Of all the things that have come with this pandemic, our ability to rejoice in the simple pleasures is probably one of the greatest gifts we have given to ourselves.
As you move forward through the coming days of your life, perhaps it would be helpful to think of where you find joy now and where you want to look for it in the future.
If you’d like a little help with looking, consider joining one of our on-demand recorded webinars:
- Living in the UnKnown with Gangaji
- 6 Well-Being Practices to Start Today with Alane Freund, Scott Schwenk, and Sara Avant Stover
“A joyful life is made up of joyful moments gracefully strung together.” – Brene Brown
