Creating Unexpected Joy

As 2022 began, I set out on an experiment to create an intentional reflection practice to build courage.

The most important thing I learned was a simple, data-backed conclusion: I only predict what the hardest moment of my day will be about 5% of the time. This is astounding to me. I am far worse at predicting how my own day will turn out than meteorologists are at predicting the weather.

Part of that is because by envisioning the day ahead I am prepared to deal with one situation and find it less hard than it would otherwise have been. But still, almost every day I logged an entry this year, something unpredictable happened.

Any last hope I was clinging to about how much certainty I had in my own life has vanished in a flurry of nervous laughter. But as I struggled this week to understand what this jarring finding meant, I realized that the inverse is also true: just as I cannot predict the hardest part of my day, I cannot predict what good things will happen in the day ahead, either. Just as I am faced with unexpected suffering, I also stumble into unexpected joy.

The real important question then boils down to this: how do I minimize unexpected suffering and increase unexpected joy?

Again, I looked back at the data from my notebook. What were some of the patterns behind what I thought I should do differently during the hardest moments of my days?

Some of the basics were so simple they were almost boring. During the year, the ways I identified to better handle the hardest parts of the day boiled down to these: get enough rest, eat nutritious feed, create time to plan and think, create boundaries (especially with work), resolve conflict with other people calmly and immediately, and perhaps most importantly - assuming positive intent by meeting the person in front of me where they are and remember that we’re both the same human beings.

Doing these basics works to minimize suffering because they lead to better decisions - both in resolving the suffering at hand and in creating fewer problems for our future selves.

Eating well, for example, makes me less groggy in dealing with a difficult child right now and makes me less likely to hear bad news from a cholesterol test I need to take 6 months from now. Creating time to think makes me get my most important chores done faster today and it helps us plan out routine maintenance on our house so we don’t end up with a furnace that fails “suddenly.”

Similarly, these basic practices help to create joy because they create the conditions for intense connection with others - whether other people, ideas, nature, or spiritual truths.

Creating boundaries, for example, helps me prevent conflict with colleagues on a new project and builds momentum for a meaningful working relationship. Resolving conflict with Robyn calmly and immediately builds trust between us and can become a catalyst to deepen our relationship rather than undermine it. And perhaps most powerfully, I’ve found this year that assuming positive intent creates a halo of safe space, and leads to the sort of deep talk and open-hearted compassion that builds deep bonds.

This was even the case with strangers - like the Michigan alum behind us in line at the Phoenix Airport rental car desk last Monday. After he awkwardly passed comment on Robyn nursing while standing in line, we assumed positive intent instead of malice. Turns out he was friendly and caring, and he ended up telling us a great story about catching a Yankees game at Fenway Park with his brothers after taking a trip to Boston on a whim. It was an unexpected delight on an otherwise terrible travel day with long waits, uncomfortable seats, and several bouts of nausea.

Moments of deep connection can happen at almost any time, with almost any person if the right conditions are present. So how do we do these basics, and create the conditions for unexpected joy to emerge?

All of these basics, it seems, start with a calm and peaceful mind.

It’s just not possible to meet someone where they are without a calm and peaceful mind. It’s just not possible to think and plan without a calm and peaceful mind. It’s just not possible to resolve conflict effectively without a calm and peaceful mind. It’s not even possible to eat or sleep properly - among the most basic human functions - without a calm and peaceful mind.

It seems as if all roads to unexpected joy run through having a calm and peaceful mind. Cultivating a calm and peaceful mind through meditation, deep breathing, gratitude, and prayer, therefore, is the practice I resolve to build this year.

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Items needed: A quiet place, about 15 minutes, Mala (Rosary)

Photo Credit: Unsplash @towfiqu999999

Morning practice: Choose one word or short phrase that represents the day’s intention, this is the day’s mantra. Close eyes and enter a comfortable seated position. Take a deep inhale. Upon exhale think or repeat the mantra. Advance one bead in the rosary and repeat until one cycle of the rosary is complete.

Evening Practice: Complete day’s reflection activities. Close eyes and enter a comfortable seated position. Start with articulating gratitudes, advance one bead in the rosary for each gratitude expressed. Try to repeat for half the rosary.

Finish with prayer or some other expression of care and concern for others. Advance one bead for each prayer / thought for others expressed. Attempt to complete rosary with combined expressions of gratitudes and prayers - if beads remain, do one deep breath for each that remains until rosary complete.