Finding Joy Without Waiting for Things to Be Sorted
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Most of us keep a list somewhere of things that need sorting before we're allowed to enjoy ourselves. The Fitzgerald line below quietly ignores that list. Read it on a tired day and it sounds less like a call to reinvent your life and more like permission to feel a little lighter now, before everything else is finished.
This literary prescription is about that kind of joy, the kind that turns up uninvited. It comes from the joy page on Book Quote Therapy, where I gather books and poems for every sort of feeling.
For: letting yourself feel good without waiting for permission
The Quote
'For what it's worth: it's never too late to be whoever you want to be.'
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Poem
More Than Happiness by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer.
Written for a friend's birthday, it's a poem that reaches past happiness towards something sturdier, love that seeps into everything no matter where the story goes, the quiet thrill of growing inevitably into yourself, the way cosmos planted in a garden simply grow into cosmos.
'I wish you the peace
that comes when we trust ourselves
to meet whatever life brings.'
The Book
The Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Two men who had every reason to be bitter, exile and apartheid between them, sat down for a week and talked about what actually makes a joyful life. Their answer wasn't circumstance. It was perspective, gratitude, and connection to other people, available to anyone regardless of what they're currently carrying.
The Reflection
I used to think joy had to be earned, that I needed to sort out the difficult things first, and only then would I be allowed to feel good. I don't think that anymore.
Joy doesn't wait patiently in a queue behind your problems. It shows up in the middle of hard seasons too, in ordinary, almost embarrassingly small moments, a song on the radio, a good meal, a text from someone who made you laugh. The difficult things don't disappear to make room for it. They simply sit alongside it, and there's room for both.
The only thing joy actually requires of you is noticing it when it arrives, rather than waiting for a more convenient day.
The Question to Sit With
What small joy have I been putting off until things feel more sorted?
A Gentle Pause
Sometimes we just need a little pause to help us find the little pockets of joy every day holds. If you'd like a little help finding stillness to do that, I recorded a meditation for exactly this.
Listen: Stillness & Softness Meditation
There's a fuller literary prescription for joy waiting at Book Quote Therapy, with more books, poems, and quotes to keep.
Words for the Wall
Fitzgerald's line also comes in a magazine style print, if you'd like it bolder. Rumi's Sorrow Prepares You for Joy sits well beside this reflection, and Bob Dylan's May Your Heart Always Be Joyful makes a lovely gift.
If you'd like a literary prescription like this one in your inbox each week, you can sign up here, and you'll get my free Literary First Aid Kit as a welcome.
The book link is an Amazon affiliate link, which means I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.