Demistfying Joy
This August, we set out to decode a powerful three-letter word - JOY. Our guest contributor and friend, Brenda Han helped us break it down through her lens and experience. We hope you enjoy reading the piece as much as we did.
Demystifying Joy by Brenda Han
What is the meaning of joy? It’s not something I have spent much time thinking about before, but when I stopped working a few months ago it was the first time I could stop and think. Taking a career break in the middle of a pandemic without the ability to travel creates a hotbed of introspection (and mild anxiety) for the mind, especially when you’ve worked almost two decades in the frenetic pace of advertising without ever stopping. There’s a lot online about the differences between joy and happiness, in my view they can be used interchangeably, but there is definitely the difference between a euphoric high from say attending a live concert to a deep sense of well-being and contentment that is not dependent on an external factor. The latter to me is joy.
I made a list on what brings me joy, and tried not to overthink it:
The satisfaction from doing something well – writing something well, cooking something delicious with care, pulling off a difficult work thing.
Having nothing on my schedule and the freedom to do what I want.
Being lost in my senses – through music, dance, art, film and nature.
My kids at peace, content, and giggling with me.
Having moments of true connection with my loved ones.
Moments of serendipity and clarity when something I’m reading or listening to really resonates with me.
When I feel connected in my body, after a workout or meditation.
I was surprised the first things that came to mind are small things, even seemingly fleeting moments. At the same time they are also things I know I will have again and again without limit in my life. They are not conditional to other things happening and, in that sense, they are mine and mine alone.
As I read more on the topic I encountered an article* on joy and happiness from Brianna Wiest, an American writer and poet that I follow online, and she quotes a book called “Resilience” by Eric Greitens, which compares happiness to the primary colours, and talks about the three types of colours (as proxy for happiness) from which all the rest are created: the happiness of pleasures, the happiness of grace, and the happiness of excellence. When I look at the list of things that bring me joy, I can see them falling into these three types and it makes so much sense.
The happiness of excellence brings joy from the act of creation. Pursuing something and doing it with finesse is something that requires experience and craft. In this fast-paced world where there is constant pressure to create more output in a shorter amount of time, we don’t often have the time and space to craft. But to what end? There is a level of satisfaction that comes in a job done well. As an English Literature student my joy has always come from the written word, when done with skill it can convey deep emotion and set my imagination on fire. I can’t really draw, dance or make music, but I can write. Over my 18-year career in advertising I was not a creative, I was in account management. Which means my craft is not copy, but emails and presentations. This may sound silly but I always take a lot of pride in how I wrote my emails, and I spent time crafting it. When done well it is an effective piece of communication but also gave me a lot of satisfaction.
A lot of things that bring me joy are sensorial. I remember when I was a teenager I returned week after week to the Calvin Klein store to admire a black jersey silk shirt that was very simple. But the workmanship and the silky feel of the fabric made me feel like a million bucks and I saved up for months to buy it for myself. I wore it for many years after and it brought me joy each time. The same is with music, art and film. They convey ideas, open up your imagination and fill your senses with a happiness of pleasure, which transports you to something larger than yourself. As Kurt Vonnegut the late American writer wanted to have on his epitaph, “The only proof he needed for the existence of God was music.”
What the other moments have in common are serendipity. Moments of true connection, clarity and freedom are moments you stumble upon, in those moments I feel great gratitude, and a deep sense of well-being, of joy. A happiness of grace. You can try to create the conditions for it but several stars have to align for it to happen in that moment. And when they happen, it is a gift.
I probably had preconceptions that joy needs to look a certain way. That it is dependent on achieving something, before I will feel joy. I have been on a diet in my head all my life. I always think I will be happier after I’ve achieved a target weight that has grown even more elusive after having two kids. If we are dependent on an external factor or person to give us permission to feel joy we will always be chasing. With the maturity of (relative) age and a lot of soul-searching comes self-acceptance of the only body and mind I will ever have. Now I strive for more physical mobility and to keep myself pain-free when I exercise, feeling balanced within when I eat, and not being so hard on myself when I’ve given in to indulgences. Knowing that joy is a gift and a choice makes me feel grateful for when it does appear and I try to be aware when it is happening.
When I said I was surprised that my joy triggers are so small, perhaps on some level I thought joy would be big and bombastic, ecstatic and all-consuming. There are certainly moments like that in your life that you would cherish forever, however there are a lot of small things daily that can bring us joy and allow us to feel joy, if we have the awareness to look out for it.
Working brought me a lot of joy over the years – the camaraderie and the sense of belonging, the intellectual meeting of minds and honing one’s craft. When I first stopped work a few months ago my mind went into a slight panic, what do I do with myself and how do I know I’m doing well? It took me several weeks to decompress and find a new rhythm, taking on a new meditation and exercise routine, and adapting to the daily cycle of a household with young children’s needs and wants. There’s still angst and anxiety when you don’t have the daily distraction of constant work, but it’s slowed down now. I find myself encountering and savouring moments of connection with my husband and the kids, the ability to take on training and help out my father’s business, newfound joy in doing housework while listening to podcasts. The list goes on.
I’m aware I’m very lucky to have the time and space to discover this about myself while not working. I think about how to maintain this even when I go back to work, and I think it comes down to a few things.
Making yourself a priority – having the capacity to embrace more joy in your life means making space for it in the first place, and you can’t do that if you spend all your time tending to others’ needs. You need to fill your cup to take care of others. It doesn’t mean you’re being selfish, and you can start in really small ways. Finding 15min a day to keep to yourself that doesn’t involve mindless phone scrolling, but a chance to reflect. To quote Brianna Wiest again, I love this passage.
“How do you figure out who you are?You stay right where you are. You dig. You learn the simplest facts about yourself. You date yourself. You daydream, until you discover something that makes your chest feel even the smallest spark of hope. You question your darkest thoughts. You create rituals, soul-opening routines. You begin exactly where you are, with exactly what you have, and you work until every detail is made beautiful. You let yourself feel what you feel. You begin to act in self-loving ways even, and maybe most especially, when you fear you don’t deserve it. You realize that you are growing through the discomfort. You learn to let yourself be.”
Seeking grace – grace to me is about acknowledging something greater than yourself, which helps you be kind to others and yourself. It is not something I’ve spent much time thinking about, even though I have always had much to be grateful about. Cultivating more self-awareness through meditation and journaling is a way I regularly seek grace. When I’m not consistent with meditation and journaling I start to lose touch with the grace I have in my life and my mind tends to get stuck with negative or critical thoughts and my life is poorer for it. In a recent Tim Ferris podcast with Dr Anderw Huberman, a neuroscientist and tenured professor at Stanford University’s School of Medicine, he talks about “Use(ing) the body to control the mind”, when it comes to neuroplasticity and positive mental health. He goes on to explain**:
“This is a broad category, but get your biology right. Start with sleep. Figure it out. Figure out how to get your sleep right because it’s the fundamental layer of mental health. So get that one right. Other things in the biological category are learn how to focus, learn how to de-focus. Learn how to flip the switch on, learn how to flip the switch off. Get good at sleeping. Of course, exercise of various kinds is going to be good and all the other things, but there’s just that physical bin. And those are the primary levers there. I do think some form of exploration, whether or not it’s psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, journaling, or some sort of internal reflection that’s somewhat unregulated, but obviously not damaging to you or anyone else. So don’t punch concrete walls, but have the ability to sit down and data dump and reflect. If you can’t afford therapy, reflect on what you’re seeing and reading and feeling. Have the ability to experience what’s internal.”Pleasure can never fill a void for long – going back to the three types of happiness from which everything is built on. They are the happiness of pleasure, happiness of grace, and happiness of excellence. Seeking joy through the pursuit of pleasure will work, but only to some extent. Whether you turn to Netflix binges, Ben & Jerrys, or other ways to self-soothe, the occasional indulgence is definitely healthy, but always relying on just one type of happiness to compensate for the others doesn’t make you feel better in the long run. At least that is the case for me. For me it’s a constant journey of partaking in my indulgences more consciously, and seeking a balance in return.
Joy is a gift worth seeking, for it makes us grateful and gives us hope in these unpredictable times.
Notes:
Forbes: You Don't Have To Be Happy Every Day To Be Doing What You Love
**(requoted with permission up to 500 words) - The Tim Ferriss Show