The OffBeat #9: Tiny Joyful Gestures

Metallic streamers and googly eyes

Ingrid Fetell Lee, the founder of The Aesthetics of Joy and author of Joyful, talks about the power of tiny joyful gestures to create an outsize impact on your life and the lives of those around you.

She writes:

“Joy’s power is that small moments can spark big changes. A whimsical outfit might prompt a smile, which inspires a chance kindness toward a stranger, which helps someone who is struggling to get through her day. Even the tiniest joyful gestures add up over time, and before we know it, we have not just a few happier people but a truly joyful world.”

It’s like the butterfly effect for happiness. I took a meditation class a few years ago in which the leader talked about how meditation can change the world. If you feel more centered and calm, your interactions with your colleagues and your family might be more grounded, which might lead to their interactions with folks throughout their own days being more frictionless, and so on, until your individual investment in mindfulness has spread positive energy throughout the globe.

Even if that sounds a little woo-woo, there are small, simple, effort-light joyful gestures you can make throughout your work week to bring optimism to your headspace, which will directly or indirectly brighten that of your teammates and clients.

Examples:

• Setting your laptop desktop background to be metallic streamers

• Including a funny or endearing word in a password you use often

• Creating a silly new custom Slack emoji

• Wearing something bright

• Sticking googly eyes on your office supplies

There is counterintuitively profound power in the tiny joyful gesture. Ingrid writes:

“To create something is an inherently optimistic act, and to create joy especially so. By putting joy into the world around you, you’re expressing the hope that tomorrow can be better than today, and the belief that it is worth trying to make it so.”

Have a great week,

Allison