The craziest thought occurred to me a few months ago: What if 2020 has been the best year of my life? 

I was in a kayak being nudged down a tiny stream in Kaneohe, Hawaii when the thought occurred. My best friend Linda was slightly ahead of me, my grandparents up at the house where we’d just left them. The air was balmy - 85 degrees, as Hawaii always is - and the natural ambiance was one of hanging willow trees and other leafy tendrils coming down from the curtain of trees in the sky.  

For a year where most of what I thought made me happy became unavailable, 2020 also brought unfathomable joy. I made leaps and bounds in my career and professional confidence. I solidified my friendships with those near and far. I moved to Hawaii and started spending more time with my extended family. And I met and fell in love with the partner of my dreams. 

I can’t think of a better way to round out the Blue Sky Mind Friendship Series than with a post on how to find joy in the most surprising and hopeless place - in the midst of an ongoing global crisis. The past year has helped me sharpen my understanding of how we as humans can apply the science of positive psychology to our daily lives, during the good and the bad, to stay resilient and joyful through it all. 

I know my friends are thinking about it too. “I'm thinking deeply about walking that line of giving back and allowing ourselves the freedom to play and find joy, even amongst the suffering that exists in the world,” said Jackie, my badass best friend who’s working full time and getting her Masters on the side. 

It’s through conversations with friends like her that it became clear what collectively brought us the most joy in such a harrowing year. Across almost 15 young professionals, it was in relationship with ourselves, our most intimate friends & family, and our time that we found and reclaimed our joy.  

Editor’s note: This is the last original post in the Blue Sky Mind Friendship Series (sad!). Want to continue the conversation? Join us on Clubhouse this Sunday! 

Read on to learn about each lever and how you can apply it to your life, even post pandemic. 

What brought us joy in 2020 

Deepening a relationship with ourselves

For years now, science has proven that having a relationship with yourself - whether through journaling for self awareness, therapy for self love or meditation for presence of self - is an integral component of a joyful life. And as the pandemic wore on, my community found so much solace rooting deeply into a relationship with themselves. 

Caroline, not even 30 years old and already the founder of LA-based water kefir company Kif Water Kefir, has committed to her post-workout 15-minute meditation practice 5-7 times per week, saying “It isn't unique, but it has been an incredible and life changing habit.” 

Jackie, my gal working full time and going to school, has focused more of her attention this year on meditation, stress management and positive self talk: “[I’m] definitely finally taking meditation and stress management really seriously,” she said. “I'm paying really close attention to self-talk and transforming those conversations I have with myself to be more positive and reaffirming.” 

Cecilia, a successful marketer and burgeoning poet and novelist, has found sanctuary in her journaling practice. “Journaling has always been, and will always be my easiest and most accessible way of coping,” she says. “There is something about getting the swirling thoughts in my mind down on paper that is endlessly therapeutic.”

Another friend, who’s asked to remain private, shared how her relationship with her own body has shifted during the pandemic: “I'm feeling a lot better about myself and my body recently,” she said. “More acutely aware of when I'm criticizing myself and telling myself to let it go . . . Maybe it's from comparing [my insecurities] to bigger issues.”

Group activities (virtual & otherwise) 

If there’s one thing the pandemic brought into sharp relief, it was how much we rely on our relationships with others for joy. But what you might not know is how deep the positive psychology research goes on the impact our intimate relationships have on our day-to-day and long-term happiness. Fun times with friends or family aren’t the only thing that group activities hold for our happiness; group activities also represent a chance to feel positive emotions through laughter and hugs, deep engagement in a game or a conversation topic, and the chance to sink into an experience that can be both savored and remembered.

For example, at least three friends brought up virtual game nights with friends or family as something that brought them joy in 2020. Things like Catan or pub quizzes took on a new digital form, but continued to do the important work of bringing people together for a fun, somewhat structured, low pressure span of time. 

“Although we weren't going to be able to do actual pub quizzes for awhile,” said Cecilia, an avid player on the London scene, “[my friends and I] agreed that we would take turns creating the quiz each week and get together on Zoom (of course) to virtually partake in an activity we all knew by heart: huddling over pieces of paper, scrawling down answers to questions about history, politics, current events, movies, and -- my personal favourite -- each other, and the memories we've shared together.”

In addition, at least two friends mentioned how meaningful their family group text had become to them during COVID; Casey, who frequently unwinds on her weekends by hiking in Marin with her family, shared that even her 91 year-old grandmother got an iPhone so that she could participate in the family group text! To me, this sentiment proves that even small, casual touchpoints at a high frequency can help us feel more connected and joyful.

Celebrations & marking time 

One of the most interesting findings from this survey of friends and their experience during COVID was how much we all seem to rely on events and celebrations to mark the passage of time. It brings up a much more profound question that I don't think we normally ponder, which is: what is the human relationship with time and happiness? How do they inform one another? 

To me, it reads like an issue of meaning. What can one individual make roughly 80 years on this Earth mean? There’s so much research in the positive psych space to confirm that meaning is an important component of our happiness, and I think the way we celebrate the passage of time helps us regularly reflect on what gives our lives meaning on the individual level. 

For Jackie, it was when I threw her a surprise birthday Zoom party two months into the pandemic, at a time when she was supposed to be both moving to New York and going on a trip to Africa in support of a nonprofit she’d been fundraising for the entire year. Spending a birthday with friends in little digital boxes didnt take away the sadness of these lost milestones, but they helped remind her that one of the things that brought her meaning - her friendships - was alive and well.

For Mackenzie, who works for a major media company and normally lives in NYC with her boyfriend, starting to celebrate the “happiest hour” with her mom while living with her parents for a few months brought meaning in the form of her mom’s happiness. “We would have a virtual yoga class in our living room and treat ourselves to a companion glass of wine (lol)!,” she wrote. “Not the healthiest coping, but we really looked forward to it and it made my mom so happy.” Celebrating another day of making it through and being together became an important ritual for them, and being able to inspire joy in a person she loved made meaning for Mack. 

For Cecilia, there was specific lament about the lost opportunities to mark time in 2020. She noted wanting to turn back time to celebrate her grandma’s 94th birthday, attend her cousin’s wedding with her family, and meet her boyfriend’s parents in Brazil. Her conclusion echoes my sentiment exactly: “These moments give us meaning, and they give our life substance.”

It’s something we can all reflect on: what moments did we miss the most in 2020, and what does that say about what we can better value moving in the post-pandemic world? 

Owning our time

To me, the ability to own our time means stepping outside the pre-prescribed social mold of a 9-5, trapped in an office for the sake of appearances. Breaking free from this confine by way of remote work is how I ended up moving to Hawaii, and it’s how the Friendship Series came to be. There was such a strong motif of designing a lifestyle that works better for our unique and individual needs in 2020. I love what I heard from friends about how they were able to dig into a relationship with themselves and pull out routines and life changes that worked exceedingly better for them than their previous models.

For Arjun, my colleague who also regularly authors a blog, it became breathwork and reading before the work day that centered him. “It’s helped take back my day before work,” he said. 

For another friend, who wishes to remain private, it was the sheer relief of not having to go out five times a week in order to establish a new social life after moving to a new city pre-pandemic. 

For Becca, who moved to Amsterdam from San Francisco and is a passionate advocate of sustainability, it became listening to the inner voice and doing things that actually made her happy, versus what was expected of her: 

When I'm feeling stuck inside, I write down the things that I actually want to do today (and can do within restrictions) so I don't end up doing things that I feel pressured to do. For example, ‘It's Sunday. I should go have a boozy brunch with friends...(writes list) I'd actually rather go workout, and read a book in a cafe for a few hours.’

How to find joy: four simple lessons 

My grandfather, who also serves as the editor of this blog, keeps asking me: But what does the pandemic mean to you and your friends? How will it change you? 

It’s a good question worthy of serious pondering. For me, it starts with analyzing all the ways in which I was perhaps more joyful and fulfilled in 2020 than many years prior. For all the horrors and anxieties and loss, it - like everything that happens, in my view - has already served an incredibly important purpose in my life. From my little community, here are some takeaways to consider: 

Four Takeaways

1. Invest in a relationship with yourself, whether through meditation or journaling.

2. Prioritize experiences with others, virtual or otherwise (game night is an easy place to start).

3. Don't skimp on the celebrations that mark the passage of time and progress in your life. Use them to reflect on what brings your life meaning. 

4. Design your lifestyle starting with your values and goals, then integrate the “necessary” timelines society foists upon you. 

As this series comes to a close, fellow writer Arjun Desai, artist Jenny Haught and I would like to invite you to a capstone Clubhouse event, where we’ll be discussing a number of topics addressed in this series. The event, Processing the Pandemic: Young Professionals Share Their Stories & Silver Linings, will take place Sunday, March 14th @ 6 pm PST / 9 pm EST. Sign up here if you’re on Clubhouse (ask around if you still need an invite).

A note about the art in this post:

Jenny Haught is an artist drawn to the unexpected beauty found in everyday moments. The Friendship Series inspired her to start work on a new series of paintings that explores the experiences and emotions faced during Quarantine 2020. 

"For the first time in my life I was forced to slow down, stay inside, and just be with myself. I learned that a room can be something physical that confines you, but it can also be an emotional space you make for yourself. Room for self reflection - room for growth - room for painting to become more than a passion."