Seeking joy

At a recent concert, Sara Bareilles tee’d up her popular song Brave, a song about embracing your identity and speaking your truth, with some encouraging words: “We have this one incredibly short and precious life. It is our job to demand joy for ourselves — to surround yourself with people who lift you up and make you into your best selves. That is the only way we can live. Otherwise, what the [expletive] are we doing?”

A great question — one worth begging anytime joy seems notably absent from our agendas.

What is the point, if not to seek people, places, and things that nourish our souls and make us feel alive?

And what a particularly great choice of verbs: joy is not something we should wait or hope for. It is something that, with clenched fists and conviction, we should seek and demand for ourselves.