Let’s be honest: most of us are not exactly drowning in joy these days. Unless you count the 0.2 seconds of dopamine you get when your phone buzzes with a new “10% off your next order” coupon from DoorDash. (Spoiler: you’ll still end up paying $37 for soggy fries and lukewarm chicken tenders.)
So, here’s a bold proposal: maybe—just maybe—joy doesn’t have to be a mythical unicorn you only stumble across when your Wi-Fi finally connects on the first try. Maybe it’s something you can actually create, in between deadlines, laundry piles, and existential dread.
Brace yourself. I’m about to reveal four highly advanced, cutting-edge ways to bring more joy into your life. Are these revolutionary? No. Are they obvious? Absolutely. Will you still ignore them and continue your slow descent into chaos? Without a doubt. But hey, at least you’ll know what you’re ignoring.
1. Embrace the Art of Doing Nothing (a.k.a. Stop Treating Rest Like a War Crime)
Let’s start with something radical: sitting down. Yes, that thing you avoid unless you’re simultaneously scrolling TikTok, watching Netflix, and pretending to answer emails.
Modern life has convinced us that if we’re not optimizing every second, we’re wasting our one precious life. Newsflash: you’re not a productivity robot; you’re a tired mammal with a questionable sleep schedule and three-day-old coffee breath.
Why “Doing Nothing” is Actually Doing Something
Doing nothing gives your brain a chance to, you know, exist. That nagging voice in your head that constantly says, “Shouldn’t you be meal-prepping kale or at least becoming a crypto millionaire?” finally shuts up. For five blessed minutes, you remember what it feels like to just be.
But no, you resist. You think, “If I sit still, the world will collapse.” Buddy, the world is already collapsing. You might as well be comfortable on the couch when it happens.
How to Try It (Without Panicking)
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Stare out the window like you’re in a French indie film. Bonus points if it’s raining.
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Lie on the floor and contemplate the ceiling fan. Congratulations, you’re basically meditating.
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Take a nap. Yes, you. A grown adult. Lie down and shut your eyes without guilt. (If you feel guilty, congrats again—that’s proof capitalism has melted your brain.)
Doing nothing is not laziness. It’s survival. Think of it as putting your mental health on “airplane mode.”
2. Find Humor in the Small Stuff (Because Laughter Burns Calories, Probably)
Let’s face it: life is mostly absurd. You can either cry about it or laugh at it. And crying gives you puffy eyes, while laughter makes you look slightly less dead inside.
Why Humor Works
Humor is the duct tape holding this dumpster fire of a society together. Laughing is basically free therapy, except instead of costing $200 an hour, it costs whatever your Netflix subscription is this month (which, yes, has gone up again).
The trick is noticing the comedy gold in your everyday disasters. Spilled coffee on your shirt before a big meeting? Comedy. Got ghosted by someone whose bio proudly says “sapiosexual”? Comedy. Your cat just puked on your laptop keyboard? Honestly, that’s slapstick at its finest.
Practical Ways to Cultivate Humor
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Befriend someone with a dark sense of humor. They will roast your misery into something hilarious.
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Start a “stupid things I did today” journal. It’ll read like a blooper reel of your life.
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Treat every minor inconvenience like a scene from The Office. Trust me, it’s harder to rage when you’re pretending there’s a laugh track behind your spilled soup.
The point isn’t that life suddenly stops being hard. It’s that you’re too busy chuckling at its ridiculousness to notice how hard it actually is.
3. Connect with Other Humans (Yes, Even the Annoying Ones)
I know, I know. Other humans are exhausting. They breathe loudly, they chew wrong, and some of them clap when the plane lands. But science says connection is where joy lives. And unfortunately, “connection” doesn’t mean yelling at strangers on Reddit.
The Case for Actual Human Contact
When you talk to people in real life, magical things happen. You laugh more. You feel less like a Wi-Fi-starved hermit. You even remember that other people are just as weird and anxious as you are.
Sure, sometimes humans will disappoint you. But let’s be real—so does everything else. At least with humans, you get hugs and inside jokes.
Baby Steps for the Socially Rusty
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Text that friend you’ve been ghosting since 2021. “Hey, still alive?” is a perfectly valid opener.
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Compliment a stranger’s ridiculous hat. You’ll both feel better, and maybe they’ll let you borrow it.
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Call your parents. They will cry tears of joy, and you’ll earn free guilt-trip immunity for at least a week.
Connection doesn’t require a TED Talk or a networking event with terrible hors d’oeuvres. It’s as simple as laughing with someone about how the self-checkout machine called you a thief again.
4. Do Something Joyfully Pointless (Because Not Everything Needs to Build Your Personal Brand)
Here’s a crazy idea: not every activity has to improve your résumé. You don’t need to monetize every hobby or squeeze content out of every interest. Sometimes joy is just… doing something dumb for no reason.
Why Pointless is Powerful
When you allow yourself to do something useless, you reclaim your humanity. You remind yourself you’re not just a productivity unit. You’re a person who can, in fact, spend three hours building a pillow fort or trying to learn the harmonica badly.
That freedom is joy.
Examples of Gloriously Pointless Activities
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Bake a cake that looks like it was frosted during an earthquake.
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Learn the choreography to a 2000s boy band music video. Bonus joy if you record it and blackmail yourself later.
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Go on a walk and count how many squirrels give you dirty looks.
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Paint something hideous and hang it in your living room like it’s modern art.
The less useful it is, the better. Joy doesn’t need a ROI report.
The Snarky Bottom Line
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: joy isn’t delivered by Amazon Prime. It’s not something you earn after working yourself into burnout or something you stumble on after buying the right mattress. It’s small. It’s messy. It’s boring sometimes.
Joy is in the nap you didn’t apologize for. It’s in the dumb meme your friend sends you at 2 a.m. It’s in the terrible cake you proudly present like it’s a Great British Bake Off showstopper.
You don’t need to overhaul your entire life. You just need to occasionally stop making your existence a competition and let yourself laugh, rest, connect, and do something gloriously stupid.
So yes, those are your four ways to bring more joy into your life. Will you try them? Probably not. But at least you can smugly tell yourself you read about them while scrolling, and isn’t self-awareness the ultimate joy?