I wrote some blog posts last year about joy. And I shared them, or at least I sort of shared them in my own timid fashion.
They were useful to write, they helped me realise what all my creative and freelance explorations over the last 10 years have been about. Which I have called “everyday joy”. And they helped me see why I want to focus my business on working with coaches and with others who help people find their own bits of everyday joy.
But what’s the point of all this thinking if I don’t share it? Would other people find this interesting to read about?
For me, everyday joy is about observing the little details of the life we live day to day, along with the rhythms and rituals that we live within and which we mark. Carving out time and creating opportunities so we can notice those things. It’s about doing activities within our working lives that we enjoy, that make us lose track of time because we get so carried away with them. And it’s about using those things we notice to inspire our own unique creativity, whatever that means for us as unique human beings.
I’m sharing here my own observations, my own experiments and my own thoughts. It doesn’t mean that I have all of this worked out, far from it. In some ways, being aware of my need to have creativity and enjoyable work and to notice things in my everyday life has complicated my life!
It means that if I’m not enjoying my work, or I don’t get out for walks, or I don’t write anything for a while, I get grumpy because I have certain expectations for myself. And if I’m not allowing myself to meet those expectations then I feel like I’m failing.
And that’s just in my work life and creative life – I’m also a wife and mum with all the daily challenges of household life and the school run, also trying to eat healthily and do some exercise as well as keep up with friends and family!
But if I look at it another way, the walks, the noticing and the creativity all help to ground me in my life. They help me to step back and reflect, have a different perspective, make better decisions. And they’re part of the curation of my own daily experience of work and life.
So they are worth pursuing for me. And this is worth sharing so that other people can think about adding little bits of joy to their own lives, whatever joy means to them.
How about you? What does “everyday joy” mean to you?
You can read the previous series of posts by starting with this one.
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