Creating Joy Amid the Chaos

Creating Joy amid the chaos
Sadly my favorite pastime – traveling with family – is on hold. Here we are in Alaska (my brother, Eric, Mom, and myself).

Since last spring, we’ve all struggled to find our footing on ever-shifting terrain. In our professional lives and in our personal lives we’ve had to adapt, sacrifice, and be patient. For example, I very quickly had to figure out how to modify my in-person trainings and presentations for virtual environments (and let me just take this moment to say that tech support folks are worth their weight in gold!). One of my all-time favorite activities—travel (especially with my mom)—is off the table for the time being, and my visits with family and friends have all but ground to a halt.

No doubt you’ve had to make similar changes in your own lives. Perhaps you had to cancel a vacation (or a big event such as a wedding or a family reunion). Maybe you are struggling to balance helping your kids with their Zoom classes while managing your own work.

The particulars of each person’s situation vary, but I am pretty confident that we all have one big thing in common: we are so over this pandemic! Unfortunately, it’s not quite done with us yet.

The ups and downs of daily COVID-19 numbers and the overarching uncertainty about when this will all end makes everything feel pretty chaotic right now. To bring some order to the chaos, we need to find ways to create joy. And because our options are currently limited (I know I could find tons of joy in a vacation to Tahiti, but that’s out of the question for the near future, unfortunately), we need to figure out how to create that joy with what we have readily available. 

I’ve put together the following list of ideas for creating joy in our lives. It’s by no means exhaustive, of course, but it’s a start. Your mileage may vary (as the saying goes), so some of these might work for you—and some might not. But I hope they all inspire you to broaden your perspective a bit and try something new!

Find Joy in Nature

  • Go for a walk (even a short one) outside! Spending time in nature is one path to happiness. 
  • Explore your own backyard and discover the vast natural world right under your nose. For inspiration, check out Hannah Holmes’s Suburban Safari: A Year on the Lawn. (A jeweler’s loupe will help you get in-the-field close-up views of what you find.)
  • Creating joy in natureNature journaling can help you be more aware of your environment. You don’t have to go far to do this. Your yard, your neighborhood, a local park—pretty much any place you can think of will work!
  • When the weather isn’t amenable for an outing, bring the outside in with some nature documentaries. Search for “David Attenborough” to find beautifully filmed programs on animals and environments throughout the world. It’s hard not share his infectious joy in  and enthusiasm for the natural world!

Take a (COVID-safe) Trip

  • Hop in your car and go for a ride to check out the seasonal scenery or explore new roads. If you’re feeling adventurous, download the Randonautica app and drive to the quantum random-generated coordinates it gives you (then use your own maps app to get directions home).
  • Many parks and outdoor venues stage drive-through or (socially distanced) walk-through outdoor light shows during the holiday season. (For example, here’s what happening around Boston, Seattle, Nashville, and Dallas-Fort Worth this year. Search for “outdoor light displays 2020” to find out about events near you.) If you don’t want to venture far from home, a drive or stroll through your own neighborhood will surely turn up plenty of great holiday lights and decorations.
  • Spread out a picnic on your living room and put on a nature or travel video to create your own “travel” experience. This is a great way to take a trip to the mountains, desert, or jungle without having to pack any bags!

Do something for someone else

  • Helping others is one route to joy, so consider checking out Volunteer Match to find volunteer opportunities in your local area.
  • If your local coffee shop participates in the suspended coffee movement, make a purchase that will later brighten the day of a stranger.
  • Check in on your neighbors who are elderly or live alone. Social distancing rules out helping them with indoor tasks, but you could still offer to pick up groceries or medicine for them or help out with leaf cleanup or snow removal.Find joy by helping others

Change your scenery by revising your space

Connect with friends and family

  • Living with someone isn’t the same as spending quality time with them. So make a point to carve out some time when you and your family (or roommates) put away your devices and do something analog together, such as go for walk, do a puzzle, play a game, or cook.
  • Find joy by connecting with friends and familyMeet friends online for a game or two at Board Game Arena, which is free to us. (I know someone who’s had a standing Wednesday evening appointment since the start of the pandemic to play Terra Mystica there!)
  • You probably already use video conferencing (e.g., Zoom, Teams, Skype, FaceTime) for group meetings for work. But why not expand their use to group meetings outside of work, too? One friend of mine has been meeting for coffee weekly with three other friends for years, and when social distancing went into effect they just moved their meetings to FaceTime. Book groups, wine clubs, community choirs—there’s a way to bring all these groups (and more!) together virtually! (If you plan on doing this frequently, use something like Doodle to find meeting times so people can put them on their calendars far in advance.)

Make this year’s holiday gifts (save money and give your creativity an outlet!)

  • For DIY tutorials on pretty much anything you can think of (and plenty of things that probably never would have occurred to you), check out Instructables.
  • If you prefer to create using what you already have (upcycling and recycling), check out Crafting a Green World, which has tons of ideas and tutorials for environmentally friendly (and budget conscious) crafts.
  • Do some crafting with your kids! Yarn bowls and snow globes are especially fun to make. (You can find tons of other great ideas on this list.)
  • If you have a printer, scissors, and glue, visit the website of the Toymaker (Marilyn Scott-Waters), where you’ll find tons of free downloadable files for stunningly beautiful paper crafts that you can make yourself.
  • Don’t feel that your DIY projects have to be ambitious in scope or fancy, though. Even a simple homemade card can you bring you joy when you make it—and bring joy to its recipient, too.

Cook!

  • The holiday season is baking season. This year, why not do some culinary traveling by baking cookies from all around the world?
  • Is there a favorite dish you like to get when you eat out? Now that restaurant dining has been curtailed, this could be a great opportunity to master making that dish yourself!
  • Plan a virtual dinner party! Have each participant prepare one dish (enough for everyone to have a serving), then drop off the portions at each others’ homes and convene online later that evening to have dinner together. (If you do this regularly, consider having a theme for each dinner or starting a cookbook club.)

    Finding joy with family
    My favorite cooking project with my twin nieces: making a gingerbread house every year for the holidays (we’re doing it together virtually this year).

Take time for yourself

  • Meditate. (If you don’t already have a meditation practice, start here.) Meditation has many well-established benefits, and during this chaotic time it can help you achieve some much-needed calm. Even just a little bit will help.
  • Sit down with a cup of tea/coffee/wine/whatever and just be. Don’t feel the need to multitask by doing something “productive” at the same time, such as check e-mail, read something, fold laundry, etc. Fretting about what has happened or what might happen can rob us of the joy of the present, so pause for a few minutes, sip your beverage, and be in the moment.
  • Put away your phone for a day. Do a quick check-in in the morning, then put it away until the next morning (set “out of office” type reminder)—unless you’re a doctor, odds are there isn’t anything that can’t wait a day. If you make this a habit (so that everyone knows you’re away from e-mail and texts on Sundays, for example), it gets easier to do this regularly.

Final Thoughts

Finding Joy and Gratitude
Source: Edebock.wordpress.com/2020/10/12/a-covid-thanksgiving/

We’re all exhausted by this pandemic, and it’s hard not to feel overwhelmingly frustrated and sad about the current state of affairs, especially when we don’t know when it will end. But amid all the negatives, there are still plenty of positives in our lives. Show gratitude for what you can, and use a gratitude journal to help you keep your focus on the positives—and create a space for joy. A very simple version of this (and one that works well with all ages) is to end the day by identifying three things you liked about that day. I know one family that does this together before everyone goes to bed, and hearing things such as “I really liked the sandwich I had for lunch” and “I really liked when the cat cuddled me” helps everyone remember that, in the big picture, the little things do matter—and they matter a lot.

Because many of the things that often bring joy during this season—travel, spending time with family and friends, attending shows and holiday events, parties—are canceled for most people this year, it’s important to find joy elsewhere. I know that the pandemic will end eventually (and with the promising news about vaccine developments, I’m hoping that will end will arrive sooner rather than later!). In the meantime, tap into your inner creativity and optimism to find the tools you need to create the joy that will brighten your days.

(If you have ideas to contribute to this list, please share them in the comments!)

1 thought on “Creating Joy Amid the Chaos”

  1. Val – I miss your enthusiasm and am so glad to be reminded of your great energy and inspiration here in your blog. Thank you!

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Registration for the Spring 2025 Leadership program is NOW OPEN!! HURRY before it sells out! Sign-up here!
Scroll to Top