On Joy

My girlfriend and I were discussing cleaning out closets a few weeks ago because a. I was complaining about having a bunch of old dress shirts that don't fit me anymore, b. she was complaining about having a bunch of clothes she doesn't wear anymore, and c. this is the stage of our lives that we are in.

My room, and the house I live in, is generally junked up. Papers, books, headphones, you name it. Much of it I could conceivably throw away without issue, but I'm paralyzed by fear that I may wake up sweating bullets at 3 AM at some point in the future screaming, "I MUST READ THE FREE COMIC BOOK DAY EDITION OF THE SONIC AND MEGA MAN CROSSOVER."

My girlfriend (who says she's going to start a rival blog called "Miss Lady Kazblog" focused on how terrible traffic on the Ben Franklin Bridge is and Adventure Time plot analysis) brought up a rule of thumb she'd read to help clear the clutter: "If it doesn't bring you joy, get rid of it."

It sounds a little too clean and cosmic at first. You can't just get rid of stuff because it doesn't thrill you when you use it. My toothbrush does not necessarily bring me "joy," unless I've elected to go without it for a few days. (Listen, you try to set a Guinness World Record your way and I'll try mine)

As I turned it over, though, it made complete sense to me with a simple, possibly obvious, addition: if it doesn't bring you joy, or if it isn't a conduit for joy, get rid of it. And that's something you can expand to life in general.

I bring my own lunch to work to save money. This means I spend 10-20 minutes a week making lunch for myself instead of waiting in line at the Cafe du Crap for their heat-lamp chicken fingers (only $5 for three!). Many nights, this is incredibly tedious, but I do it because I know the $5 I'm saving can be used towards, say, actual food. Good food. WAWA FOOD. Which I will get on Tuesday or Thursday nights on my way home from class at night. Joy!

Speaking of class, this is something that brings me genuine joy, which is something college Matt would never have said. I've had trepidations about returning to school for years, but decided to take the plunge last spring because I thought it would help my career. In fact, it's proven to be a great part of my week, last-minute papers aside.

If all I had was the murky prospect of potentially getting a better job at an indefinite point in time...well, what's the joy in that? That's not an excuse to just drop out of school and be short-sighted;, of course. Working towards a better job should be exciting because, even if it's not your dream, it'll enable you to do other things you might like, like start a family or travel the world. If none of those appeal to you, then maybe you're not cut out for the traditional "American Dream"-type life. And that's not a bad thing!

There will be aspects of things that bring you joy that you hate. Writing papers for a class you're iffy on in the service of a degree you'd love to have is a necessary evil. Attending shitty meetings at work could be the thorn in your rose of a career...or, if you don't like the work itself to boot, it's your incentive to work your way out of there. You might love driving your new Audi, but damn it if you're not going to have to go to the DMV at some point.

The point of this rambling, stream-of-consciousness post is to make space for joy. This is a pretty idealistic way of looking at things, and perhaps there are circumstances that will prevent you from finding it in all aspects of your life. That's fine. Everyone deals with rough patches, whether they're hours long or months long.

But if you're in a rough patch, take stock of your surroundings. Perhaps there's something else causing you so much grief that it's causing you view of other things that do bring you happiness to sour. It's a good exercise to work through how something - a job, a person, an activity, a pair of shoes, an Adam Sandler movie collection on DVD - could potentially still bring you joy.

And if it doesn't? Well, just put it where you normally keep your Adam Sandler DVDs.