Finding Joy in the Life You Have Today

When was the last time you laughed?

If you had to stop and think about it, congratulations—you have reached peak adulthood.😊

Spend a few minutes with a young child and you'll notice something remarkable.

They don't need a reason to laugh.There's a widely shared statistic that says the average four-year-old laughs around 300 times a day, while the average forty-year-old laughs only four.

Heartbreaking, isn't it? What is life without laughter?

And laughter isn't the only place children seem to have us beat. They don't wait for a vacation to feel joy. They stumble into delight everywhere. They'll chase butterflies, build imaginary worlds, jump in puddles, talk to worms, or wear superhero capes to school for a year simply because.

Somewhere between childhood and adulthood, many of us lose touch with our childlike wonder and whimsy. We learn to be productive, responsible, efficient, useful. Then layer on the demands of living with illness, and it is easy to see how joy can creep further and further down the priority list until eventually it falls off the page.

Which brings me, strangely enough, to alpacas.

I was telling a friend about an upcoming Alpaca Yoga class I'm leading when she asked me, "Why is everyone suddenly so obsessed with alpacas?"

It's a fair question. I'm admittedly not an objective observer. I'm an alpaca fangirl, so I was slightly taken aback. I mean, why wouldn't someone be obsessed with alpacas?

But her question stuck with me. What is it about an animal with fuzzy hair, awkwardly long legs, and a face that always looks slightly surprised that makes people smile?

And then it occurred to me.

They're freakin' delightful.

Alpacas are adorable weirdos. They're whimsical. They're playful and gentle. And apparently, many people like me will happily drive across state lines, roll out a yoga mat, and pay money just to spend an hour in their general vicinity.

Perhaps our collective alpaca obsession is because we're hungry for delight.

For whimsy.

For experiences that lift our spirits and inject lightness and brightness into our hearts.

For permission to be just a little childlike and silly again.

And somewhere along the way on our quest for adulthood, many of us stopped giving ourselves that permission.

When Joy Becomes Something We Wait For

For those of us managing illness, prioritizing joy can be especially hard. So much of life is necessarily focused on what needs our immediate attention—symptoms, appointments, medications, uncertainty, fear—that joy can begin to feel less important than everything else.

Sometimes it even starts to feel conditional.

I'll enjoy life when I have more energy.

When treatment is over.

When my symptoms settle down.

When life gets back to normal.

I understand that impulse. There are times when simply getting through the day takes nearly everything we have, and the idea of chasing joy can feel daunting or unrealistic.

But there is a danger in always placing our joy or happiness on the other side of feeling better. When illness requires so much of our attention, our world can begin to organize itself around what hurts, what might go wrong, and what needs to be managed next.

Those things absolutely deserve our attention. But our illness doesn't exist in a vacuum. The good parts of life haven't vanished simply because something difficult is also here.

There is still sweetness. Connection. Beauty. Laughter. Wonder. Sometimes we just have to become more intentional about noticing and creating space for them.

What I've come to realize is that joy doesn't require the perfect circumstances we often imagine it does.

The Kind of Joy We Often Overlook

One of the things I love about happiness research is that it reminds us of something we've perhaps known all along.

Joy isn't only found in life's biggest moments. It doesn’t only exist in the once in a lifetime vacations. The weddings.The graduations.The job promotions.The new puppy.

I think of those as Big-J Joy.

Although they’re wonderful and memorable, they aren't the kind of joy that carries us through an ordinary Tuesday.

That's where little-j joy lives.

The taste of the first tomato from the garden.

The smell of fresh coffee brewing.

The sound of the dog snoring.

The sight of the rainbow that appears in the sky after a thunderstorm.

The laughter as you shout out a very confident yet very wrong answer during Jeopardy.

These moments are woven throughout our everyday lives. They don't require a special occasion or even a particularly good day to show up. They simply ask us to notice them.

Joy Doesn't Ignore Suffering

When I've taught Science of Happiness workshops, one question comes up again and again: Does pursuing happiness require us to ignore suffering—our own or anyone else's? Are we simply being a Pollyanna and pretending everything is okay?

The answer is a resolute no.

Joy doesn't erase anxiety. Wonder doesn't eliminate pain. Delight certainly doesn't cure chronic illness. I wish they did.

But they can exist alongside one another.

Just as fear can share space with hope and grief can live alongside gratitude. Joy can exist in a life that also contains the very real suffering of illness.

Our lives are expansive enough to hold more than the hardest thing we're carrying.

Making Room for Delight

If joy can exist alongside illness, then the question is: How do we become more available to it?

Part of the answer is attention.

Our brains are very good at noticing what demands our attention, and illness gives us plenty to notice. Symptoms are loud. Fear is loud. Exhaustion is loud..

Our brains are naturally wired to pay more attention to potential threats and problems. That negativity bias may help keep us alive, but it isn't particularly good at directing us toward delight.

Joy may be quieter at times, but that doesn't make it insignificant. These small positive experiences contribute to our well-being in ways our survival-focused brains aren't always very good at noticing.

So part of cultivating happiness is intentionally widening our attention. We can begin looking around the landscape of our lives and asking: Where does joy already live? What makes me smile? What in my world sparks wonder, connection, playfulness, or delight?

But we don't have to wait for joy to find us. We can create opportunities for it, too.

For me, sometimes that means teaching yoga with alpacas. Sometimes it's spending a few minutes in my backyard watching the sparrows play games with Tsuki. It's created when listening to Bob Marley while I cook dinner or rewatching The Princess Bride for the umpteenth time.

None of these moments is particularly remarkable on its own, and that's precisely the point. Little-j joy doesn't require the extraordinary. It lives and thrives in the ordinary.

It asks us to notice what's already here and, every once in a while, deliberately add something delightful to the mix.

Together, those moments can gently widen a life that illness has a way of making feel smaller.

A Gentle Invitation

This week, I wonder if you might ask yourself one simple question:

What brings me little-j joy?

Tap into some of that childlike curiosity and explore the landscape of your life. What makes you smile? Where do you notice beauty or sweetness? What makes you laugh? What feels playful, whimsical, or wonderfully unhinged?

Maybe it's admiring flowers in the garden, following the storm in search of a rainbow, taking an extra moment to savor that first bite of ice cream, or turning the volume way up on your favorite song.

And don't limit yourself to the joy you happen to notice. Create some.

Put on the lobster earrings your great-aunt brought you back from Maine. Make up silly stories about the people walking past your house. Dance with abandon in the kitchen. Sign up for the sushi-rolling class you've been eyeing.

Because a joyful life isn't built only from the Big-J moments we wait for. It's also shaped by thousands of little-j moments—the things that connect us, delight us, surprise us, and make an ordinary day feel a little more alive.

We don't need to wait for life to become extraordinary or wait for our bodies to cooperate. We can become more attentive to the joy already woven through it—and a little more willing to add some whimsy of our own.

So turn up the volume on joy. Tune your senses to the beauty around you. Keep your heart open to wonder. Stay curious and embrace whimsy.

And go collect some little-j joy.

When You're Ready, Here Are Three Ways I Can Support You

1. Create Your Little-j Joy List
Need a little inspiration? Use this free worksheet to discover, collect, and create the small moments of delight that make your days feel a little brighter.

→ Get the free Little-j Joy List

2. Book a complimentary Wellness Vision Call.

If you're longing to create a life that feels a little more spacious, joyful, and supportive, let's explore what that could look like together.

→ Schedule your Wellness Vision Call.

3. Take the Wellness Weak Spot Self-Check

Discover which area of your well-being could benefit from a little extra care right now, so you can focus your energy where it matters most.

Enter your email below and I'll send the quiz directly to your inbox, ready whenever you need it.

Copyright © 2025. Heather Edgerly. All Rights Reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use