As we all know, there are many paths that can lead us to experience true joy, the feeling that can only be absorbed and rarely explained. Many thousands of books, in fact entire religions, have been developed to show the ways to attain what can only be thought of as the ultimate human emotion. Usually, the formulas offered have something to do with helping others.
And while I am on board with all that, I would like to offer an often-overlooked direct route to joy.
In our town, we have regular “treasure hunts”, whereby citizens can set items we no longer want on our boulevards with the understanding that anyone who might want those items is free to stop and take them home. We have a wonderful brown pop fridge I picked up 20 years ago on somebody’s curb and which has been keeping our beverages cold every day ever since. I paid zero for it. It is one of our prized possessions.
And while picking up someone else’s castaways can perk up a person’s day, the other side of those transactions can sometimes be even more meaningful. Many an unwanted thing has disappeared from our possession thanks to a car slowing down and a trunk opening up.
But a bit of patience is sometimes required. We had a beautiful wooden headboard for a single bed that needed to go. It wouldn’t fit in our car so I couldn’t donate it to a second-hand store. Our only hope was to drag it to the end of the driveway with a big sign “FREE” on it and wait for a Good Samaritan to relieve us of our burden.
Every day for two weeks, I dragged the headboard to the street and propped it up against a tree. And every day, the many passersby ignored our former treasure. Every night I dragged it back into the garage, discouraged and frustrated. I started to entertain the idea of cutting it up and making something other than a headboard out of it.
Last Thursday night, I forgot to bring the darned thing – yes, it had become a darned thing – in from the street. At 2 a.m., up for one of my early morning peanut butter runs, I thought of going out and getting it but decided to just let it stay where it was as an effort such as that might or might not involve putting on pants.
The next morning, I went out to see how it was doing. The darned thing was gone.
Not believing my eyes, I checked to see if someone else had brought it back up to the house. They hadn’t. I looked next door to see if hooligans had smashed it in the parking lot there while I was demolishing my third tablespoon of peanut butter. Finally, I realized that it was truly gone.
I felt pretty darned good for the rest of that day.
You might even say I was joyful.
©2022 Jim Hagarty
