(workplace reflections)

Today, I received a rush of joy from the nice click-crunch of a stapler while stapling papers. It is a simple task, a mundane task, which I do repetitively throughout the day. There was nothing unique or different, just a moment of mindfulness where thankfulness was present.

A couple years ago, for a week I wrote down joyful moments found in my job. The job was supposed to give me more purpose than it could in reality; in short, I expected too much from an occupation. My analyzing tactic was a “joy sticky-note” which collected all the joyful experiences during the week. This little sticky got filled up more and more with each passing day. After completing the task, I realized the job was not fulfilling me because I was a far simpler person than I knew. The two greatest joys in my work week were: (1) chatting with my co-workers and students, and (2) the sound of typing on a computer.

This morning, I was reminded of the movie You’ve Got Mail. The opening sequence ran through my mind, and I could hear Kathleen Kelly (aka Meg Ryan) saying, “I turn on my computer, I wait impatiently as it boots up. I go online, and my breath catches in my chest until I hear three little words: You’ve got mail. I hear nothing, not even a sound on the streets of New York, just the beat of my own heart. I have mail. From you.¹” Joe Fox and Kathleen Kelley seem to delight in the simple pleasures. Simple joy eventually led to love – they enjoyed each present moment with one another. Even though they had a lot going on in their personal lives, there is joy in being remembered by another person. When boiled down, I believe that is the heart of what Kathleen experiences when she opens her email and sees a message from him. Being remembered feels an awful lot like being loved.

I can be guilty of waiting for the perfect conditions to enjoy a moment. This mentality results in a sort of depression because life has not ever been “perfect”. Nor will all the conditions of life ever result in perfection. Circumstances are always moving and there are things I want to change. Elisabeth Elliot defined suffering as not having what you want and wanting what you do not have². According to Elliot’s definition, we live in a perpetual state of suffering. Yet, even within this definition, there is room for joy.

Where happiness requires certain conditions, joy is fruit from a much deeper source. Tapping into the deeper source is what allows a simple stapler to evoke so much joy in this simple human. Joy is a fruit from the soil of contentedness. And I can be content in every situation when I choose to be present in every situation. The sound of clicking and clacking on the keyboard still brings me great joy, as does interacting with people from friends to strangers and everything in between. If I still kept that joy sticky-note, I would add the click-crunch of a stapler.

1. You’ve Got Mail (1998). ↩︎
2. Suffering is Never for Nothing (2019). ↩︎