Diversify Your Sources Of Joy

The New York Times recently ran a piece of schadenfreude entitled, "The Digital Nomads Did Not Prepare For This." The author takes a swipe at the professionals who departed the U.S. for international destinations to transform the pandemic into an opportunity to #livetheirbestlife.

Gloating over others' plans gone awry turns out to be the subtext of the article. Great pleasure is taken by the author in wifi connections lost to tropical storms, dismaying first world entrepreneurs with third world problems. You can almost see Monty Burns rubbing his hands gleefully as we collectively bear witness to disrupters disrupted.

Still, it underscores a very real problem: international travel planning is subject to forces beyond your control. Hence, as with birth control, you need a plan B.

(Or, as my AP Biology teacher used to joke, "What do you call couples who use the rhythm method exclusively? Parents!")

Since we'd planned heavily around summer travel as a family, we've had firsthand experience redirecting and salvaging those plans with a pivot. Short, "dirtbag dad" car camping trips complete with foxes, rabbits, rattlesnakes and tarantulas helped redeem the abandoned travel experiences while still taking us out of our comfort zone and providing intense opportunities for connection. While I played in the dust with one kid, my wife spoiled the other with attention back home.

The camping trips and shriek-inspiring critters turned out to be instructive of bigger picture messages. One of our take-home lessons was that providing an environment where siblings did not feel the need to compete for parental attention is a win we need to carve out more time for regularly nurturing.

What else can we learn from the black swan of COVID?

An additional (if less trumpeted) insight is that family support is wonderful but insufficient for personal happiness. I am incredibly fortunate to have married out of my league, but we do best when we have a little time apart to pursue our own projects each day.

I feel incredibly close to my kids right now, in a they break their arm and mine starts to hurt sort of way, but I need to carve out my own time to keep me feeling busy and an independent source of happiness. Love is powerful, but unadulterated love can be a smothering force.

Busy in the sense that I am learning new skills, developing mastery (or at a bare minimum, competence), keeping my mind engaged and my intellect challenged.

Happy in the sense that I have a small private domain from which to extract a source of happiness independent of my family. This is a happiness diversification strategy. The old adage that you are only as happy as your least happy child is true, if incomplete.

Finding a small source of joy is a form of insurance. If my family is going through a rough patch, I am better equipped to handle their sadness or displaced anger if I have a private well to drink deeply from.

Over the past year, I've dipped my ladle into the Pacific Ocean to return to the bodyboarding that's been a source of joy since I first paddled out at age 16; started my days with a morning ride on a bicycle gifted to me by a generous friend when the waves are absent; and indulged in what has become a weekly strategy game night (conducted virtually).

The things that provide me a protective silo of joy are outrageously ridiculous, but I own and love them with a devil-may-care indifference to judgment that only age and loss can confer.

Any surfer will tell you it's absurd to watch a middle-aged man in the water riding waves on a sponge. When I cycle uphill, I get passed by kids with streamers extending from their handlebars. And I am the luckiest guy in the world that the kid who played Dungeons And Dragons in elementary school has found his nerdy tribe once more.

What does your "happiness insurance" policy look like?