Suffering doesn’t get the headline

At the 3% Creative Retreat last month, we talked about joy as an act of resistance. And that's been sitting with me since then.

So much in the world right now is heavy, serious, urgent, deserving of our attention and energy. And somewhere along the way, I think we started believing that sitting in that heaviness 24/7 was the appropriate - or default, response. That happiness had to wait for better circumstances like a promotion, a major milestone, peace on earth, a bigger paycheck or smaller number on the scale.

I think we've got it backwards. What if joy isn't something we earn after we've suffered sufficiently? Little joys are always there: the morning light through the window, coffee out of your favorite mug, a conversation that makes you laugh, that triumphant smile when your kid makes the bus just in time. They don't erase the hard stuff, but they remind us we're absolutely capable of feeling something other than overwhelmed.

When we open ourselves to those moments of joy and beauty, not instead of acknowledging the pain, but alongside it, we actually become better equipped to manage the adversity. Permission to be joyful isn't escapism. It's fuel.

Life is imperfect right now. It always will be. And waiting for perfect conditions to let ourselves feel good means we're choosing to live in a holding pattern of our own making.

So maybe joy isn't the reward we get when life lightens up. Maybe it's the lifeline we throw ourselves when it doesn't.