Cynicism is the default setting of the current political climate.
It’s easy.
It’s lazy.
It requires nothing from you.
It takes zero courage to say everything is terrible.
But you know what’s hard?
Choosing joy when the world is burning.
Building something beautiful when everything feels broken.
Believing in people when you’ve been hurt.
That’s punk rock.
That’s revolutionary.
The people who mock optimism are often just scared to hope again.
And I refuse to give them that power, because I believe joy is the revolution.
But after giving my Joy Reset talk at the Neurodiversion Conference, someone asked me a question that stumped me:
“I have spent the past several years of my life stealing people’s joy because I was hurting. And I’m ready to stop. What do I do?”
I sat with that question for the past two weeks, and I want to try to answer it today.
Here’s how to stop becoming a drain on the people who care about you while you’re still hurting.
But first, a personal story.
I’m a Black gay man from Memphis, Tennessee, the undisputed capital of getting roasted.
Growing up, I got made fun of for everything. My Converse tennis shoes. The gaps in my teeth. Being gay. Talking “white.” The button-up shirts with dragons on them.
By eighth grade, I understood the pattern:
If I shaved away the parts of me that made me me, I could fit in more easily.
The formula was simple. Wear the acceptable thing. Align with the popular kids. Make yourself less of a target by not saying too much.
But more than that, with the help of my cousins and older sister, I learned a few useful comebacks for the people who made fun of me.
The first time I checked someone, it felt awkward.
At first, I felt overwhelmed by the idea of making someone else feel bad. But when I heard my friends laughing, that feeling was quickly replaced with pride.
I can use my words to belittle someone else, and I will get rewarded for it.
It’s a dog-eat-dog world. Survival of the fittest. And much like Destiny’s Child, I am a survivor.
So I weaponized my words for self protection.
But at what cost?
One day, I got called into the principal’s office.
Another student had put my name as number five on a hit list. This was a few years after Columbine, and a teacher was on high alert when the list fell out of the student’s notebook.
The sad part is: I knew I was an asshole.
Middle school Justin was probably the most abhorrent version of myself.
But I couldn’t even remember what I’d done specifically to that boy to end up on the list.
And as I sat in that room, I didn’t feel defensive.
I felt shame.
I saw myself as a good person. But in that moment, I realized I was living out of alignment.
That day, I made a decision: I want to change for the better.
And while my joyful self will still put you in your place if you come at me the wrong way, I decided I would no longer use my words to hurt people intentionally and unprovoked.
I decided to break the cycle.
Here’s how you can, too.
1. Hold yourself accountable without choosing self-destruction.
Being human is hard. Along the way, I’ve made my fair share of mistakes. I’ve been judgmental. I’ve chosen the easy lie over the hard truth. I’ve made fun of people for being different.
Unfortunately, that’s part of being in community.
But after a lifetime of overwhelming self-punishment, I have one simple piece of advice:
See yourself clearly and decide that change is possible.
You may have burned bridges you want to mend. And maybe you should try. But the people you harmed have no responsibility to accept you back into their lives. That is a choice they get to make for themselves.
I’m pretty sure that guy from middle school still hates my guts.
The real work is deciding who you will be moving forward, especially in new relationships.
Will you fall back into old habits, or will you choose growth?
2. Acknowledge the pain you’re holding onto. Notice how you weaponize it. Then build a new operating agreement.
Everyone experiences pain. It’s unavoidable.
But what you do with that pain has consequences.
I have a theory that whatever we don’t heal, we eventually hand to someone else.
Not because we’re evil, but because pain has a way of turning into pattern.
We hold onto it. We study it. We rehearse how we would have responded differently. And in refusing to let it go, we sometimes adopt the tactics of the people who hurt us as a form of self-protection.
It takes real self-awareness to notice that.
That’s one reason I’m such a fan of journaling. A consistent practice helps you notice your own patterns and make new decisions about how you want to move through the world.
For me, one of the easiest ways to change is to define your own operating agreement.
Something like:
I will use my words to build, not destroy… except when a motherf*cker tries me three times in a row. (Sometimes my inner Memphis sneaks out.)
Here are a few other examples.
I will pause before projecting.
Before responding, I will ask, “Is this true, or am I triggered?”
I will not use telling the truth as an excuse to hurt people.
I will not make people guess what I need while punishing them for not knowing.
3. Make joy a consistent practice.
Once you’ve established your operating agreement, you get to choose joy consistently.
The first time I danced alone in my living room to disco music, I felt ridiculous.
Looking back, I was so constrained by my desire to be a certain kind of person that I had forgotten how to be my most authentic self, even when I was alone.
But with rent as expensive as it is in Austin, Texas, I decided my home has to be a safe place for my inner freak flag to fly.
For me, that was the first step in making joy a regular part of my life.
Slowly but surely, I started adding other things.
Here’s what’s working for me right now:
Five things I’m doing to find more joy:
- More water. Less caffeine.
- More honesty. Less fake smiles.
- More letting shit go. Less holding onto grudges.
- More dance parties in my living room. Less binge-watching TV.
- More writing myself love notes. Less scrolling on my f*cking phone.
Your list will absolutely be different.
But the key is giving yourself the time and mental space to explore joy in ways that don’t negatively affect other people.
—
I talk so much about joy because joy tells the truth.
It reveals whether you are living from peace or self-protection. Whether you are moving through the world with honesty and freedom, or from resentment, fear, and hurt.
Joy disrupts the cycle.
It keeps pain from turning into performance.
It keeps insecurity from turning into cruelty.
It keeps hurt from becoming something you hand to everybody else.
When you are rooted in your own joy, you stop needing to make other people smaller just to feel okay.
And in a world that rewards bitterness, that choice is not naive.
It is defiant.
Your joy is the revolution.
