Today is a special edition of The Foreword, featuring a conversation with Joy Marie Clarkson about her new book, Aggressively Happy: A Realist's Guide to Believing in the Goodness of Life. Enjoy this Q&A, and thanks to Joy for taking the time to weigh in with such thoughtful answers!
My first encounter with Joy Marie Clarkson came by way of a Twitter thread where she encouraged her followers to consider sadness a friend. Rather than rejecting sadness or ignoring the times she chooses to visit, Joy wrote, we ought to embrace time spent with her in order to better honor what has been lost.
I saved that thread and return to it often, one of the many nuggets of wisdom I’ve come to glean from Joy since. But she is much more than a life-giving follow on social media; she’s a freshly hooded PhD and an author adding to her byline with her brand-new book, Aggressively Happy. I had the chance to read an early copy and I’ll tell you now—it’s a title you don’t want to miss.
Joy was kind enough to exchange a few emails with me for this Q&A to talk a little more about sadness, the challenges of mental health, and the requirements for a truly perfect breakfast.
Collin: So many of the books hitting shelves these days seem to focus on balancing extremes—finding peace, resisting hurry, achieving contentment—as though life should be a steady journey of avoiding too many highs or lows. Then there’s your book, and it’s not just about being happy, but aggressively happy. The title alone sets it apart as a unique offering for reading lists today. What inspired you to write it? And why this particular topic?
Joy: A driving motivation of the book is learning how to embrace reality as fully as we can, and perhaps controversially, I think that means discovering the goodness at the heart of reality. I think that goodness is not a matter of balance; it is abundant and decided and resilient. The Bible begins with an affirmation of the goodness of creation: “Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). To me, this is very important because it means that goodness is more fundamental than brokenness. We are made for wholeness, joy, purpose. We can identify the sadness and brokenness of the world only because goodness is more fundamental.
G.K. Chesterton puts it well: “Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing in him, and grief the superficial. Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive frame of mind; praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul.” The reason that I wanted to write this book is that I wanted to get people in touch with that “permanent pulsation of the soul.” Far from being an escapist endeavor, I think seeking happiness fortifies our sense of what is right and true and worth fighting for in this weary old world of ours.
C: Toward the beginning of the book, you mention how you grapple with general anxiety disorder, which I found both surprising (a reminder of how incomplete social media is!) and relatable. Being such an intangible and often misunderstood part of life, how are mental health struggles uniquely challenging when it comes to pursuing the kind of happy life you advocate for in your book?
J: A few months ago, I talked with John Swinton about finding a more “Christian” approach to mental health. One of the things he noted is that we can speak about mental health as a problem to be solved when, in reality, for most of us who “struggle” with mental health challenges, it will be a long-term part of our story. It will be a journey, not a battle. And I would add to that a different metaphor that has helped me: the weather.
I went to college in California, and it was a fairly temperate place (except when it was unbearably hot). But I grew up in Colorado, where there are snow storms, fires, and violent summer thunderstorms—it is a place of swift extremes, hot and cold, wet and dry. And then, of course, there’s Scotland, which is more stable than Colorado, but more gloomy than California (that might be an understatement). Scotland has its unbearably blustery days, and its glorious clement summers. I think my psychological region is more like Colorado than California, and, as I get older (and calmer), Scotland. My weather is perhaps a little more extreme than the average bear, and sometimes it can be damaging, but I also experience a lot of beauty in the drama.
I think of taking care of my mental health, then, like taking precautions for the weather. In places with snow, you buy snow tires, you get tarps for the garden during unexpected cold spells. In Scotland, you would be wise to get well-sealed windows against the cold and rain. One can complain about the weather (that’s practically a cultural sport in the UK), but the rolling hills of Scotland wouldn’t be so green and rugged were it not for its tempestuousness. Perhaps the same is true for me. I may sometimes find my own mental climate burdensome and wish for more sun, but it is also a place of beauty.
There’s no need to blame yourself for experiencing seasons of depression or anxiety—sometimes there are storms, and that’s just the way of things.
Thinking of my mental health journey with this metaphor helps give me some much needed neutrality and even appreciation for my own experience of the world. There’s no need to blame yourself for experiencing seasons of depression or anxiety—sometimes there are storms, and that’s just the way of things. And furthermore, there’s no cookie cutter “mental health” in the same way that every region in the world is different. What we need is to learn to live well (and safely) with the weather.
C: I’m sure you saw the recent viral clip of Stephen Colbert sharing his belief in the value of both sadness and laughter. You begin your book in a similar vein, charging readers to “befriend sadness.” Considering how viral that clip went, it seems there’s something about the experience of sadness that speaks volumes, something that people often miss. How does “befriending” sadness square with experiencing happiness? What’s missing in a life that avoids sadness?
J: We cannot choose to only experience some emotions—in so much as we cauterize our ability to feel anger, sadness, fear, we will inhibit our capacity to rejoice. And I think the reality is that sad things will happen in our lives, and so we need to learn to live with those feelings well. In the book I say that you need to “tend to your sadness so that it becomes a source of deeper love and deeper joy, not deeper pain.” And I say this because I don’t think just being sad is enough; sadness can be quite damaging, especially when we feel alone and unsupported. So part of befriending sadness is letting ourselves be sad sometimes, not being afraid of sadness. And it is also learning to let other people—the right people—accompany us through the heavy things of life.
We feel sorrow because we know that things are good, meant to be enjoyed, meant to last.
What I’ve come to realize is that sadness is not, I think, the opposite of joy. Sadness is a just recognition of the loss of something that mattered to us. Sadness tells us that something was good, and now it is gone. In that sense, it is a pretty good barometer of “the goodness of life.” We feel sorrow because we know that things are good, meant to be enjoyed, meant to last. Happiness, in its own way, tells us the same thing: that life is good, deeply enjoyable. Both of these are vulnerable postures toward the world, but in their vulnerability they brush the fundamental paradox of life: it is good and it is broken.
Allowing ourselves to feel sad makes room for joy; we cannot always be playing whack-a-mole with our feelings. But it also, like happiness, attunes us to the reality of life as a gift which is very good. I think the reason we’re so afraid of letting ourselves experience that sadness is because we are afraid that it is the most true thing about reality. But we need to learn two things: to hold tensions, and to hope.
Two things can be true: that the world is beautiful and very fractured. All the goodness of the world, all the gifts and happiness, does not wipe away the pain of loss or the rancor of injustice. But likewise, all the pain of the world cannot make the true joy of life, the miracle of loving another person, the pleasure of a good breakfast untrue. We must learn to hold these tensions together. But Christians also have a further comfort: God has entered our pain, has ensured that it will never have the final word. Jesus is both “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3) and the one who promises to wipe all our tears away (Revelations 21:4). I find great consolation in that promise.
C: I especially appreciated your chapter on how to “flounder well.” It’s so easy to run ourselves ragged on the hurry-up-and-matter wheel of life, constantly filling the empty slots in our schedules with “productivity” and wearing ourselves ragged before we know it. You say to fill emptiness with interest. I’m certain readers will find that attractive, but I wonder if there’s almost a level of “relearning” one’s interests once they’ve become swept up in the daily grind? Where would you recommend someone start who’s come to see life as simply work?
J: This section was a real “preaching to the choir” situation, in which I was my own choir. I can be a bit of a workaholic, and I find the challenge of incorporating “interest” into one’s life is that it can become just one more way to “accomplish” and “be productive.” Finishing my PhD was an interesting experience—what did I do with this life in which there were big empty spaces? Fill it with work?
I find the best way to begin working my way out of this is to give myself “empty time” where I just let myself follow my nose of what I find enjoyable. In Julia Cameron’s wonderful little book The Artist’s Way, she describes this as an “Artist’s Date.” She says artists need souls full of beautiful images, and a willingness to try and fail. A long time ago, I instituted Thursday mornings as a time I would take myself out, get a ham and cheese croissant, and do anything that was not “school” or “work.” I protected it. I would read a chapter or two of a book I genuinely enjoyed (not guilt trip reading!), watch music videos I’d wanted to think about, watch a movie I liked, try my hand at poetry. I think “play” is a helpful mindset for this. What piques your curiosity? Follow the scent of whatever draws you in, delights you. Don’t worry about its utility, or its “importance.”
You are a human being made for more than utility.
Interesting people are interested people. Attend to your own sense of what is interesting to you. If you’ve lost touch with it, it might take some fanning into flame. But I think it’s important to talk back to that voice that says, “This isn’t important.” It is important. You are a human being made for more than utility. And if it makes you feel better, you’ll be much more useful to your world when your soul is full and you are a fully developed person.
C: In the chapter “Tell yourself a good story,” you highlight how we are all storytellers, and the stories we rehearse in our minds shape the way we live. So it’s important we interrogate the stories we cling to. I’m curious about what that could look like beyond a personal practice. How have you found community helpful in interrogating your life’s narratives? And where would you point others to begin looking for that type of support?
J: I think we absolutely need other people to tell our stories well. We can only see the world from our own perspective, and that perspective is limited. That doesn’t mean it is bad, but by its very nature it is limited, incomplete. We need the input of trusted others to see ourselves and our world clearly, and to make good choices. In many ways, telling your story well is and should be a communal thing. People who only tell their own stories often become quite isolated from others. There are several ways I seek out the input of others. One is simply to invite the perspective of trusted friends and family on various aspects of your life. Something as simple as asking someone to describe some aspect of your life often reveals things you might miss.
We, as humans, are designed to not only have a loving family but a whole village to help us tell our stories.
I think if it's in your grasp, spiritual direction or counseling can also be quite a helpful form of interpersonal storytelling. People sometimes joke about how privileged it is to assume that this should be a part of life, but I think it is a sign of how isolated and lonely our world is. We, as humans, are designed to not only have a loving family but a whole village to help us tell our stories. Lacking that, it makes sense that we sometimes need extra support. I would really encourage people to pursue spiritual direction.
And I think church is a way of immersing ourselves in a story that is told to us, and about us, and not by us. There is something very powerful in living through the story of Christianity in a church year. We’re coming up on Ash Wednesday, and to me, having a priest mark my head with ashes, reminding me I will die, but that I am loved and redeemed by God, is a visceral way to live inside the Christian story.
C: You share many moments in your book about the time you’ve spent living in Scotland. When I wasn’t plotting a dream vacation to the UK, I found myself wondering about the cultural differences you’ve undoubtedly observed between the US and Europe—or, at least, Scotland—when it comes to pursuing happiness. What are some of those differences? What can American readers stand to learn from them?
J: What a wonderful question! Well if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that the British (and most people, for that matter) do not enjoy being stereotyped, so take everything I say with a sprinkle of salt. And I could honestly say so much, it’s difficult to whittle it down to a few things. One way that UK culture has tutored me in the aggressively happy life is by helping me live a more “human sized” life. I’ve learned to be happy with a lot less here. Homes are smaller, a lot of people don’t have cars, you walk everywhere, and shops aren’t open all hours like they are in the USA. While it can bristle against my American enjoyment of efficiency, I find that it has also taught me to slow down, to enjoy life at a speed made for walking and not driving. Life here feels far less wasteful, of space and food and time. Why are we always rushing somewhere in America?
One gift, however, that I think we Americans can occasionally bring to the Brits is openness. It took me a few years to be able to tell when my British friends were sincerely complimenting me, and when they were playfully teasing me. There is a British allergy to what they tend to call “earnestness,” an embarrassment about expressions of emotion and unrestrained affirmation or enjoyment of things. This partially suits me because I am actually a fairly private person, but it can, from time to time (as every BBC miniseries and British Rom Com bluntly drives home) prevent vulnerability, which is an unavoidable part of living and loving well. So, I occasionally enjoy popping that bubble, making my British friends blush by telling them how much they mean to me.
C: One of my biggest takeaways from your book is that you don’t kid around when it comes to breakfast. As someone who has literally had her own breakfast party, I have to ask: if you planned out your ideal breakfast, what’s on the menu?
J: Collin, this is the best interview question anyone has ever asked me. Let’s start with beverages: depending on the occasion there should be a mimosa (fruit juice + champagne) and a strong black coffee. I do love a milky espresso (a flat white, for instance), but for some reason I prefer a strong black coffee to pair with the richness of a good brunch. Food wise, I have a definite preference for savory breakfasts. These are some of the ingredients I want to see: fried eggs, hash browns (Freshly grated, please! No patties.), bacon or smoked salmon, avocado, sautéed mushrooms, maybe some beans (if we’re in a British mood). My breakfast sauce of choice is hollandaise, which is an excellent companion whether or not you’re eating a benedict or royale. If there’s no sweet component, I’d go for a slice of sourdough toast, but if we’re really going all out I’d also add some cinnamon rolls.
And if you’re thinking—How could you possibly move after this breakfast party?—the answer is you shouldn’t need to. The breakfast party should render you immobile, whereupon you can reflect upon the great gift of existence. Or go on a walk by the beach. Your choice, really.