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Totally agree
There’s a specific kind of joy we’ve been missing. Even introverts can admit that the pandemic has been lonely.
This weekend, I traveled home for a wedding, the first event I’ve attended in almost 2 years. All 50 of us vaccinated individuals sat outside to watch a beautiful ceremony on the water and then packed inside the adjoining restaurant. After the first dance, the DJ invited everyone on stage and the room erupted in the closest I’ve seen to bliss in a solid year and a half.
No one cared that their dance moves were rusty, or their singing voices off. We were all just happy to be participating in an experience that was rescheduled, canceled, and rescheduled again; an event that was unimaginable just months earlier.
Collective joy happens when love for life spreads through a group: the synchrony you feel when you get into a rhythm with strangers on the dance floor, when your group of colleagues makes a breakthrough in a brainstorming session, with your cousins at a religious service, or teammates on a football field. During this pandemic, this feeling has been largely absent from our lives.
As we turn toward normalcy in the United States, it’s time to rethink our understanding of mental health and well-being. After being isolated for so long, it’s time to reconsider what it means to flourish, leaving personal and individual euphoria behind for a collective effervescence. Happiness lives in the kinds of moments that we can share together, and it’s time for a rebirth of belonging.