My 2021 Word of the Year Was Joy and You Can Probably Guess Exactly How It Went
Some lessons learned — and how I’m changing my focus for 2022 to save my sanity
Everyone was doing it, so I decided to create an intention for 2021. A word of the year.
I hate rigid goals and resolutions, but picking a theme sounded just aspirational enough to motivate without anxiety. Maybe it was a little cheesy. But I wanted to set the tone. Focus on the positive.
After the rollercoaster of 2020 — globally and personally — this year was going to be different! I was going to make a change.
I picked “Joy” as my 2021 word.
Yes, joy, in all of its sparkly holiday card glory. Not just happiness, but overabundance. A feeling that is outsized, the contents bubbling up beyond the tall sides of a champagne glass. Unable to be contained.
I needed some fucking joy because 2020 dug me deeper into the hole I had been burrowing long before New Year’s Day. After the cold, dank, echoing walls of the previous year (or three), joy felt like a warm, cozy blanket and a mug of tea. I wanted that. I needed that.
The truth is, the past few years have been filled with a lot of good, but the bad stuff always seems comparatively bigger. So big that you can’t even see the good. Optimism and resilience felt better than wallowing in misery. Clinging to hope is characteristically human. I had a vision of finding the silver linings and pocketing the bits of goodness even in the worst of situations.
Spoiler alert: Joy was a failure.
I cringe at the naïveté of my past self.
What possessed you to think that somehow turning the page in the calendar, one second bleeding into the next, was going to magically bring a completely clean slate? A new set of events? Or even a changed mindset around them?
It’s not as if 2021 was devoid of good. There were, however, some impediments to accessing that coveted level of bliss.
Grief and joy can’t co-exist.
I spent much of the previous year suffering from loss. I didn’t want to feel it anymore, setting the foundation for this new direction.
Despair and joy are two sides of a balance scale. Grief weighs so heavily on one end that even moments of exhilaration have very little sway. Grief overwhelms the emotional maelstrom. It’s almost impossible to give anything else its airtime. On the rare occasions that the tiniest bit of happiness shone light into my grief cave, I felt guilty. I was supposed to be sad.
It takes time and healing to overcome grief, and I was committed to this focus. I was in therapy. I allowed myself to feel the sadness.
And then, I experienced another loss.
Grief started over again, hitting harder this time. I had to recognize that true joy was going to have to wait for recovery.
Joy is a shared emotion.
Joy is a celebration. It exists on the inside but its beams glow outward.
It is connectedness. It is so much excitement you can’t hold it in.
So we tell others about our joy, we gather in exaltation. We shout our good news from the rooftops and post our accomplishments on social media.
2021, for me, was just the next in a series of years of disconnect after a cross-country move and the loss of the purpose that took me there. And it was a year of little joy to share and few with whom to share it.
Joy does not grow in the soil of loneliness.
Joy requires psychological safety.
Any student of Maslow can tell you that to achieve a higher good, the peace and calm of enlightenment and self-actualization, you need to first have your basic needs met.
Uncertainty is inevitable. No one of us ever really knows what’s going to happen next. But in 2021, the twists and turns of fate felt especially cruel and unexpected. I (like you, probably) juggled the complex emotions of political upheaval, pandemic waves, and personal loss. It was just too much. I was scared, anxious, and tense.
I needed solid ground, but every time I felt like I might be getting my footing, the bottom dropped out. Relationships that became strained to their breaking point. Multiple health issues juggling 5 different medical specialties (including one trip to the ER — while on vacation). A friend/client who threatened to ruin my business.
Fear keeps you constantly on the lookout. And when your focus is gauging the direction of the next threat, joy doesn’t have a chance to register on the radar. You’re just trying to keep your head above water.
Lessons Learned
The positive side of examining the failure of this intention was that I learned what went wrong in my approach. Seeking joy puts too much emphasis on the outcome. It demands a singular emotion, regardless of the circumstances. It was a lot of pressure, and with every realization that I was not achieving my goal, I felt even more disappointment and regret.
Focusing on joy made me sadder than I already was.
- It is okay (and important) to feel the negative emotions, too. Forcing joy doesn’t work.
- Joy doesn’t have to be big and outsized and momentous. We exist in the gray areas between binaries, and the expectation for bells and whistles is as sure a letdown as the picture-perfect NewYear’s Eve party. You can feel joy in tiny moments, like reading a great book or having a heartwarming video chat. Redefine joy to include everyday activities and bits of pleasure.
- Embrace joy in solitude — and in sharing. I experience happiness on my own frequently (and you may too if you’re also an introvert). Collect those moments to acknowledge and celebrate them. Look back on the joys of your day, week, month, year. And choose to share those joys with others. For me, it’s posting a food photo on social media or celebrating a work win with my co-working group.
So, what am I changing about 2022?
I am going to be more curious. I am going to be more open to possibilities. I am going to trust the process.
I’ll share my 2022 word in my next article. Any guesses?
