What’s one simple pleasure that you never get tired of?
I lofted this question to friends at dinner a few days ago. The yearbook answers come first: Spending time with my family. My kids laughing. Great replies, no question, but our conversation opened the door to a more interesting truth as dinner wore on. Someone commented on the heated floor in the bathroom of the home we were in. Then, a person living in the house said, “I love putting my toes under the bathmat and feeling the warmth when I get out of the shower.”
There it is. To me, that was the better answer. Her earlier answer wasn’t wrong, just less detailed and unique than this one. This answer spoke of a reliable moment of joy that seemed personal and well thought out.
And then I thought, why don’t we talk about these things? Why are we shy or reticent about them? Why do they seem frivolous? Hearing about toes under bathmats beats 99.9% of everything people have been talking about over the last three years, anyway.
Is joy allowed?
“Adults who exhibit genuine joy are often dismissed as childish, or too feminine, or unserious, or self-indulgent”.
So says Ingrid Fetell Lee.
What would she know? She did ten years of research on the topic of joy and later did a wildly popular TedTalk and a critically acclaimed book around the topic of joy.
The book Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness is an immersive exploration of how to find joy and create it. I’m just starting it because I’ve recently tasked myself with getting serious about joy.
Ingrid presents a dozen or so hurdles to experiencing joy. But, because her take isn’t from a faith or spiritual perspective per se, she misses a few things that can compound the challenge of accessing joy for spiritual seekers.
As spiritual seekers, we value seriousness. If we are joyful, we might feel like we’re neglecting those suffering around us. Or we’re abandoning a good work ethic and not being practical — or are unoptimized in our efforts (e.g., lazy).
We also see joy as something to be earned or should only be a reward for right behavior, a job well done, or if we’ve maintained our diet for the day. All these can get bundled into self-worth adjacent issues, meaning joy becomes less accessible or off-limits at a fundamental level.
What would Jesus do?
Do we see how out of step this might be for spiritual seekers? Jesus wasn’t avoidant of his day's severe and challenging issues of the day, yet he told weary and troubled people when their problems seemed overwhelming to look at flowers. He told people with little going for them to take heart.
I know we think the most intelligent and spiritual people in the world are serious and maybe angry; after all, look at all that’s wrong! But to look out on the issues and maintain joy is a big clue that a person can live in the tension of life’s struggles and yet, know joy. To me, this comports to “spiritually advanced.”
People might dismiss joy as not substantial, for a world obsessed with happiness, that weirdly may mean we might bypass joy altogether. But I argue joy is substance; if our faith has evidence, it might be in the area of works first and joy as a close second.
Given all that is in play and all that’s at stake, I’m committing to reading Ingrid’s book and adding some spiritually connected observations over the coming weeks. If you’d like to join me, that’d be great! If you’d rather observe, that’s ok too! But I hope we will arrive at personal and enriching moments of joy. And we’ll learn how to spot them and not feel ashamed or even shy about toes under the warm bathmats of life.
Be well, Feral Souls.
Thank you.... I'm all about the simple pleasures in life. I especially like blowing children's bubbles and blowing into the circle ... releasing air of happiness, sadness, and watching them blow where they will.