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Book Review: Joyful
Jul. 20th, 2018 09:18 am“We are here, as Diane Ackerman writes, to live not just the length of our lives, but the width of them as well. We are here to see rainbows and paint them, to be tickled and enthralled, to eat a second cupcake if we choose.”
I read Ingrid Fetell Lee’s Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness so fast that when it was over, I started it all over again. It’s just so rare to read anything that is such an unabashed celebration of the joyful: the playful, the quirky, the beautiful, the little things in life that make you pause with delight: a rainbow, a hot air balloon, fresh flowers and fireworks and treehouses (did you know that one of the earliest known references to treehouses comes from Pliny the elder), confetti and bubbles and turning the corner in a gray rainy city to discover a window box of bright red geraniums hanging from a third story window.
Basically it’s a book long treatise on the theme of “treat yourself,” with a side order of “because in doing so you’ll treat everyone else, too.” A treehouse is a thing of beauty and a joy forever not only for the people who own it, but for anyone else who sees it as well. Keep the treehouse dream alive!
And over the course of the book, Lee takes us to visit strange and wonderful places: a treehouse workshop, a house modeled after bubbles, an apartment filled with houseplants, a dying city rejuvenated by a coat of bright paint on its crumbling gray buildings, a hot air balloon festival,
(Side note: I’ve been contemplating how spend my ill-gotten gains from Briarley, and this book reminded me that I’ve always wanted to go on a hot air balloon ride. Yes/no?)
There’s also something relaxing about Joyful’s focus on little moments of joy rather than lasting happiness. It’s hard to imagine building lasting happiness with the world going the way it is, but pausing to take joy in a rainbow? That seems doable.
“At the heart of celebration is a kind of mathematical paradox: the more we share joy, the more it grows. The implication of this is that we should manage joy in the exact opposite way that we manage money. We should spend it all, at every chance we get. What celebration does, with music and fireworks, giant balloons and glitter, is broadcast our joy far and wide so that others can join in. Because the more generous we are with our joy, the more we have for ourselves.”
I read Ingrid Fetell Lee’s Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness so fast that when it was over, I started it all over again. It’s just so rare to read anything that is such an unabashed celebration of the joyful: the playful, the quirky, the beautiful, the little things in life that make you pause with delight: a rainbow, a hot air balloon, fresh flowers and fireworks and treehouses (did you know that one of the earliest known references to treehouses comes from Pliny the elder), confetti and bubbles and turning the corner in a gray rainy city to discover a window box of bright red geraniums hanging from a third story window.
Basically it’s a book long treatise on the theme of “treat yourself,” with a side order of “because in doing so you’ll treat everyone else, too.” A treehouse is a thing of beauty and a joy forever not only for the people who own it, but for anyone else who sees it as well. Keep the treehouse dream alive!
And over the course of the book, Lee takes us to visit strange and wonderful places: a treehouse workshop, a house modeled after bubbles, an apartment filled with houseplants, a dying city rejuvenated by a coat of bright paint on its crumbling gray buildings, a hot air balloon festival,
(Side note: I’ve been contemplating how spend my ill-gotten gains from Briarley, and this book reminded me that I’ve always wanted to go on a hot air balloon ride. Yes/no?)
There’s also something relaxing about Joyful’s focus on little moments of joy rather than lasting happiness. It’s hard to imagine building lasting happiness with the world going the way it is, but pausing to take joy in a rainbow? That seems doable.
“At the heart of celebration is a kind of mathematical paradox: the more we share joy, the more it grows. The implication of this is that we should manage joy in the exact opposite way that we manage money. We should spend it all, at every chance we get. What celebration does, with music and fireworks, giant balloons and glitter, is broadcast our joy far and wide so that others can join in. Because the more generous we are with our joy, the more we have for ourselves.”
