Last year, on my birthday, a friend asked me what my wish for 26 was. I loved the question - it creates intention, a useful break to consider how you want to feel at that stage of your life. For me, it was an easy answer… Joy. 

I had been coming out of a relationship where this had been my partner’s primary motivation - maximizing fun and enjoyment. This approach to life is one I’ve grown to admire and respect, although it disoriented me at the time. This respect and admiration is because it takes a certain amount of self-awareness, a certain amount of selfishness (I don’t always believe this is a bad thing), and surprisingly a certain amount of commitment in the search for fun and enjoyment. It can be easy to fall prey to a world that focuses on the traditional achievement markers - career, partners, family, relationship-building, selflessness - to always prioritize these things. But based on a traditional wheel of life - fun and enjoyment are a separate spoke to prioritize. If enjoyment is an essential aspect of your life and life is short, why don’t we take joy as seriously as we take other aspects of our life?

After the relationship ended, I faced questions that many face after a breakup or major life event - what makes me happy? What is enjoyable? What makes me joyful?

I think happiness is a question we don’t spend enough time reflecting on. A practice we don’t practice enough. And an approach that we don’t think about evolving once we have outgrown. By this I mean, what made me happy five years ago is not what makes me happy today. And maybe that’s obvious to some people but it wasn’t to me. I learned from this partner that happiness doesn’t just happen to us; we have to foster it and nourish it with the things that make us happy every day. I also think a lot about this quote from famed relationship therapist, Esther Perel as well: 

“Happiness is an outcome, not a mandate… Happiness comes in a moment… it's a moment. It's not, ‘I am happy in my life. I'm a happy person.’”

This idea of an outcome, not a mandate was clarifying. It’s not about being a happy person or a melancholic person or a fun person or an easygoing person. The learning is that often, the feelings we experience are outcomes of what we put our energy towards, the moments we choose to engage in…

26 was the year I put my energy towards joy. And I didn’t always feel particularly joyous, but I made the effort to choose experiences or people or places that might bring joyous moments. I made space for enjoyment and chose to be selfish sometimes, which often meant prioritizing what felt good in the moment, rather than what I thought I should do or based on what I thought others might think. Perhaps sometimes it made other people uncomfortable. But truthfully, I’m starting to get more comfortable with that idea - I would rather make others uncomfortable than to abandon my self or to place their discomfort ahead of my happiness. I am my own responsibility and they are theirs.

So what will 27 bring? That idea of separating from what others think has struck me as important; the quieting of the need for comparison or validation. I want this to be my year of self-determination, self-knowing, self-esteem. A year of unapologetic self-hood. With a hearty dose of joy.