A funk-free ‘play’ list
A baker’s dozen of joy snacks from a non-baker
A Washington Post newsletter regularly mentions joy snacks — finding time to savor happiness in our daily routines, including these seven tips. But what happens on those days when joy is a reluctant guest at your table?
Well, then you drag that sucker in, kicking and screaming, with 13 more feeble ideas from me, prefaced by three disclaimers.
First: Nothing in my baker’s dozen is meant as a replacement for therapy or calling 988 if things have gotten heavy. These are meant to help with an emotional owie, not trauma.
Second: Appreciate that having a gray day now and then is probably healthy. Anger and jealousy can motivate you; grief can underscore how precious life is. Sometimes leaning into it is the best way to get out of it.
Third: a book title that has absolutely nothing to do with joy: “Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty” by Harvey Mackay. It’s about networking, but the title should remind you to get your emotional emergency shit together now, not wait for a crisis when depression or inertia might feel overwhelming.
Here goes:
Look for comfort
Find a movie or TV scene you love watching over and over: Ted Lasso playing darts, Olaf singing about summer, Juliet and James at the vending machine, Miguel reminding grandma Coco about her son, “Not my daughter, you bitch!”
Or this one, when the Avengers assemble.
Maybe it’s something sad. The book “Hamilton: The Revolution” describes how the musical’s most painful song, “It’s Quiet Uptown,” helped Public Theater artistic director Oskar Eustis and wife Laurie cope with the death of their 16-year-old son, Jack.
The song itself is about how Alexander and Eliza Hamilton try to recover from their own son’s death. A couple of weeks after Jack died, the Eustises went to a sing-through rehearsal, getting comfort from Lin-Manuel Miranda and the rest of the cast and crew.
“There was one thing that the Hamilton company didn’t know that day. When Lin had learned of Jack’s death, he had sent an email to Oskar and Laurie expressing his deepest condolences. He also sent the demo recording of ‘It’s Quiet Uptown.’
“‘If art can help us grieve, can help us mourn, then lean on it,’ he wrote. If they preferred to delete the song, he would understand.
“Oskar and Laurie did lean on it. In the rehearsal studio that afternoon, nobody knew that ‘It’s Quiet Uptown’ was the only song they had listened to in their first week of mourning. They had listened to it every day.”
Share someone’s joy
I wrote before about mudita, feeling sympathetic or vicarious joy for the good fortunes of others. Maybe it’s a loved one going on the adventure of a lifetime or a Facebook friend becoming a grandparent or even the silliness of your pets.
It doesn’t matter if it makes you laugh or cry. It matters that it makes you feel. And sometimes you might have to depend on the kindness of strangers. Two of my favorites: Steph Curry’s joy in the final game of the Paris Olympics and a deaf teenager hearing her best friend’s voice for the first time.
Choose the right words
Find some words that inspire you. This is one of my favorite quotes, from Jim Valvano, the late North Carolina State basketball coach who helped create the V Foundation: “To me there are three things everyone should do every day. Number one is laugh. Number two is think — spend some time in thought. Number three, you should have your emotions moved to tears. If you laugh, you think and you cry, that’s a full day — that’s a heck of a day.”
If you struggle to find anything profound, a short poem might work. One of my standbys is “If —” by Rudyard Kipling.
Appreciate brilliance
I’ve already blathered on about the brilliance of “Hamilton” and “Lost.” Find something that leaves you mentally or spiritually in awe: an elegant dancer, a TED Talk, a magician on “America’s Got Talent,” a musical number that defies gravity.
Find your tribe
Few if any recommendations from some stupid list can beat the power of a hug from a loved one. But if that’s not available and you can’t share some joy with friends, social media might open up your world.
If you don’t have any meaningful friends on Facebook, try Threads. I’ve seen lots of people reach out — celebrating sobriety milestones, struggling with family members, asking for pet photos, mourning a loved one — and others often respond with kindness.
Avengers assemble, indeed.
Find your path
Exercising helps your mental health. Especially with friends, of course. But walking by yourself is also great, in nature or in a fascinating area. If either your locale or your body aren’t cooperating, maybe a Planet Earth video will at least fill you with awe.
Look backward
A really old sled sold for nearly $15 million last month. If you’re a movie buff, I don’t even need to tell you its name, do I?
What’s your Rosebud? Don’t dwell on the past, certainly, but a memento of a more innocent time might help you get out of a funk and appreciate how far you’ve come.
Look forward
What do you have to look forward to? Certainly there can be rare and glorious things like a world cruise or trip to Paris, but even something small can lift your mood. A sporting event or concert, lunch with a friend, a “me time” morning. If a moth flies out of your metaphorical appointments calendar, get busy.
Challenge your mind
Sometimes a rut can come from not having enough mental stimulation. Things like Wordle and crossword puzzles are certainly fine, as long as they don’t feel so easy that your brain is just earning a participation trophy. My fresh favorite is Quintumble, which is generally harder. Connections also stretches your brain, especially those days when you feel like the puzzle designer is an idiot.
If you don’t like puzzles, improvise. Memorize all the capitals in Africa, try to understand Hamlet’s soliloquy, teach yourself a skill on one of your tech toys.
Savor a moment
Have dinner with yourself. But don’t go out for a meal — go out for an experience. Maybe try a fresh cuisine or subtly do some people watching. As Anton Ego knows, sometimes a meal can take you back to a simpler time or a glorious memory. Let it.
Make it personal
Even if you’ve never seen “It’s a Wonderful Life,” channel your inner George Bailey and think about someone whose life is better because you were born. Family members, obviously, but who else? A best friend? A loved one you supported during a tough time? Someone you sponsored or mentored or inspired? One of the best things for our mental health is helping others.
If you have any mental mementos, savor them. Are there others you can collect?
Breathe it in
Meditate. First things first: If there’s some negative thought you’re obsessing over, stop the mental doomscrolling. If you’re having fresh thoughts about it, that’s fine. But if it’s just the same ol’ thoughts for the 50th time, move on.
More importantly: Think about those loved ones who have been there for you, past and present, a la “A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints.” If it helps, om your way through these lyrics from Gladys Knight:
Oh, there have been times when times were hard
But always somehow I made it, I made it through
’Cause for every moment that I’ve spent hurting
There was a moment that I spent, ah, just loving you
Belt it out
Even if you’re no Pip, singing is a healthy habit that can offer a release if things feel cloudy. Have a few songs ready to lift your mood, whether you want some “Uptown Funk” to ease your funk or you feel like screaming at someone (“You Oughta Know,” “IDGAF,” “Takedown”) or you’re defiant (“Titanium,” “The Real Slim Shady,” “Anti-Hero”).
If you’re struggling for just the right song, these columns all have playlists, and Disney Plus has tons of sing-alongs, from “Hamilton” to “The Nightmare Before Christmas” to animated classics. Maybe you’ll go with this next one, when someone miscast as a villain turns out to be a hero.
Murphy Slaw
Something old: My first musical love, “A Chorus Line,” celebrated its 50th anniversary last weekend. If you’re from a younger generation and want to understand why Baby Boomers are insane, consider the two biggest Broadway musicals as we reached adulthood.
“Hair,” from 1968, is about hippies, the counterculture and the sexual revolution.
“A Chorus Line,” from 1975, is about job hunting.
Something new: “Brokeback Mountain” came out in 2005, nearly a decade before the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage. This podcast does a good job describing how powerful it was then, how well it holds up and how big of a loss movie fans suffered when Heath Ledger died barely two years later.
Something borrowed: Love this Gwyneth Paltrow spot for Astronomer, the tech company caught in the video scandal involving Coldplay, whose frontman is Paltrow’s ex.
Something blue: If your problems need a lot more than my two cents and Gwyneth Paltrow won’t do a damn thing to help, this New York Times newsletter shares some unconventional ways its readers have said they grieve.