We Can Do Hard Things (BEST OF) How to Get Your Joy Back: Ross Gay
22 snips
Apr 28, 2026 
Ross Gay, an award-winning poet and community gardener, shares his love of joy and gratitude. He talks about joy as connection, rebuilding your “delight muscle,” communal practices like shared rituals and orchards, and how witnessing others’ delight amplifies our own. Short, tender stories and practical prompts about openness, vulnerability, and everyday noticing weave through the conversation.
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Joy As Evidence Of Connection
- Joy is evidence of connection, not escapism or frivolity.
- Ross defines joy as practicing entanglement—noticing a tree, sharing shade, and acting together to belong to each other.
How The Book Of Delights Began
- Ross started The Book of Delights by committing to write one short essay per day for a year about something that delighted him.
- He began on his birthday, wrote quickly by hand, and used simple constraints to make the practice sustainable.
Joy Is Bigger Than Resistance
- Joy isn't merely resistance; Ross argues that joy is the fundamental truth and larger than the offenses against it.
- Framing joy as truth shifts it from a tactic to the ground for connection and action.
