As Michelle Obama recently said, ‘hope is making a comeback.’ Is joy back in fashion and is hope re-emerging as spring begins?
Joy was the word on the lips and the look on the faces at the Democratic National Convention two weeks ago. Michelle Obama, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Kamala Harris were blazes of energy, balancing hope and positivity with the need to get to work. And I may have shed a tear when Gus Walz stood up, crying with joy and saying ‘that’s my dad!’, during the speech of vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz.
But according to Republican senator Lindsey Graham, speaking to news channel CNN after the convention, joy doesn’t exist in the real world. I’d like to counter his assertion and say that yes, joy does exist.
What is joy exactly? Well, we know it when we feel it. One definition is “the emotion of delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying”. Often joy comes in moments or minutes, rather than days or weeks: a child’s bear hug, gathering flowers, laughing over a good meal.
“Joy can be cultivated from tiny moments,” says psychoanalyst, biochemist and author Hilary Jacobs Hendel in the Psychology Today article ‘How to Feel More Joy Every Day’. “Often I ask my patients to slow down to scan their body for feelings of joy, even little ‘molecules’ of joy otherwise obscured by the more attention-grabbing negative emotions.”
As an article in The Conversation called ‘Joy is good for your body and your mind – three ways to feel it more often’ puts it, “joy is not just a mere fleeting emotion: it triggers a host of significant physiological and psychological changes that can improve our physical and mental health”.
A Spring Thing
Joy often begins with hope, which Spring can bring. A Psychology Today article called ‘Why Spring Is the Season of Hope’ says “the healing potential of spring is undeniable, from effecting the remission of Seasonal Affective Disorder to the increased production of Vitamin D”. Research suggests that extended daylight and good weather boosts mood and energy.
“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant,” wrote English poet Anne Bradstreet. “If we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.”
Margaret Renkl, a self-described “backyard naturalist” and New York Times columnist, has written about how to reconcile the joy of spring with climate change and invasive species.
Spring, she says, “comes in like a chorus, a symphony and an exquisitely choreographed ballet all at once. I am in love with the mild light of springtime. I am in love with the shivering joy of springtime and all the beguiling creatures of springtime.”
“I glory in every tiny, iridescent green bee waking to feed on the first vanishing bloodroot flower, the first ephemeral spring beauty, the first woodland violet and cutleaf toothwort. Any day now, toadshade trilliums and trout lilies!
“I refuse to quell this joy. It’s possible to understand what invasive species are doing to the woods and still feel the leaping heart of joy in greenness. It’s entirely possible to understand what human beings are doing to the woods – and to one another in this moment of dread and grief and terrible struggle – and still exult in birdsong and tiny blooming flowers peeking out from the dead leaves of autumn. In this troubled world, it would be a crime to snuff out any flicker of happiness that somehow leaps into life. We are creatures built for joy.”
Finding Hope In Hard Times
Of course, joy and hope can be elusive, particularly for those of us struggling to pay our rent, mortgage or childcare bills – and those of us struggling with our physical and/or mental health. The past few years have been challenging for Aotearoa, with Covid hanging around like an annoying ex, extreme weather events, the cost-of-living crisis, public-sector redundancies, an under-resourced health system, and our government disrespecting Te ao Māori and Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
Our newsfeeds are grim. The climate crisis continues. A friend tells me she feels it’s wrong to feel joy or hope when the wars in Gaza and Ukraine are so devastating. But as a wise woman once told me, “there’s enough unhappiness in the world. Don’t add to it”. For me, donating to Médecins Sans Frontières is more useful, and in a way more hopeful, than looking at photos of Gaza that make me cry. If I was religious, I’d pray very hard for a ceasefire, but instead I’ll hope very hard. And I’ll hope very hard that Kamala Harris wins the election.
Finding Hope
We’re hopeful that hope IS making a comeback. It’s springtime. The weather is improving (okay, Wellington has yet to deliver on that). Interest rates have finally dropped, after the Reserve Bank cut the official cash rate by 0.25 percent to 5.25 percent. It’s forecast to drop to below 4.5 percent by mid next year.
Of both the ANZ Business Outlook survey, and the ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence survey for the month of August, ANZ chief economist Sharon Zollner says there is “a very strong theme of more optimism about the future, undoubtedly related to the fact that interest rates – retail and wholesale – have fallen quite a lot after the last six weeks”. Also, inflation is falling, from four percent in the first quarter of 2024 to 3.3 percent in the second quarter of 2024.
So inflation is down, interest rates are down, and Trump is going down in November – or should we say Roe-vember; he’s been haemorrhaging female supporters, and there have been record voter registrations for young, black and Latino women. Kamala Harris radiates joy and hope, and that’s buoyed the spirits of many. She’ll win. I’m an analyst and a realist not an optimist, so I don’t think I’ve been blinded by hope. And hope is what we all – not just Americans – need right now.
I’m very caught up in the U.S. election, but I’m also prioritising time with a 10-year-old boy who brings me joy. I’m putting my devices away in the late afternoon, playing boardgames with him, and reading more novels after he’s in bed. I just signed up for an English honours paper on the Brontë sisters. I’m excited about it! Hell, I feel joyous! No, not all day, not every day, but more than I did this winter. And looking forward to something can really up the joy factor.
Here’s what some people I know brings them joy in spring.
- Lighter evenings while walking home
- Seeing my dog spot one of her friends and getting excited
- Finishing a craft project
- Planning a vacation
- Sitting in the sun
- Getting out in nature
- Fresh produce at the vege market
- Birdsong
- Flying a kite
- Gardening
- Little green buds emerging on the deciduous trees
- The sunshine that forgot to shine in the kitchen window is now remembering
