As I was walking back home from hot yoga today, sweaty under my purple wool coat, thick blue sweater tied around my neck like a scarf, I turned the corner and saw one of my favorite things to see:

A blue heron taking off out of the water in the creek. A flying dinosaur that never went extinct.

I hurried to follow it around the corner but I was too slow with my mat on my back. I lost sight of it in the sky. I wonder whether it found a good spot to land, maybe in a nearby fountain or a garden pond.

Every time I run into a heron is a “wow, oh wow!” moment.

There’s something about the way they look—with their full chests, long skinny legs, and enormous wavy wings—that fills me up with joy.

Joy is a funny thing. It can sneak up on you. Is it possible to engineer a whole year full of it?

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Of course, the word I picked as my theme for this year is: Joy

I want to put myself out in the world to receive big, embarrassing joy in abundance.

Finding joy is not something that comes easily for me. Naturally, I have a pretty melancholy personality. My depression, which I lovingly call “The Big Sad,” is of the existential variety. Basically, whenever I remember all the terrible things that happen to people in the world, I get angry with God and I don’t want to play any more. I’ve been prone to this type of hopelessness since at least the age of nine. People say I was a happy baby, but I don’t recall feeling like a happy child.

Most of my life has been defined by scarcity, stress, and pressure to perform. High-standards and perfectionism. Attention to appearances. Grunt work and determination with scant few wins to show for it. Growing up, the mantras I heard over and over again were, “Life is not fair,” and “If you’re so smart, how come you’re not rich?” and “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” Work hard. Be quiet. Be content. Don’t make a scene.

Whoops.

Turns out, I like to be loud. I like to wear my feelings on my sleeves. I want to do the least amount of work and have as much fun as possible while getting the best results. I don’t want to live the smallest, safest version of my life. I want more.

My dreams are so ambitious and so urgent, sometimes I feel like Veruca Salt standing on the trap door over a pit of rotten eggs.

I know she’s a spoiled detestable little villain but I admire her clarity of desire! We only get this one life!

Here’s what I know about joy:

• You can look for it in the little things, like the way the dappled light comes in through the window onto the counter while you’re cutting open an orange, and
• It can surprise you, like the blue heron or a windfall of good news or an unexpected gift from a friend.

But if you want to experience the type of joy that comes from achievement, you have to be willing to look silly first. Being earnest is not cool. Trying hard is not cool. Most of the time, you have to be okay with being bad at something if you want to learn to do it well.

I think I can engineer more joy into my life simply by pursuing more embarrassing moments. I do not want to look masterful or chic or nonchalant. I want to surprise myself.

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As I set my goals for 2025, I broke them into three categories:

Category #1 is about health and wellbeing. These are the bare minimum things I have to do to care for my meat suit and my mental health so I don’t spiral out. If I do these things, I should be able to keep The Big Sad at bay so I can find joy in the little things.

Category #2 is about sustaining my life and happiness. I want to increase my net worth by at least the same amount as I did last year. I want to log even more happy days compared to last year.

Category #3 is where I think the biggest opportunity for Joy comes into play. This is where I’m putting all the unspeakably scary goals. The true wishes of my heart. The things I want to do before I die.

There’s a famous quote from The Alchemist that says, “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it.”

That has not been my experience so far. In my universe, it usually seems like the more I want something, the further it moves away from me.

Maybe I’m not meant to actively conspire with the universe on this matter. Perhaps I need to trust the universe to do its own work at its own pace.

The Pillars of Creation, source

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When I was a teenager, my parents bought my grandparents’ house. It had an enchanting garden with a small pond in the backyard.

In the pond, there were twenties of fat, shimmering goldfish, one behemoth white catfish named General Lee, and a handful of prized koi with the orange sun dots on their heads.

A round waterfall made of stones poured down into the pond, and decorative bushes provided shade in the summertime.

One day our black lab—a lazy oaf of a dog—started barking, alerting toward the pond. When we opened the back door to the yard, there was a long-legged heron, standing tall in the fountain, picking up koi like apples from a bucket.

Herons are patient predators, but our pond was too easy. The sound of the waterfall gave away the location. The decorative koi had nowhere to hide.

Day after day, the fish went missing. My dad rolled out a protective net to cover the pond, which the dog eventually dug up and destroyed.

Years have passed. Shortly after my husband and I had our wedding reception party in that backyard, my parents sold the old house. Its next owners filled in the pond and cut down sixteen trees on the property.

Today there’s a swimming pool where the pond used to be. You can hear the kids laughing and splashing in the summer.

Joy and loss get twisted up together.

The heron reminds me of how easily we can lose the things we cherish. But it sure was good luck in abundance for the bird.

The heron photo featured as the hero for this blog post was taken by Joshua J. Cotten, downloaded from Unsplash.