Choosing Joy, Choosing Rest
“Joy is not something we stumble upon when everything is finally ‘done.’ Joy is something, especially in hard times, that we must choose and protect.”
As December settles in and the year begins to slow at least on the calendar, I hope you are finding moments to breathe. I hope you get to spend time with the people you love most. I hope you can pause and feel held by community.
This year asked a lot of us. And the truth is: many of us have been on for a very long time.
Always responding.
Always organizing.
Always planning for the next crisis, the next attack, the next urgent moment.
In this work, and especially in this political climate, it can feel impossible to step away from the issues that drive our passion and commitment to our communities. There is always more to do. More to fix. More to defend. More funding to seek. And somewhere along the way, joy becomes optional. Rest becomes indulgent. Kindness becomes secondary to urgency.
However, I want to make something clear: joy is not optional.
We can fight for freedom without joy.
We can build safety without joy.
We can even pursue justice without joy.
But none of it is sustainable without joy.
Joy is what makes freedom worth fighting for. Joy is what transforms safety into a sense of belonging. Joy is what sustains justice beyond a moment or a political cycle. Joy is what reminds us why this work matters. Joy is what reconnects us to our humanity when the systems around us try to strip it away.
Joy is not something we stumble upon when everything is finally “done.” Joy is something, especially in hard times, that we must choose and protect.
Also, this season reminded me how deeply we need what writer and healer Tricia Hersey calls radical rest. Not rest as a reward for exhaustion, but rest as resistance. Rest as a strategy. Rest as a refusal to let grind culture and constant crisis define our worth.
As a leader, I’m reflecting on what it means to model that differently.
Next year, I will be more intentional about rest, mine and our organization’s. That means building in real pauses and honoring boundaries. Trusting that the work will not collapse if we stop for a moment to care for ourselves and one another. Because burned-out people cannot build liberated futures.
And finally, as we enter a season filled with tension as much as tradition, I want to offer a simple invitation:
Be kind.
Not passive. Not silent. But kind in ways that are rooted in care and accountability. We don’t have to be hardened to be effective. We don’t have to be cruel to be powerful. We can choose to be better to each other and to ourselves.
As this year winds down, my hope for all of us is this:
That we choose joy even when it’s hard.
That we rest without guilt.
That we remember why we started this work in the first place.
May this holiday season bring you warmth, connection, and moments of absolute peace and joy.
