Ode to Joy

How do we experience joy? Stop overthinking it. | A webinar for redefining productivity | Navigating change with change makers...

This piece was reprinted from Optionality, a membership community and platform for experienced professionals who are ready to embrace new ways of working. Via live and virtual events, masterclasses, local meetups, and retreats, Optionality members are equipped, educated, and empowered to make bold new moves and embrace their next act.

I'll be honest, this was initially a difficult post to write, one about JOY.

When catching up with old friends and being asked in earnest, "How are you?" the word "joy" hasn't come up. Words, like “worried” and “sad” come up, as the funding environment and economic uncertainty comprise a theme I wake up to most mornings. Some of my colleagues have been laid off, have closed their businesses, or struggle daily to keep their companies going. I've lost a family member, a dear friend, and former colleagues unexpectedly. Another friend is in recovery from a serious accident. Some people close to me have struggled with their mental health, which in turn, has affected mine.

But given this month’s theme at Optionality of Play, Fun, and Joy, I had to try.

In truth, there are specks of light that have emanated from the grind -- pieces of lightness I have extrapolated from the process of living through a period that has been heavier than most, including rediscovering the lyrics of a song that got me through another tough time, 25 years ago, when someone close to me ended his life. My daughter unearthed the song while sifting through my old CDs and converting them into a Spotify playlist: “Central Reservation” by Beth Orton.

If this is where memories are made

I'm gonna like what I see

And everything that I ever took for granted

I'm gonna let it be

I step through every shade

All the color you bring

This time, this time, this time

Is whatever I want it to mean

And everything and nothing is as sacred as we'd want it to be

When it's really all

Make it really all

Compared to what…

–Beth Orton, Central Reservation

The song reminded me that joy is a reward in itself, not something we must earn, and not something we’re robbed of by awful circumstances. It's a decision we make; inklings we follow for no apparent reason other than they feel good, or make us curious. Joy has nothing to do with the words "should" or "must.”

What is the formula for Joy? I hardly know this for myself, let alone for others. But I do know some of the ingredients.

Traditions:

It's important to note that traditions, in and of themselves, do not form joy; it's the acceptance of them as meaningful that make them joyful. Ultimately joy cannot be manufactured or forced, as anyone who has gone to a disastrous Thanksgiving Dinner can attest. Having all of the components -- good food, loved ones, time off work -- may be proper kindling for joy, but joy cannot ignite without a decision to accept that Uncle George will still likely make politically insensitive remarks, and not everybody will be into watching the football game, and the kids are probably going to act up. We can still be joyful.

Where I find joy is in the traditions I have forged within traditions: The night of baking before Thanksgiving, when we order takeout and our refrigerator becomes a sliding Tupperware puzzle trying to fit everything; and the day after, when we buy a Christmas tree, test and wrap a mile of string lights and hang ornaments in order of year received. These are accidental traditions that you eventually realize are woven into the fabric of your happiness.

Rituals:

My sister has moved to three different states in as many years. What keeps her sane and grounded? Pilates. Every new home she’s moved into has been selected for being in walking vicinity of a studio. She's tricked out a home studio for days she can't make it to class. Sure, she loves the exercise, but it's also the strand of recognizable community and comfort amidst upheaval, like my daily mug of coffee; or for my friend who’s a contractor, reading the news every morning in his favorite chair before heading out to see clients.

These rituals we integrate into our lives to ensure there is always a trace of joy in our day.

Personal Quirks:

The dear friend that I lost this summer, Margo, was, by most accounts, her own person. She lived alone with her cats, had eclectic (read: deeply nostalgic) design sensibility, and had encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture lore. When we lost her unexpectedly, weeks before her book launch, we thought it was a tragedy to lose someone so young, who had experienced so much loss in her own right with four of her family members passing in the few years leading up to her own death, and right before what would have been an occasion she used to dream about.

But her life was far from tragic. She lived a bespoke existence and was in the throes of seeing her passions through. Those who had seen her before she passed said she hadn’t been happier or more on-mission. She had found what would keep her hopeful amidst the tragedies of life. She had been living in her own Margoesque joy.

May we all discover that for ourselves in this life, and inspire it in others when we depart from it.

Microdoses:

Some of my most joyous moments are super micro, lasting minutes, even seconds, sometimes involving no one other than myself. My family usually makes a trek out East each summer to visit family, and we plan outings with extended family, visits to favorite restaurants and shops, time at the beach. But no summer plan is fully complete without at least once attempting to catch fireflies.

I have a limited window of approximately 20 minutes when the dusk is dark enough to surface these blazing insects and I can strategize a canvassing plan to capture (and set free) as many in the vicinity as possible.

There is no endgame to this activity. No number to hit. And yet there’s an urgency to take advantage of the moment. The only perfection to be achieved is in seeing a tiny flame flickering in mid-air and screaming, “Over there!”

My kids and I hold to an unspoken agreement to drop everything for those 20 minutes and catch lightning. We are, in effect, catching and releasing joy.

A shared sense of humor, memory, and purpose:

On my latest trip out East I had one solemn obligation: attend a memorial for my Uncle Ken in Waupaca, Wisconsin. My cousins planned it perfectly with “sprinkles” of joy, from putting a speaker on his tombstone and playing his favorite AC/DC song, to exhibiting some of his best, often hilarious columns in the local paper so we could sit and remember him joyfully.

My Optionality co-founder, Elisa, recently sparked another memorial when she posted about the 20th anniversary of the event that kicked off our first company, BlogHer, inspiring a wave of shared memories. Reading these remembrances and of the impact the community has had on members’ lives gave me a completely unanticipated jolt of elation not dissimilar to when my daughters were born. This was joy on-acid.

Moments of presence:

I started Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) last year to alleviate symptoms I was experiencing around perimenopause–night sweats, sleepless nights, brain fog and bouts of anxiety and rage. Many of my female friends contemplating HRT have asked me if it’s working.

The short answer: Yes, it is.

But initially I didn’t think so because I had expected feelings of pharmaceutical calm, even a mildly ecstatic zen state, and emergence of preternatural cognitive capabilities. What I got instead was a return to my old self – someone who had moments of stress and occasional bouts of forgetfulness and insomnia but who could generally cope with life and enjoy it.

In this way the presence of joy is often unacknowledged, recognized more for its absence than for its presence, or it disappoints us for not manifesting itself from thin air.

The only way to feel joy is by not judging the moment in search of it. By simply being.

What are your ingredients for joy? What makes you joyful?

Speaking of Joy ... join me and Optionality Partner AETHEON for a virtual event designed to uplift and inspire the workforce, as part of its Project LIFT series.

Jory Des Jardins is a fractional executive, startup advisor, and startup founder who has worked with B2B, B2C, and B2B2C companies on go-to-market, scale, and exit strategy. She co-founded BlogHer, a startup that achieved category-leading scale and was acquired by SHE Media, and is co-founder of Optionality, a community of practice for independent workers, giving structure to alternatives to the single-path career existence. And she founded Candor Partners, a go-to-market, growth, and exit advisory for startups, scale-ups, new ventures and impact organizations.