Episode 114: The Joy You Keep Postponing

There is a chair on your porch that has been waiting for you all summer. You keep meaning to sit in it - right after the dishes, right after one more email. And somehow the season you most wanted to enjoy is slipping by while you wait to earn the rest.

If you keep postponing joy until the work is finally finished, this gentle, summery episode is for you. The work is never all the way done, and the joy was never meant to wait that long.

In this episode, you will learn:

- Why “I will relax once it is finished” keeps backfiring

- What an ancient celebration in the book of Nehemiah reveals about joy and strength

- How one small delight today can steady you for everything still on your plate

Scripture: Nehemiah 8:10 (NIV)

Research note: Drawn from Barbara Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build research on positive emotions, and the well-supported principle that action tends to come before the feeling.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to your next best step. I'm Coach Janet J. Today is a soft summary one, a porch and iced tea kind of conversation about the joy you keep saving for later and why later has a way of never arriving. Pour yourself something cold and let's take this one slow. There's a chair on your porch or your deck or your back patio that's been waiting for you all summer. You kept meaning to sit in it, you will, right after the dishes, right after this one load of laundry, right after you answer that one email. And somehow the summer is half gone and the chair is still empty. What if the joy you keep waiting to earn was never meant to be the prize at the finish line? What if it was meant to be the fuel? Here's the pattern and see whether you recognize it. First the laundry, then I'll slow down. First the inbox, then I'll call a friend. First the dishes, then I sit on the porch. The trouble is the list regenerates. You finish the dishes and the next meal makes more. You clear the inbox and it refills by lunch. The work does not have a final page, so that time on the porch keeps moving to a someday that does not come. And summer is the hardest season for this because summer is the very time you want to most enjoy these things. The long evening, the good juicy peach, the breeze that shows up around six or seven o'clock. Maybe your list this week is a parents' medication schedule and a work deadline, and of course, a sink full of dishes. Maybe it's grandchildren or a house that's gone way too quiet, or a season of caregiving that asks for everything you have. Whatever fills your list, the season you keep meaning to enjoy is happening right now while you are waiting to deserve it. There's a moment in the book of Nehemiah that has really always stayed with me. The people of Israel have come back from exile. The city wall is rebuilt, and now the long, slow work begins, rebuilding their whole life as a people, their worship and their community from almost nothing. And on one of the very first days of that enormous unfinished project, the leaders tell them something surprising. The people are weeping, weighed down by how far they still have to go. And the word that comes to them is this Go, enjoy the good food, drink the sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. Then comes the line, Nehemiah 8, verse 10. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. Sit with the timing of that. The joy came at the very beginning, with the work barely started. That day of good food and sweet drinks and sharing was itself the strength they were being given in advance for the long road of building ahead. The celebration was the fuel the work would run on. There is research that lands in the very same place. A psychology researcher named Barbara Frederickson spent years asking one simple question: What are positive emotions actually for? The old assumption was that joy is a pleasant byproduct, a little reward your brain hands you when things go well. What she found points the other direction. Joy appears to do the work. Positive feeling tends to widen what you notice and the actions that you are willing to take. And over time it helps build real, lasting resources, steadier relationships, more resilience, a deeper well to draw from when life gets hard. In her own framing, happiness is part of what makes a life go well in the first place, and not only the result of one. Let's be careful here because accuracy matters more than a tidy story. The part about joy building lasting resources over time is well supported. The part about joy widening your attention in the moment has been questioned by more recent analysis. And I'd rather tell you that than oversell it. The dependable piece is the piece that matters for us today. Small good feelings are an investment and an worthwhile one. There is a second finding worth knowing, the one that explains why all of this waiting backfires. In the research on mood, one of the steadiest patterns is that action tends to come before feeling. More often, it works the other way. You pour the iced tea, you step onto the porch, and the lift arrives once you are already there. The doing comes first, the feeling follows. Summer is short. The specific Friday you are living right now will not come back around. And that list will be there tomorrow. And that is something you can count on completely. So picture it in this way. You can walk into the rest of your day fueled, or you can walk into it running on empty. A small delight claimed now feeds the work rather than robbing it. It's a part of what keeps you steady. One small joy touches all four pillars because this is never only an emotional matter. Mentally, a moment of delight loosens the grip of the running checklist. For a minute, your attention rests on a cold glass and the warm light instead of the next task. Emotionally, joy gives the heavier feelings some company. The worry stays in the room, and the good moment sits down right beside it, and the day feels a little less like a clenched fist. Physically, pleasure and rest speak a language your body understands. Iced tea on the porch is a nervous system thing as much as a soul thing. Your shoulders drop, your breath slows. Spiritually, receiving a joy you did not earn is its own act of trust. It says God gives good gifts, and your hands are allowed to be open. The joy of the Lord is your strength, placed in open hands. So here is your next best step. Sometime today, claim one small enjoyment while something on your list is still unfinished. That timing is the entire point. Pour the iced tea before the kitchen is clean. Eat the good nectarine standing at the counter. Sit on the porch for the length of one song. Let yourself have it with the work still waiting. And notice something. The work waits just fine. Joy was never meant to wait at the finish line. The research and the scripture point the same direction. Joy is strength handed to you for the work, meant to be spent now while there is still a road ahead. So claim one small piece today. The list will keep. The summer will not. On Monday, we're doing something a little playful and very practical: Christmas in July, and a $5 envelope that can keep next December from sneaking up on you. It's a small idea with a long runway. And I think you'll like where it goes. Follow or subscribe wherever you are listening or watching, as you do not want to miss it. And if you'd like an easy way to build a little of this into the start of your day, my free five minute daily reset is waiting for you at your nextbeststep.com. Five minutes, no 4 a.m. required. I will see you on Monday. Take your next best step.