The Boy Full of Joy

World Down Syndrome Day is celebrated on March 21 every year. This is symbolic: Down syndrome is the name we give when a person has a triplication of their 21st chromosome—hence the date, 3/21.

I knew none of this a year ago. Because one year ago, we had no diagnosis. We just had a sleepy kid with low muscle tone, who was born bravely and in a hurry.

He had three older brothers who adored him from the minute he was born, just down the stairs from their room. We gave him a name—Griffin—and with no diagnosis, no other “name” was needed.

Learning that there was a World Down Syndrome Day was fun and gooey at first, and then it felt like a moment of drowning.

I am finally beginning to let myself think about how hard Griffin’s life will be. He will spend more time in doctors’ offices than the rest of our family combined, and he may have already. He will face discrimination and be overlooked—by companies, schools, governments, and maybe even by some in the Church.

I don’t even know what language I’m comfortable using, but he does have “special needs,” and plenty of people who don’t know his light and inner grace firsthand will think treating him fairly is just too much work.

And, most darkly, there is the question of his lifespan. The thought—a cold, real, possibility—that I will outlive Griffin is demolishing. Knowing that despite medical advances that happen during his life, Robyn and I may have to bury our son—that our big three may have to bury their little brother someday—is enough to break a man where he stands.

Writing and reflecting is perhaps the only way I know how to put myself back together, so that’s what I have done.

I have not been able to stop thinking about two very difficult questions:

What makes a good life? Who deserves one?

What makes these questions difficult is not the answers, but the sacrifices the answers require.

A good life is pretty simple. It does not take being a multimillionaire.

It’s a place to call home. To be free and have agency in what happens to us. To love and be loved. To be able to learn and create. To care for one another and be cared for. To feel relatively sure you have a meal coming, and medicine when you need it. To be able to sit under a tree and pray. To have friends.

We all intuitively know this. We already know what makes a good life.

Before Griffin’s diagnosis, I believed that everyone deserved at least this. And that belief implies sacrifice. For everyone to have this, it know it takes paying taxes. It takes volunteering and looking after your neighbor or the other kids on the block, for no reward. It takes giving away your knowledge for free. It takes participating in civic life. It takes apologizing for mistakes and learning to be kind even when you’re having a bad day.

These, and more, are really hard sacrifices. And I have believed in making them and have tried to do so, however fallibly.

But now, for Griffing, I depend on everyone else to believe this too. Because he does have “special needs,” and I can’t fulfill them all—even if I were the wealthiest man in the world. It is a feeling of nakedness I would never have anticipated, but I have no choice but to place myself and Griffin in the care of others. I need others for him to have a good life.

Now, I can’t just believe that everyone deserves a good life. I can’t just be a small beacon that nudges the culture towards these sacrifices, without much consequences if nobody else cares.

Now, I have consequences. For Griffin to have a good life, others have to believe he does, too.

Now, my son’s life depends on others also believing in this vision of what a good life is, and that everyone deserves it—even if their needs are more “special” than someone else’s.

What I now depend on—other people’s generous and righteous beliefs—is what I probably have the least control over in the world.

When I was young, my dreams were so vivid and noble.

I wanted people to get along. I wanted to throw parties where other kids at my high school didn’t have to drink. I wanted to help people make their nonprofits effective. I wanted people who were excluded and misunderstood to be included. I wanted to write plays and stage them for free in public parks. I wanted to invent something that fixed something nobody else saw. To make it so that work didn’t have to suck, and to make government agencies super effective and virtuous. I wanted to comfort friends when they were sad and stand firmly beside them to witness their joy.

These were my dreams. deep down, they still are.

But as I’ve aged, the weight of responsibility has left me groaning. Bills. Taxes. Feeling like selling books is the only thing that justifies the time I spend writing. Hustling. The cost of organic eggs. Raising good kids and being good at my job. You know, grown up stuff.

All these things burn up all the oxygen the dreams I had as a boy need to keep breathing. These dreams have been living in thin air for so long, I wonder how long they’ll last. And now, on World Down Syndrome Day, the weight of responsibility felt at its peak.

But that boy—full of joy and optimism, untethered by responsibilities, perfectly content drinking cheap beer—is who I still am. Under all the armor and rain jackets, I’m still that guy who has faith that his dreams and sacrifices will be met with an outstretched hand by compassionate and generous strangers.

I don’t need to become him again. When I take all the heavy rocks out of my backpack, I am him. I am still that boy full of joy.

That guy is who my sons are mirroring when people say, “they’re just like you.” That guy is who they need. That guy is who my neighbors need.

That essence of that guy is what Griffin got in not one, but maybe three or four full measures. Even when he is ill, joy pours out of him by the bucketful. He may have needs that only about 1 in 700 people have, but his gift is also that rare, at least.

That gift of joy—whether it comes from his extra chromosome or not—is the spark for me to be that boy full of joy again, who dreams of that a good life and believes that everyone deserves it. Griffin’s joy sustains my faith that other people believe it too.

The Thief of Joy

One of my colleagues often reminds our team that “comparison is the thief of joy.” He’s right.

At work, we compare the software fixes we actually delivered versus the ideal. I compare myself to more professionally successful friends. I compare my tantrumming toddler to a calmer child—or even to a calmer version of himself. I may compare one colleague to a so-called “higher performer,” whatever that means.

A common kind of comparison many of us make—one that still steals from us—is comparing ourselves to someone less fortunate. “Appreciate the dinner you have; there are kids all over the world who are starving,” we might say to our picky-eating kids. But even this steals something—maybe our humanity—because to make the comparison, we must place ourselves above someone else.

All these comparisons steal joy.

But just as comparison is the thief of joy, it’s also the propellant of progress. To improve, comparison can be a useful tool and powerful motivator. We make change when we measure where we are against where we want to be or a competitor. Companies do this with financial statements. Patients do it with weight and body fat percentage. Our whole society is engineered to compare—and that leads to progress.

So we are in a bind, because two things at odds are true: comparison is the thief of joy, and also the propellant of progress.

Even if would rather it be otherwise, my brain is rigorously trained—yours may be too—to compare. I need a replacement behavior when I catch myself comparing. I can’t just “not compare.” I need to do something else instead.

It seems to me that the replacement behavior to train myself in is simply observing. Paying attention to what’s here, soaking it in, being present, meditating, noticing. These are all flavors of the same root behavior: observation.

We’re forced to compare our youngest son’s height and weight because he has been underweight his entire first year of life. I’m constantly fighting the urge to compare his milestones—crawling, sitting, teething—to children without Down syndrome. With him, the thief of joy is always near.

But so is the opportunity to observe and find joy. Griffin has a spark in his smile I can’t explain. He pulls me into observing him—soaking in the gift of who he is every time I see him. He is truly magnetic. And even though it’s so easy to slip into comparison with him, the joy he brings to my heart feels limitless. Because when I’m with him, I am fully there. Fully appreciating. Fully observing.

To me, this act—of observing long enough to outlast the temptation of comparison—feels like an act of defiance. That joy with Griffin feels like the most hard earned of all the joy we have in our lives. It is as much an act of desperation as it is an act of triumph.

I raise him skyward when I need to get back to the moment I am in. When I lift him above my head—he starts to lift his legs, and he smiles and giggles. And then I smile. And then I remember: he’s here. There is something to celebrate exactly in what he is. There is something unique and special in this lad. I don’t have to travel in my mind to an alternate time or an alternate universe where Griffin’s life wouldn’t be as hard as I know it’s going to be.

There is joy. Right here. Right now.

The way out of this bind is in the order of operations. We may not be able to function without comparison, but we can choose when we do it. The key is to start with observation. We can begin by soaking in what we have—by noticing assets and having gratitude. Then, after we’ve practiced observation, sure—we can compare.

So before I compare my kid to their calmer friend, I can observe their humor and sense of wonder. Before I compare my job to an easier one I could have, I can observe the chance I have to make a difference alongside amazing colleagues. I can observe the joy that’s already here—before I compare my life to what it could have been.

Comparison may be the thief of joy. But we can experience joy before we even open the door to that conniving thief.

My colleague reminded us that comparison is the thief of joy earlier this week because we had a software release. And at first, it ate at me. Because deep down, I have known this for a long time, but have been helpless to stop it. I know comparison steals my joy—and I’ve known it since I was a kid, when adults would compare me to other kids and the comparison would burn my childhood innocence.

But now, after reflecting more, I feel agency. And we should feel agency, rather than seeing comparison as an inevitability. Because even if we fall into the trap of comparison, we don’t have to start with it.

Finding Meaning in Simply Existing: A Shift from Chasing to Living

In my first 25 years, I cared deeply about passion, purpose, and finding meaning in my life.

But now, I understand them differently. Looking back, I realize that valuing “meaning” so highly may have come from incomplete thinking.

I used to view meaning as something to attain—almost like a destination. Should my job provide me with meaning? Should I rely on my marriage and family to give me that sense of purpose? And what does it even mean to demand that from these parts of my life?

One moment that changed my thinking came from an unexpected place: a colleague and manager at La-Z-Boy. Whenever I asked him how he was doing, he’d always reply with some variation of, “Good. I’m just glad to be above ground instead of six feet under.”

At first, I found this confusing. Was that really the bar for being “good”? Was simply being alive enough for him?

Over time, though, I began to understand his wisdom.

Maybe we don’t need to constantly seek meaning in our lives—as if it’s a resource to be used up and replenished like gasoline in a car. Perhaps meaning isn’t something we have to chase after; maybe it’s something that comes naturally from simply living.

Now, after more years of hardship, dreams, and changes, I’ve come to see meaning and purpose a different way—that doesn’t involve endlessly searching for meaning.

What if meaning could come from simply existing? Could true peace and enlightenment come from finding meaning in the everyday moments of life, simply because we’re here to experience them?

That’s what I think my colleague was getting at. He wasn’t just saying that being alive was slightly better than being dead. He was suggesting that life itself, without the need for constant external validation, is inherently meaningful.

Finding joy in simply existing takes work. But it’s achievable.

At the heart of this mindset are two principles:

1. Shaping our lives into something we want

2. Learning to live happily with less

When it comes to shaping our lives, the process looks like this:

• Look inward.

• Understand what your inner self truly wants, beyond the ego’s desires.

• Create a small, focused list of things that bring you long-term joy and fulfillment.

• Set clear goals and priorities.

• Gradually work toward shaping your life around those core elements.

• Ultimately, find yourself in a place where simply living feels meaningful.

For living happily with less, the process is similar:

• Again, look inward.

• Understand what the inner self needs, as opposed to what the ego craves.

• Recognize that you already have a surplus of what you need.

• Practice gratitude for what you have.

• Share what you can with others.

• As gratitude deepens, realize you need far less than you once thought.

• Eventually, reach a point where meaning comes from the simple act of living.

However, I want to emphasize that this mindset isn’t about abandoning the work of improving the world.

We must still strive to create a just society where everyone thrives. Ending senseless suffering is vital. And for those who are struggling, the message isn’t to just “be grateful.” This isn’t about ignoring hardships. Similarly, for those who are more fortunate, inner peace can’t be bought—it requires effort and reflection.

These ideas are at the core of my book, Character by Choice.

The book is about the importance of inner work and how to actually do it. Writing it was life-changing for me, and that’s why I’ve made the PDF version free. Inner work changes lives, but it’s difficult and important to learn from each other about.

For years, I chased meaning through work, status, wealth, and stories—but it never seemed to end.

I spent decades searching for meaning, only to feel more lost than ever. That’s why my colleague’s words resonated with me. The real place to be isn’t in constantly chasing meaning, but in finding joy and peace in simply existing.

I believe the path to this place begins by looking inward.

How to Make Selflessness Joyful

To my friends of the mind,

Lately, I’ve been thinking about time and what we leave behind — not just for our children or our children’s children, but for those far down the line.

A generation, they say, is about 30 years. Ten generations? That’s 300 years. It makes me wonder: what could I pass on that lasts for one generation? And, more curiously, what could endure for 10?

One of the biggest lessons I learned while writing Character by Choice was this: to truly be good people, we need to think beyond ourselves. It’s not just about what we accomplish in our lifetimes, but about listening deeply to the call of something greater — something that stretches far into the future, beyond what we’ll ever see or experience. In fact, I’ve come to believe that selflessness becomes joyful when we shift our focus far beyond the present. When we know our actions aren’t ephemeral, but rooted in something that will last for generations, it deepens the sense of purpose and fulfillment. It’s this depth that sustains us, guiding us to work on things that really matter, even if we’ll never see the results.

Let’s say we’ve done the hard inner work, the kind that builds empathy for those distant future generations — the ones we’ll never meet but whose lives we still want to impact. So, what then? What do we actually do with that kind of perspective? How do we spend our time, knowing that we’re playing a much longer game?

I started asking myself this question and even opened it up to some friends on Facebook. Together, we came up with a list of ideas — some lighthearted, some heavy, but all worth considering. What I’ve realized through this process is that I want to focus more on the long game — the 10-gen stuff — instead of getting caught up in things that might only matter for one generation.

So, what might last for 10 generations? Here are some things that came to mind, from the obvious to the unexpected:

• Inventions

• Great companies and institutions that do the right thing

• Values and moral principles

• Beautiful heirlooms

• Novel, simple mental models

• The effects of unconditional love

• Trauma

• Recipes

• Wisdom

• Practical knowledge (e.g., how to can vegetables, how to lay a brick)

• Waste (e.g., plastics, radioactive material)

• Art

• Genetics and predisposition to disease

• A well-built house (or other very well-built things)

• Big beefs

• Spiritual beliefs / Religions

• Culture

• General-purpose technologies (e.g., electricity, the internet)

• The earth and climate

And then there’s the stuff that might burn bright for just one generation before it fades — things we invest time in but maybe shouldn’t overvalue in the long run:

• Inherited wealth

• Reputation / Fame

• Debt

• Status

• Most possessions

• Little beefs

• A “career”

• Incremental innovations

• Politics (for the most part)

• Pop culture

• Gadgets

• News

So, what do you think? What would you add to these lists? More importantly, do you believe the 10-gen stuff is worth striving for? Is it even something we can shape? I’d love to hear your thoughts — let’s keep the conversation going.

Always,

Neil

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.

—

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.

Don’t Work Saturdays

As a young twenty-something, I had a friend from work who told me one time that he went to great lengths to avoid working on Saturdays. It was some of the best advice I’ve ever received, and was provocative given that at the time both of us worked for a consultancy that required long hours and many of our colleagues bragged about how many hours they logged.

And what fortuitous advice to get from a peer at a such a formative time in my professional life. I started to avoid work on Saturdays and I still do. And thank God for that. Saturday mornings are a sacred time.

To some extent, I think I always knew this, or at least acted as if they were by accident.

If you grew up in the Midwest or went to college here, you know that our ritualistic observance and respect of Saturday mornings runs deep, and might as well be explained by “something in the water.” Because, after all, we have college football.

This observance and participation in the magic of saturday morning college football started when I was a pre-teen. I remember little of what happened when I was 10, except for the herculean Michigan team that won the National Championship. I still remember Charles Woodson, Brian Griese, and many of the key plays of that season. Every week I would get up, watch the pre-game show and then the game. That was that. No exceptions. Saturday mornings. That’s just what we do.

This continued, obviously, when I showed up for college in Ann Arbor and learned the true glory and glee of a collegian’s tailgate. When we lived in the fraternity house, we’d rally the brotherhood, and march down the street to a nearby sorority house - as if we were part of a parade - trays of Jell-O shots in hand. We’d then rouse the sorority sisters from sleep, with said Jell-O shots before continuing to the senior party house by the football stadium where the tailgate had already begun, and the streets had already started filling with sweatshirts and jerseys laden with maize and blue.

It’s absolutely magical, and for some borders on being a quasi-religious experience if you can believe that. Saturday mornings are a sacred time.

Buy Saturday morning magic extends far beyond football. There were the summers in Washington D.C., for example, where I interned every year of college. We lived in the George Washington University dorms, with about 50 other Michigan undergrads and the few others living down the halls from smaller schools that we’d adopted.

The morning would always start slow, and we’d have an invite for everyone to venture through our open door and brunch on some pancakes that my roommates and I had made, catching up about the latest stories made into zeitgeist by the The Washington Post, the pubs folks had visited the night before, the latest policy paper from a think tank making the rounds, or plans for sightseeing over the weekend.

As we’d wrap up shortly before noon, someone would inevitably bellow, with full throat and diaphragm through the dormitory corridors, “TTRRRRAAADDDERRRR JOOOOOOOOEEEESSS!”, which was our universally understood cry that someone was going grocery shopping and was looking for a friend to join them for round trip to and from the edge of Georgetown.

And that was that. That is just what we did, for no other reason than it being Saturday morning. Magical times.

I was reminded of the sacredness of Saturday mornings just yesterday. It was our first trip as a family of five to Eastern Market - Detroit’s largest farmer’s market, which is one of it’s crown jewels, rights of passage, and among the most illustrious and inclusive farmers markets in the country.

We strolled through shed-by-shed, perusing the day’s produce - me pushing the littler boys in the stroller and Robyn walking a few steps ahead with Bo, our 4-and-a-half year old. We grabbed a coffee, and worked our way back through the market’s sheds, stopping by a few farm stands that caught our eye for their fresh produce and attractive prices.

Then we stopped by the Art Park on our way a crepe stand for an early lunch, waiting patiently and with gentle smiles, because we were glad to just be there together. We didn’t care that it took a while, being slow was an opportunity, not an inconvenience.

This is what Saturday mornings are supposed to be like. If you ask me at least.

They’re not for moving fast, they’re for being uncharacteristically slow. They’re not for gearing up, they’re for gearing down. They’re not for hustling, or even for walking with a modicum of fierceness, they’re for ambling. They’re not for to-do-lists, they’re for togetherness and tradition. They’re not for working, they’re for everything but.

I am so grateful that someone set an example for me to not work on Saturday’s. It changed the course of my life, and I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to say that.At every phase of my life, with every community I’ve been part of, in every location I’ve ever lived, Saturday mornings have become magical, sacred times.

But none of that Saturday has a chance if we’re working - whether that’s emails, doing chores with tunnel vision, or otherwise doing something with the intention of being “productive.” We only have a few thousand of these Saturday mornings and it’s a tragedy to waste them.

Don’t work Saturdays.