Learning to be joyful...

What makes you joyful?

This is a question that stumps me. I recently sat down to make a list of the things that infuse me with joy, and I found myself staring at a blank sheet of paper for longer than I'd like to admit. Perhaps it's because I've been so busy amassing education, climbing the corporate ladder and living the "American dream" (i.e., building a house, planning a wedding, planting a lilac bush), that all of my plans and activities started crowding out the thing that makes life worth living -- joy.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm not an unhappy person. I love my husband, and I get great satisfaction out of my job, and I live in a nice house. There's not an overwhelming amount of drama surrounding my family or friends, and most of the crying I do has more to do with sappy movies or heart-wrenching books than it does with personal suffering or despair. So why am I not more joyful?

Back to Basics

I think true, unabashed joy is what makes us giggle with abandon, jump up and down, want to high-five someone, and smile or laugh until it hurts. Spend a day observing young children, and you'll see what joy is all about. It's been said that children laugh, on average, more than 300 times per day. Adults, on the other hand, laugh about 15 times per day. How is it that age has made us so cynical and conditional about how we feel and share our joy?

Don't we deserve to be joyful more often? I certainly think so.

Eventually, I wrote down a few things on that blank piece of paper. Here's what I came up with:

1. Puppies [little, roly-poly puppies that are hopping around the yard or the living room like bunnies, yawning with that innocent little squeaky noise they make, or licking your face with abandon]


2. Singing -- usually loudly and badly, to joyful songs like Paolo Nutini's New Shoes; sometimes, this kind of singing is accompanied by silly dancing in my kitchen


3. Writing [but not all writing, mind you -- business writing can be satisfying, but writing for ME, whether it's a blog post, a poem, an essay or a short story, is what makes me joyful]


4. Being tickled


5. Deep laughter [the kind that happens when I hang out with my childhood friend, Michelle, or when I go to a comedy club]


6. Little surprises [like coming home to discover my husband has made my favorite dinner, or winning a few dollars on a scratch-off lottery ticket]


7. Exhilarating accomplishment [like reaching a mountain summit after a long hike, or crossing the finish line of a race]


8. Teaching [go figure -- little miss "No Book, No Classroom" is happiest in the classroom

A Strategy for Joy

So I've decided that, in addition to my strategies for my career, my financial investments, etc., I'm going to craft a strategy for joy. Here's what my initial draft includes:

• More puppies. Because my shelties are now more than a year old, and it's not practical to get a new puppy each time the last one loses her "puppy breath," -- which reminds me of some women I know, who get pregnant every time their most recent baby abandons his pacifier -- I'm going to do things to keep my dogs young (like training them for agility competition), and maybe I'll volunteer at a veterinary hospital too.


• More singing. My new iPod will help in this endeavor. And if you ever see me driving on I-94, I hope the sillyness of me belting out a song behind my windshield makes you joyful too.


• More time with friends, more pillow fights, and more trips to Zanies. (I have a colleague who recently started performing stand-up comedy, but I think I'd be happier in the audience.)


• More exhilaration. We're planning a summer vacation, and I think I'd like to go back to New Hampshire's beautiful White Mountains, to climb again. And it's about time that I started training for another stair marathon. Hustle Up the Hancock, anyone?


• More teaching. I love my job as a marketing director -- it's enjoyable and a good application of my talents and experience. But I'd like to balance my day job with more time in the classroom. Last week, I had the opportunity to teach a business communications seminar for a group of employees at WMS Gaming. They were fantastic participants -- full of great suggestions and questions, and willing to be vulnerable and playful as we learned together. I left the training room and did something I don't do often enough -- I high-fived my colleague from the Corporate Education division of Lake Forest Graduate School of Management.

You Deserve More

You, too, deserve more joy in your life. More giggles and more high-fives. And more dancing in your kitchen. Take a few minutes to make your Joyful List, and get working on a strategy for seeking more joy. Not next month or next year or when you retire. More joy, right now. And I have a funny feeling that the more you focus on your own joy, the more your friends and loved ones will feel joyful too.