This week I came across a really great TED talk by designer Ingrid Fetell Lee where she discusses things that bring universal joy – like bubbles, fireworks, rainbows, cherry blossom, tree-houses – and how finding moments of joy keeps us in the present moment.
But more important, is the impact of these universal moments of joy: “The sharply divided, politically polarized world we live in sometimes has the effect of making our differences feel so vast as to be insurmountable. And yet underneath it all, there’s a part of each of us that finds joy in the same things. And though we’re often told that these are just passing pleasures, in fact, they’re really important, because they remind us of the shared humanity we find in our common experience of the physical world.”
I love this message so much. And it seems so relevant right now.
I recently decided not to watch, read or listen to the news because I find it really heavy to hold. I know that I am in a privileged position to be able to do that, when so many people are directly affected by what we see in the news. I worry that I’m making an ignorant choice, but I also worry about how much we can really trust the version of news that we are presented with. So I’m going to abstain for a while and make it my mission to find joy at every turn…
This week joy came in the form of:
- watching a young lad putting fuel in his car and tapping the nozzle a dozen times to make sure he didn’t miss a drop at the end!
- a sudden downpour when I was driving on Wednesday afternoon
- seeing joy on the faces of people in the crowd at they watch the most amazing flash mob unfold before their eyes
- noticing a starry sky as I pulled the blind one night
- seeing a friend’s dog on zoom
- hearing the Red Arrows fly overhead
- seeing a video of elephants rushing to greet a baby when she comes out of her stockade after a night apart
I want to feel joyful about this life we are living.
If we only have this one wild and precious life, I want to feel good about it.
The idea of collective, universal joy as a connection between us makes my heart so glad. I really hope it’s true. I think it is.