I’ve always been big on New Year’s resolutions. I love setting goals. I love change. I love believing that I can better myself. In addition to my New Year’s resolution, I also pick a word of the year—a word that I anchor myself in for the year. After all of the challenges of 2020, I chose “joy” as my word of 2021. I challenged myself to continuously focus on joy and write down one thing that I found joy in each day. I decided to look back in my journal at the things I found joy in during the month of January. Here are eight highlights.
- My Family
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Spending a weekend at home or a few minutes on the phone with my family brought me joy! I found that I often find my joy in people I love (which definitely makes sense for my extroverted self).
- Walking Outside
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I love an outdoor walk (Lake Herrick is the most underrated place on campus—change my mind) and found joy in walking around taking in fresh air and spending some time unplugged.
- Spending Time with Middle School Kiddos
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I am a middle grades education major and would normally be spending a lot of time in schools this semester, but my program has looked a lot different because of COVID. I got to spend some time in middle school classes on Zoom this month, and it really made me remember why I want to become a teacher.
- Singing in the Car
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From a long ride back to Athens to a two minute drive to work, every time I am in the car, I put on a concert. I found joy in singing really (badly) loudly to great music.
- Working Out
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Another one of my goals for the year was to move my body more (not workout, just be more active), and a good workout killed two birds with one stone. I moved my body and found some joy in breaking a good sweat!
- My Friends
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Again, I found joy in people! I got to see friends again after winter break, and it brought me immense joy.
- Fruit
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This one might be the most random one on my list—apparently one day I found joy in fresh fruit from Publix!
- Rest
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As someone who is always on the go, I found joy in rest this month!
I challenge you to also find joy in 2021. Joy can be found in things as big as getting a new job or as small as a five minute car ride blasting music; you just have to be on the lookout for it.