When I was a junior in high school and was dealing with one of my more challenging periods of depression, I (finally) started seeing a therapist for the first time.
In December of that year, during a therapy session, I was telling her about the Christmas lights that my math teacher hung around the whiteboard in his classroom every holiday season. I told my therapist that I’d known about this tradition of his and how much I’d looked forward to returning from the short break at the end of November to see those bright lights livening up the otherwise bland, florescent-lit room.
I described how happy they made me every time I went to math class, and how I thought it was stupid to get so much joy from a simple strand of multi-colored lights.
And my therapist looked at me and asked “Why? Why is that stupid? Why not feel and embrace the joy from this simple thing?”
That was a turning point for me…and it sticks with me still today. I feel it just as strongly as I did that day as a teenager.
That moment of realization that joy is in the small, seemingly insignificant things that, over a lifetime, create these beautiful moments of magic that sustain, comfort, ground, and release.
And really, why not? Why not experience joy from something that simple?
We don’t need to only find happiness in the biggest, boldest experiences. And I’ve found that some of the most significant magic of living is found in the small joys—the things that even if other people might pass right by and pay no attention, your soul is drawn deeply into the beauty of it all, and even if just for a moment, or a season, your spirit can find rest and rejuvenation.
And truly, why not?
Joy wherever you can find it