“Access to joy is a skill.”
- Chade-Meng Tan
Joy on Demand: The Art
of Discovering the Happiness Within
(HarperCollins, 2016)
My husband,
Bill Stearman, is an amazing man. One of the many things that I love about him
is his ability to find joy in every part of his being and in every moment of his
day.
Chade-Meng
Tan’s book Joy on Demand is about joy,
and it’s also about Bill. And me.
Tan, an
engineer by training, is an iconoclast, philanthropist, and Nobel Peace Prize
nominee. He also stares at life with the logical mind of a systems analyst and
concludes that we risk losing ourselves in despair if we only focus on negativity.
He encourages us to practise joy, familiarize our minds with joy, notice life’s
“thin slices of joy,” and generally become aware of moment-to-moment joy in our
lives.
Which is
what Bill does. Those of you who know him will recognize his wondrous response
to the question, “How are you?”: “I’m absolutely grand!” Whatever the
circumstances he finds himself in – and he has experienced his share of
challenges – he wills himself to find the joy in whatever is happening and to
build from there. As he says, “We don’t have control over what happens to us, but
we do have control over how we respond.”
Yup, he’s
pretty much a two-legged joy machine.
I struggle
with integrating this philosophy into my own life. My decades-old negativity bias
trips me up if I’m not careful. It’s not that I’m a negative person – I am not
– but I recognize that my first response to difficult people or circumstances can
be pissy and mean-spirited if I don’t keep my mouth shut long enough to let my
more generous, life-affirming instincts click in. “Count to 10, Larry,” has
been a useful mantra. And, of course, living with Bill has the same effect.
Thank goodness.
Photography
reinforces this joy bias. It helps me
watch with wonder and respond in awe. The resulting photographs bring me joy. What
a powerful combination of influences: my camera and my Bill. Praise be.
I’m posting
these thoughts on Christmas Eve day. In our home, the tree is sparkling and the
stockings await Santa’s arrival. Tomorrow, the family joins us for a feast. A
time to reflect, give thanks, and remember those who are struggling. And to
find joy.
A parting
quotation that I just heard in the latest Kritsa Tippett On Being podcast. (link) The words belong to Brother David
Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk who writes about joy and gratitude:
“Joy is the
happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens.”
I hope you
enjoy these photos, each in its own way a measure of joy in my life. Their joy may
not be readily apparent. They were recorded last week in Belleville and Prince
Edward County.
With every
best wish for the joy you are celebrating at this time of the year.
Victoria Avenue, Belleville
Outlet Bay, Sandbanks Provincial Park
Interior, Abandoned Cabin, Prince Edward County
Lakeshore Lodge, Sandbanks Provincial Park
Sandbanks Provincial Park
Outlet Bay, Sandbanks Provincial Park
Outlet Bay, Sandbanks Provincial Park
Near Lakeshore Lodge, Sandbanks Provincial Park
Canadian Tire Store, Belleville
Reynolds' Brothers Farm, Old Belleville Road/County Road 4, Prince Edward County