The Joy of Intentional Ease

We can do hard things, but we don't always have to.

Her head bopped back and forth, seemingly in time to whatever noise piped into her ears through my earbuds. The ones she surreptitiously borrowed without asking.

Periodically, she’d belt out a line or two…

“Hot! To! Gooooooooo!”

“Love me once and naughty turns to nice”

“LOOK what you made me do!”

I know, I know, I’m an amazing parent. She’s seven and has the musical taste of a 24-year old prepping to go to the club. Sue me.

I came up the stairs after my workout, sweaty, and slightly confused at the lack of interruption. Typically, I hear “Mooooom??” at least three times during a 20-min Adrian Williams ass kicking.

Due to said earbuds, she couldn’t hear my approach, so I got that rare opportunity these days. To observe her in the wild.

The midday sun poured in through the French doors, periodically glinting off her face as she worked. She was coloring. Nothing fancy. No glue guns or puff balls or glitter. No advanced 3-D art, scissors bigger than her arm, or my nemesis…slime. Just a simple paper design, a box of Crayolas, and her imagination.

I smiled slightly, lingering in the background a bit longer, not wanting to interrupt her and Joy.

I can’t do “childlike wonder.” I’ve tried. I wondered a lot of things when I was a kid but few of them were childlike. Also, I suck at being silly. Being silly just doesn’t work for me. I’m not silly. Funny, yes, but like with the use of F-bombs and inappropriateness which, I’ve learned, does not qualify. And so, I feel my internal gears grinding when I hear someone liken the path to joy to “getting in touch with your inner child.” My inner child made dinner for the family at seven and balanced a checkbook at eight. Silly is not her middle name.

But, watching my daughter color triggered something for me. Maybe tapping into that simple joy isn’t about being silly, or imaginative, or even a lack of responsibility. Maybe, at least for me, its about not trying so fucking hard all the time. Maybe its about doing something easy not because I’m incapable of doing something much more complex, intricate, or difficult, but because sometimes, easy is nice.

This is usually the point where some Brene Brown wanna be (to be clear, I love Brene Brown) starts pointing the finger at shame. I immediately hear them winding up, “But you deserve easy. You are good enough for easy!”

Yup, got it. I don’t know if I’m shame averse or something, but to be clear, my repugnance at easy has literally nothing to do with not believing I deserve it. It has everything to do with knowing I’m capable of hard.

Some people aren’t. I am. And I am fucking grateful to be a “Can-Do-Hard-Things” kinda gal. I don’t take that lightly. I like doing hard things. It’s my shtick.

But, here’s the deal. Hard things are…hard. And when you pile hard on top of itself, eventually you push to failure. That’s no fun. I mean, Joy’s a bad ass, but there’s only so many sled pushes a gal can do before those hammies give out.

There was a time in my life where I would choose hard 100% of the time. It felt like a moral badge of honor and one I wore proudly. Joy came from achievement, from acknowledgement, from accolades. External validation for doing obviously hard things.

Over time, as I started to give fewer shits about public perception and, legitimately, as many of the hard things I’d set out to do got crossed off the list, I started to redefine “hard.” Hard became less obvious and, frankly, more messy. I went excavating inner caves, releasing what I found there, and studying its contours so I would know how to find my way back. Joy came by way of honesty, humility, and humanity.

I think, although I reserve the right to change my mind, that I’m about to enter another level of “Hard.” Where hard, for me, is actually the pursuit of intentional ease. Where I push when I want to, when I feel good enough to, when I have the energy to, not just because I can. Where I choose easy, on purpose, and don’t connotate that as lazy. Where flow is more important than filling my calendar, purpose matters more than proving my worth, and joy is just a natural part of every day.

I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to just sit on my ass, listen to music, and color. That feels like a wholly unachievable goal. But I want that easy joy, the kind you don’t have to work for. The kind you just open the door for.

Maybe that is my new hard.

This is where I announce that next week I’m going on vacation. It wasn’t a set up, I promise, but I played that perfectly if I do say so myself. I’m picking easy next week, which actually doesn’t mean no post. It means sharing one of my favorite posts from the past. One I need to be reminded of regularly, and one I would recommend you read…even if you’ve read it before. Until April…be lucky, choose easy, and open the door for Joy.