Stealing Joy with Ruthless Disregard for Propriety or Expectations
We will win this battle through deliberate, blatant theft and a wild refusal to accept the bare minimum.
I watched a short-form video a few weeks back (that’s code for TikTok, so you don’t have to admit to watching TikTok 42 hours a day like it’s your full-time job) in which a man (I don’t know which man*, one with a microphone (I know that doesn’t narrow it down much)) made a valid point.
Right. Who knew?!
Anyway.
The point of the video was that because our measuring sticks for our goals and our achievements are ever-changing, waiting to get from point A all the way to point B to feel accomplished is missing the point—we MUST to learn to enjoy the journey.
We need to learn to look for, or better yet create something to enjoy each day on our way to achieving our goals, paying our bills, or even just keeping ourselves employed, fed, and washed.
I’ve heard variations of the advice, but it’s mostly framed in terms of happiness - as in I’ll be happy once I get a promotion, or I’ll be happy once I have $x.xx in my bank account, or I’ll be happy once I have a vault of art supplies to backstroke in like Uncle Scrooge McDuck.
My version of this has morphed into I’ll relax when _____ and slow down when _____.
And I know I’ve addressed this before. I remember at the New Year saying I was going to slow down.
But instead of slowing down, I’ve continued to go faster and faster and add more and more onto my metaphorical plate - like a deranged scene from the movie “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.”
But I don’t think I’m alone in this, so it bears picking apart.
If yesterday’s summit is at the very bottom of today’s valley.
Then the successes don’t feel like success; they feel like a checkmarks on a to-do list.
They aren’t celebrated or acknowledged; they are moved to the side like sad a parsley garnish and marked as done.
Five years ago, I would have called it a success if you had told me that I would sell a small piece of my art nearly every day in a small gallery.
I did call it a success.
When I made my first $1,000 from the gallery, I was over the Swiss Cheese Orb in the Sky! I danced for joy!
I took friends out for expensive dinners to say thank you so much for the support because I’ve made it!
I have arrived; I am doing the thing!
Fast-forward—I’ve been a member of the For ArtSake Gallery Artist Collective for three full years and sell art regularly.
But, my goal post has moved - this was my definition of success three years ago, but today, it’s not enough.
Today, I didn’t sell as much as last month or last year, so I have to work harder and keep pushing. Just selling a little bit of art each week is no longer what I consider success.
Did I make that conscious decision or choice?
Nope.
Humans can get used to anything.
We adapt.
It’s why we are so successful as a species.
My goal post moved, and I didn’t move it - on purpose or with purpose.
I got used to selling my art.
I got used to the extra money in my pocket.
I started to expect it, and when it didn’t meet my new idea of success, I demanded more.
More from my art and more from myself.
And to get more, you have to do more and more and more, and ….Que the giant saucy meatballs falling from the sky.
Okay, so the goalpost moves.
A to B isn’t a straight line.
Now that we’ve recognized that, The journey IS the point.
Where do we go from here?
How do we (I) put this into practice?
I talked about this at length with my friend on my road trip last month. We discussed how to find little bits of joy in each day when the days can be and often are filled to the brim with bags of shit.
(Bags of shit being adult responsibilities).
**Please remember while reading the paragraphs below that my friend works in a job that demands her whole creative math brain 40-50 hrs a week and is ALSO a full-time caregiver at home.
And I am the messy meatball-covered human as described above - our conversations came from a place of desperate and somewhat defeated anger, “How the fuck do we add one more fucking thing??” especially when burnout is already looming like a thick black cloud of locusts.
We decided to TAKE the joy and be deliberate and purposeful about it.
The systems we live in are designed to keep us looking to the future for satisfaction, happiness, and accomplishment.
To keep looking in our shopping cart for meaning.
Capitalism - fuck yeah!
There is no joy while crawling along in traffic, doom scrolling, having the “What are we going to have for dinner” conversation for the eleventy billionth time, or sitting through yet another mind-numbing Zoom presentation.
But we must try because I refuse to grow up to be a miserable old person with a permanent scowl of daily dissatisfaction.
And yes, the balance feels off. It feels unfair and skewed.
Eight monotonous hours plus a commute vs. one sunrise - emotionally, that check doesn’t cash.
Stock image of a beach sunrise.
So it must be stolen, and we must be ruthless about it.
We win this battle through deliberate, blatant theft and a wild refusal to live for the future or lay down and accept the bare minimum on offer.
And it is a battle.
A battle for daily joy and life satisfaction.
What if we care for our bodies and ourselves before we go to work, do our chores, and care for others.
What if we felt good and proud in our bodies regardless of how society says women should feel about their bodies, because we prioritized caring for them?
What if we listen to sexy, steamy audiobooks, our favorite 1980s jams, or send rambling voice memos to friends while commuting?
What if we refuse to doom scroll, delete the apps, put down our phones, and go for a walk instead?
What if we secretly show up to our Zoom meetings with silly socks, no pants, and surreptitiously sketch the faces in the Zoom boxes, or create Zoom bingo games to entertain ourselves?
What if we go out of our way to create joy each day?
What if creating joy EACH DAY becomes THE goal?
What does that look like for achieving satisfaction?
What does that do to our long-term goals?
What does it do to the daydream of the future?
Does it make it a less appealing place to live?
I hope so.
Because I’m slowly losing my race to the future, I think I’m finally ready to slow down and make fundamental changes in how I operate.
Things I’ve changed so far with this new mentality:
I will stop doing what I “should” do in my art business. If it feels good, I’ll do it; if it doesn’t, I’m no longer concerned with best practices or how it’s supposed to be done.
Example A: I announced the change to how I manage my website shop in the last newsletter.
I’ve been doing happy dance workouts that I found on YouTube because they are fun, and I love to dance and listen to music.
Working out SHOULD be fun. It was fun to run around and be wild as a child. When did that change?
And I am doing my best to work out first before anything else can get in the way.How I do dog walks - I don’t try to multitask anymore; I just walk in the woods with my dog. I enjoying the sounds, the smells, and the views.
No more emails, podcasts, phone calls, games, etc.
I just walk and breathe and take photos of mushrooms.
These are small changes, but I’m sleeping better already.
My anxiety is less.
I am calm.
I am joyful, not just funny for entertainment, but joyful in my heart, joyful when making art, joyful when being.
How will you deliberately create or ruthlessly steal your slice of joy today?
*I found the guy it was the comedian Jimmy Carr, but I still don’t know which interview I saw.