Looking for joy

Spring semester is always hard. You cannot predict when exactly, but the cabin fever eventually hits. Because college life is seasonal, there has to be a point where it just becomes hard. Warm weather helps, and so does the natural winding up of the school year. We can see the end, and though the view is obscured by the mountains of work yet-to-be-done. In most Christian calendars, it is the time of great Lent, repentance, and meditation, which culminates on Easter. In the Jewish tradition, it is Passover, the release from Egyptian slavery (sometimes I feel like the Pharaoh, when I ask someone to do one more thing).  The Islamic calendar has nothing to do with climatic seasons; the holidays cycle through the astronomical year. However, the Hijra is celebrated annually on 8 Rabi' I, a Spring month. (The Prophet’s migration from Mecca to Medina actually happened in September… Well it’s complicated, but it is about moving, changing, meditation).

Anyway, besides looking for release from bondage, I recommend finding joy where you can. I, for example, had a blast today talking with a people from URI and CCRI about improving our transfer articulation agreement for early childhood majors. Yesterday, mine was a guilty pleasure imagining how a new schedule grid may look like. Why? It’s fun to pretend you can change things! Sometimes people think – oh, well, I will get done with all the boring, routine, compliant stuff, and then I will have time to change and improve things, to be creative, to write and compose. This may make sense practically, but not psychically. Our souls wither and shrivel, if we cannot experience joy for a long time. And within the confines of our work lives, moving, changing things is as close as it gets to real joy. It invites the unexpected, and gives us a sense of possibilities. The joy of agency is the same as the joy of creativity.