Twice today I have encountered this question and each time I have stopped to think of my own answers. As I was on my walk this afternoon, I thought about this seemingly simple question a little more deeply. So deeply in fact I consulted an online dictionary. Yeah I know that’s a whole other level of deep. Part of my deep reflecting got me thinking about my friends Merriam and Webster, who are they? Although maybe it’s just one person with a hyphenated name, I don’t know. If you know, comment below. I am always up for learning something new.

My deep reflecting also led me onto a total side track of gratitude for the person or persons who wrote the dictionary. Thank God they did, but that had to have been an incredibly boring job. Also, since we are off on one side track we may as go off onto another one, I’ve always wondered why they didn’t make the dictionary more colorful and maybe more aesthetically pleasing I feel like I, and others like myself, might look at it more if it had bright colors, maybe some pages with fun quotes or poems, maybe some pictures. etc. It’s just a lot of black and white words.. just saying.

Merriam-Webster defines joy as “to experience great pleasure or delight.” Just reading the definition of joy brings a smile to my face and a flashback to times in my life that I have felt great pleasure and/or delight, so below is my list of what brings me joy.. some are profound, some are things that you all probably would have on your own lists, and some are a little ridiculous because, well, sometimes I’m a little ridiculous. Side note.. These are in no particular order..

• A heaping bowl of queso; I have yet to find a life problem or mood that queso cannot fix at least temporarily.
• Music
• Laughing until I cry, snort, and/or pee my pants (Yes, I have done all 3 and I have actually done all 3 at the same time before).
• The crisp, cool air of fall.
• Sharing “my forest” with people
• Animals.. literally any kind. I talk to any and all animals as if they are human. I am particularly fond of goats, miniature cows, dogs, donkey’s, penguins, and pigs and have been known to embarrass those who choose to go to a zoo or petting zoo with me.
• Dear friends.. the kind who have seen you at your literal worst and dealt with you acting like an absolute fool and still love you any way
• People who are fluent in sarcasm
• Family
• A book so good you can’t put it down
• Tik Tok; I lose hours of my life watching TikTok videos of random strangers just living their lives, doing hilarious things, showing me their dog living its life, etc.
• Silence- Yes, silence brings me joy.. sometimes great joy as the world is loud. There are days that for me people just exist loudly and its apparently rude to go around telling people they are existing too loudly
• Spontaneous visits
• The forest.. we all know “my forest” is my happy place. It is the place my soul sings, the place my smile never leaves my face, and probably the place where I am the kindest version of myself.
• Therapy.. Therapy brings me great joy because I love learning and connecting with myself. I love figuring out why I am the way I am.
• High Holy.. Each Sunday after church my framily( friends who are family) go to lunch and we call it high holy.. it’s a very sacred and serious time.. there’s lots of rituals involved.
• Taylor Swift.. any and all things connected to Taylor Swift give me great joy. Blasting her music with my windows down might be one of my favorite things ever.
• Deep conversations: I love to laugh and be silly, but I love deep, authentic, and real conversations. I can do small talk, but I’d much rather go deep. I’d rather know your favorite poem and why it speaks to you as opposed to your favorite color
• Missing Out.. Yes, you read that right. Missing out brings me great, great joy. I have JOMO- The Joy of Missing Out. I love being with people, but I also love and crave time to just be by myself.
• A cute outfit.. most days you’ll see me dressed as if I just left the gym, am planning on going to the gym, or prepared to jump in and teach a workout class if necessary., a girl always has to be prepared. Even in athletic clothes, I like things to coordinate and match and for it to be a whole look.
• A day with no plans
• Solo trips
• Laughing at myself.. if you can’t laugh at yourself life is going to be a hell of a lot less fun. I do some ridiculous things sometimes and they are funny. I don’t do them to be ridiculous or funny I am just at my core sometimes absolutely ridiculous.
• People who don’t care what others think.. I LOVE people who are unapologetically themselves. They march to the beat of their own drummer and they don’t care if anyone else can hear the same beat.
• Kindness.. people who are genuinely at there core kind bring me get joy. The kind of people who it’s not an effort for them to be kind… they just are.

I am sure there are hundreds of other things that bring me joy, but as I was writing this I was thinking about how these days there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of joy in the world. Joy is both harder to find and harder to create. How does one feel and/or find joy in the midst of the daily cruelty and suffering that’s happening? And yet I know that the powers that be want us to despair. They want us to feel hopeless and joyless because people with no hope are powerless. I firmly believe joy is resistance. Joy in spite of all that is going on is one way to firmly hold on to your power. So, when you find joy and/or have the chance to create or do something that brings you joy.. do it!

As you look to the week ahead and your scheduled begins to fill up with all the things you have to do and the places you have to be, don’t forget to put joy on your calendar. Whether you give her minutes or hours of your day, make time each day for what brings YOU joy!