The most important thing for our world right now?

Nothing is more important than this right now

Are you okay?

It seems like a lot of us aren’t right now. Decades from now there will be a dramatic name for this period in history. The After Times? I dunno. Naming isn’t a talent I possess. 

Today I want to do something revolutionary. 

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pause for dramatic effect

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I want to tell you about my joy.

Yes, joy. 

Remember joy?

It’s harder to come by these days. The world is not conspiring to get you back in touch with pleasure and peace. The opposite, more like.  You have to keep your eyes peeled for it, recognize when it finds you, and chase after it with reckless abandon in the moments when it feels like the world is turning pear-shaped.

Last week I went skiing in the Rockies with my friend Suzy, searching for joy, which I think is the same thing as chasing aliveness. It was scary and icy and Suzy had to pep-talk me down some steep terrain. A lot of the day I was privately berating myself for being the worst skier in the world, trying not to cry. (I’m also going through a breakup with someone I’ve loved for many years, so I was also trying not to cry about that.)

I saw an ad in the local paper for a Simon and Garfunkel tribute show near Banff. Neither of us knew what sort of show it would be. But Suzy is a “yes to life” sort of person, so twenty-four hours later I was crying my eyes out in the back of a fifty-person Canmore theatre – joy crying, not sad girl crying, and feeling so completely alive – listening to two best friends sing Bridge Over Troubled Water while I clutched a plastic cup of bad merlot just trying not to flood the place with tears.

At that moment I knew we were all going to be okay. 

Deep in my bones it felt so clear that the world could not be bad when such music exists. No matter what the news says, you will always have this song, my body said. Anytime you feel sad or you think the world is ending, you can always go outside, lift your eyes to the sky and sing this song.

Sail on, silver girl
Sail on by
Your time has come to shine
All your dreams are on their way

With those harmonies echoing in my heart, I snuggled my kids harder back home to Ontario, laughed a little louder at band practice, sang a little brighter at my bestie’s birthday dinner. When I woke up wanting to bury myself in blankets and cry about every lover who ever decided I was either not enough or too much, I sent myself to the woods to walk it off among the trees before sitting down at my desk. 

Joy keeps finding me, again and again. Sometimes I have to take breaks to go lay down on my couch and feel sad about my failed relationships or overwhelmed about climate change or whatever, but I keep coming back to joy. I keep reentering the arena, looking for new ways to feel fully alive. 

Inevitably, aliveness finds me. 

I know I’m supposed to be writing about business but this is more important. I want all of us to fight harder for our joy. It is so crucial right now. When you have joy, you have vision. You see solutions where before you saw only desperation and hopelessness. Your heart grows three sizes bigger and suddenly you’re able to forgive people you thought were going to live on your shit-list until you were dead and buried. (Ask me how I know.) Joy gives you strength to do the things you need to do to make your business work. 

Here are some ideas for where to find joy and aliveness, in case you need them:

Get lost in the woods.
Sing.
Make a playlist for someone you love.
Ask your roommate to hide your phone for a day.
Watch I AM | Celine Dion.
Close your eyes right now and think about your best first kiss.
Play hooky.
Try MDMA.
Lay in a patch of sunlight for five whole minutes.
Borrow your friend’s dog and have a sleepover.
Listen to your favourite album all the way to the end.
Ask your kid for a life lesson.
Cook a meal you loved when you were five.
Touch grass.
Lay on the floor and listen to Bridge Over Troubled Water on full blast.

If you want to do something good for the world right now, please fight for your joy. You can feel joy and still show up to the march. Do something today that makes you feel fully alive. Just one action to affirm that your joy matters, and it is worth spending time on. When you are fully alive, you are contributing something essential to the world. I might feel small but it is significant. It matters. 

I’d love to hear what you’re going to do. Hit “reply” and tell me your thing. If you need a friend or someone to cheer you on, I’m sailing right behind

XO,

Tarzan

Tarzan Kalryzian [she/they]
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