Making Joy in a Time of Chaos
Three years ago, I was deeply lost. The sale of my last company did not turn out the way I expected, then my husband was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer. I started my new company, Tokki, and Covid-19 immediately flattened us. Your narrative is probably not exactly the same as mine, but if you are alive today, I know you are grappling with your own version of these struggles. I see you.
It’s a Korean tradition to gather on New Year’s Day to share our wishes for each other in the coming year. I can’t send all of you my mother’s delicious dtuk-gook (rice cake soup) digitally, so perhaps you can find something round in your own home and gaze at it for good luck. And here are my three wishes for all of us for this new year, from what I’ve learned so far about trying to stay open to joy and meaning:
1. I wish for us the freedom of breaking up with the idea of closure. I almost missed out on the joy of Christmas dinner with my immediate family because I was so sad that we cancelled our trip to Toronto to be with my parents and extended family last week. This is not the sucky way this sucky year was supposed to end, I said to myself, (except substitute “suck” with another word that rhymes with it). This big knot was untied by just a little curiosity and empathy from my son that saved my night by pulling me back into “the now” with a hug. For me, the solution to the mental exhaustion of waiting and disappointment isn’t to skip to the end of the story, but to get lost in the beauty of the current sentence. I keep having to relearn this daily, and loved this recent New York Times article, “What if There’s No Such Thing as Closure?” In 2022, I hope to spend more time reveling in the messy middle.
2. I wish for us the empathy of remembering to assume suffering. For me, the grief of life not turning out the way I expected often arrives in my body in the form of RAGE. The innocent and not so innocent sparks that can set off my fury can include being cutoff on the highway, the person taking too long at check-out, or even the mutual decision to call off an indoor event. Stopping to ask, “What if she has cancer?” or “What if he’s struggling through a global pandemic?” is like mental alka seltzer that can provide the immediate relief of returning me to empathy.
3. I wish for us the joy of movement. When I feel weighted down by the blanket of impossibility, I have to take the steering wheel away from my mind and ask my physical self to take over navigation. I’ve never once regretted a walk, as much as my mind always tries to tell me, “THAT is not going to solve this ginormous cluster.” While it’s true that taking a walk has never actually solved any of my problems, even more importantly, it has helped me return to steadier emotional footing. I live in my head, so taking a break to physically move through the world helps me to notice small moments of beauty in my path. And rebooting my confidence in myself as a noticer helps me find my way back to my confidence that I am up for larger challenges.
Here’s to making joy and meaning in 2022.
