On Joy

Anna's Aphorism #42

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about joy.

Personal joy. Cultural joy. How and where find joy.

But what is ‘joy?’ Is it happiness, pleasure, enjoyment? I’ve seen it described as flow, aspiration, motivation. All the possible synonyms, all trying to pin down an exact definition of something nebulous, something really quite personal to each of us.

To me, joy happens when you achieve three things:

1. Connection

2. Contentment

3. Purpose

Connection

Whether you are a loner or a social butterfly, an intro-, ambi-, or extravert, every human needs connection. Your circle may be made of biological relations, found family, or online friends. You may connect through school, work, or your religious practice. You may have a large social network or only a few close friends.

Every human needs connection.

Connection is a biological imperative. From the moment of birth, newborns seek connection with a caregiver. If infants and toddlers do not form healthy attachments to their adults and other children, it can impact their ability to form healthy relationships later in life.

(We are seeing in real time what happens when children are not taught to care about the lives of others: they grow into adults who do not care about the lives of others.)

We need connections to be fulfilled and healthy, both emotionally and biologically.

Contentment

What does it mean to be ‘content?’

For me, it means ‘enough.’

While I might strive for a promotion to earn more money, currently I have enough to take care of my family. We have a safe, comfortable house, enough food to eat, and can get healthcare when we need it. My children have everything they need to be happy and healthy.

We have enough.

And equally important, I am enough. This took many years of self-reflection and some therapy to come to believe. But I am enough.

I am good enough. I am smart enough. I work hard enough. I do enough.

I can find contentment in just being me.

Purpose

Purpose carries such a weighty connotation, doesn’t it? But your purpose doesn’t have to be something epic. Every day, millions of adults get up and make their kids breakfast, help brush their teeth, put shoes on the correct feet, and get them off to school.

I don’t know about you, but when I had small, squirmy, argumentative children, managing them was all the purpose I had in me.

(They are taller, mostly self-sufficient children now, but still squirmy and argumentative. I also still have to correct the wrong foot situation. Sometimes they forget shoes altogether. ADHD + teenage hormones is a special kind of torment.)

Do you sew blankets for shelter dogs? Do you volunteer at the library? Do you pick up trash on your morning walk? Knock on doors for your state representative?

Do you paint, draw, garden, write poetry, run marathons, dance, help, give?

Do you take the time to appreciate the purpose of others?

When you walk around your town, do you see the art? Do you see the efforts of others to clean up? Do you notice the volunteer organizations, the relief societies, the co-ops?

As Mr. Rodgers advised us, do you look for the helpers?

Even if you are not in need of the aid others give, if going to the ballet is not your thing, if you don’t find street art interesting, you can still recognize the purpose behind these things. You can recognize the same desire – to do, to create, to give – in others that you have within yourself.

When we have these three things – connection, contentment, purpose – this is where joy is found.

Now, the real question at heart of these musings: who deserves joy?

Who gets access to joy? Who in our society, our culture, is allowed to feel joy?

Who deserves to feel connection and community?

Who deserves to feel contentment, to have the relief of having ‘enough,’ both physically and emotionally?

Who deserves to find purpose in their life?

When you and I and all of us realize that the true and only answer is everyone, then everything falls into place.

Everyone deserves community and connection. Everyone deserves the chance to form lasting, fulfilling relationships with friends and partners.

Everyone deserves contentment. Everyone deserves physical and emotional safety, at every stage of their life.

Everyone deserves purpose. Everyone deserves the chance to find the thing that they love most, be it art, music, science, philanthropy, industry, or simply finding shapes in the clouds.

Everyone deserves joy.

If we made our policy and societal decisions around this philosophy, around supporting the weakest and most vulnerable of us, think of the soaring heights we could reach. Think of the geniuses laboring under the weight of poverty, the artists crushed beneath the burden of caregiving. Think of the innovations unable to take shape due to the demands of jobs, the ideas smothered by depression and exhaustion.

Think of what we could become, if only we would cultivate joy.