Be a fountain of joy. It looks gorgeous on you.
Last weekend, I challenged myself to bake reasonably good-looking and tasteful flower tortillas. I recently learned that tortillas with editable flowers are a thing. So, I could not wait to give it a try. Unfortunately, I failed miserably–my hands simply cannot make round tortillas happen.
Yet, I noticed that despite all unfortunate events, I was having a great time. I felt like a little kid on Christmas morning. I was having pleasure, feeling delighted and blissed: experiencing pure joy. But, wow, joy has been missing from my life, hasn’t it? So how have I come to be so comfortably numb (hello Pink Floyd) and dumb?
This frigid corporate world is killing joy without our permission. The fuel for insanity is that we are only worth it if we are constantly working. Methodically we took pleasure and fun out of our daily activities. We must be serious, doll-faced unemotional to be seen as an expert and professional.
For centuries, we disregarded joy as fuel for creativity. Even though joy has a touch of French “joie,” we exchanged it for pain, forgetting that joyful creatives make the best workers and human beings.
Doing everything we can to choose and cultivate joy is us kicking back to stand in our creative power. The world is in such need of more creatives, isn’t it?
One way to go is closing the door and moving on if it does not bring us joy and cannot be fixed. Only then can you be a fountain of joy, which looks gorgeous on you, BTW!
Here are a few ideas that might bring you joy this month:
– Are you considering killing the 5+-day workweek? Here’s what happens.
– If we ditch the insanity of working 60h or more per week, we might have time to create some noise for 365 days or until the rest of our lives, like the artist Tatsuya Tanaka did.
– Wondering if your cat is misanthropic? Check this one out.
– Oh, and how about the evolution of online connections? Here it is.
– And, looking at the skies at night in August comes with a surprise from the Perseids.
Until next time,
Olga
Be inspired by the beauty of colors
And joy really starts with some blues. To be joyful, we need peace, trust, logic, focus, intelligence, and reliability. In a nutshell, the meanings of the color blue.
For a long time, blue was undervalued and not used as it meant mourning and misfortunate. Instead, it was associated with barbarians, not a noble color until the twelfth century when it became divine.
Nowadays, blue is the ruler of almost everything color. But, it doesn’t mean it’s the best one to use in your personal brand if you wish to stand out. On the contrary, it can even hurt it! Several hues of blues, like turquoise and indigo, can be blended with another color for contrast and distinctiveness. In this way, you don’t give your ideal peep the winter blues.
Although blue gives us a sense of calmness when on steroids is something else altogether. And, let’s not forget to take a break from our daily chaotic scroll-down.
We all have a receptor that senses blue light and helps tell us a day from night. With the overload of blue light coming from our screens, no wonder we are sleepless. So, putting our phones down and look at the skies gives you a wise glow–aka, perfecting JOMO, word I found on Pinterest a while ago, which is:
JOMO (noun)
Joy of missing out.
Feeling content with staying in and disconnecting as a form of self-care
Antonym FOMO
In the end, we are not really losing anything, but gaining joy.