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Finding Joy in Life's Messy Moments
Crazy Joy has become a cultural phenomenon, resonating with millions seeking authentic happiness in an increasingly chaotic world. Mary Katherine Backstrom's candid exploration of finding joy amidst mental illness, relationship struggles, and life's unpredictable challenges has earned praise from celebrities like Brene Brown and Glennon Doyle. The book's refreshing honesty about the author's own "not-so-politically-correct" mental health journey (including bipolar 2, OCD, PTSD, and ADHD diagnoses) creates an immediate connection with readers who feel similarly imperfect. As the book climbed bestseller lists, its central message became clear: true joy isn't found in perfect circumstances but in embracing our messy, authentic selves.
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The Pursuit of Happiness vs. The Choice of Joy
We're all chasing happiness in America - degrees, houses, families, picket fences - crossing finish lines and celebrating wins. But even as the medal hangs fresh around our necks, the runner's high wears off. We achieve one goal only to immediately set our sights on the next: a bigger house, a better job, a newer car. Happiness is a moving target, dependent on countless variables, coming and going with the wind. This perpetual chase leaves many feeling depleted, always reaching for the next milestone while barely savoring the current achievement.
Backstrom describes her own exhausting pursuit, from childhood dreams of becoming an astronaut and marrying Devon Sawa to adult ambitions ranging from political campaigns to food trucks. Her targets for happiness kept shifting - from career goals to beach vacations to weight loss milestones. She recalls marking her calendar with future dates when she believed she'd "finally be happy": after losing twenty pounds, after launching her business, after buying her dream home. Happiness would arrive briefly, then slip away, yet the pursuit continued relentlessly, like chasing a mirage in the desert.
What if we could break this cycle? A 75-year Harvard study revealed that those who lead the happiest lives aren't those with the best education, physique, personality, or bank account - they're those who love others well. The research showed that strong relationships and community connections were the strongest predictors of both happiness and longevity. The joyful life isn't about steeplechasing toward the American dream; it's about finding meaning in the mundane and contentment in our homes, whether that's sharing coffee with a friend or reading bedtime stories to children.
Joy, unlike happiness, has what Backstrom calls a "wild weed constitution" - blooming wherever it's planted, flourishing in chaos. Like the purple henbit flowers she collected as a child (which her mother gently explained were technically weeds), joy doesn't require perfect conditions. She remembers gathering these "flowers" by the fistful, delighting in their purple blooms while her mother's carefully tended garden struggled nearby. While fancy garden flowers need ideal circumstances - perfect soil, precise watering, specific amounts of sunlight - weeds are resilient warriors that bloom in sidewalk cracks and harsh environments, thriving against all odds.
This becomes the central metaphor of the book: happiness is like those fancy flowers, dependent on perfect circumstances, while joy has that resilient, adaptable quality - blooming wherever it's planted, even in life's cracks and harsh conditions. Joy can be found in hospital waiting rooms, during financial struggles, or amid career setbacks. It's not about waiting for ideal conditions but about choosing to find beauty and meaning in whatever circumstances we face, much like those persistent weeds pushing through concrete to reach the sun.
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Joy as a Powerful Force Against Darkness
Joy isn't just a pleasant emotion - it's a profound force that can combat darkness in our lives. Backstrom illustrates this through her experiences with heartbreak, beginning with her first crush in sixth grade. After being humiliated and literally thrown into a trash can by middle school bullies, she was rescued by Jamie, who became her first love. When Jamie later broke her heart by choosing another girl, young Mary Katherine activated what she thought was her "superpower" - hatred.
This pattern repeated in college when her boyfriend Tyler cheated on her. Once again, she chose anger as a shield against pain, believing that Newton's third law applied to emotions: for every painful action, she'd create an equal and opposite reaction of anger. Her academics collapsed, and she ended up on academic probation.
After a year of soul-searching around the world, she returned to college for a fresh start. Unexpectedly, Tyler called to apologize. His genuine remorse transformed something in her - like the Grinch's heart growing three sizes. She forgave him, and the hatred she'd been carrying dissolved, leaving peace where resentment once lived.
Through this experience, Backstrom realized that joy isn't the opposite of pain or sadness as she'd thought. Drawing on Newton's color wheel (where green opposes red, not blue), she understood that our emotional spectrum is more complex than simple opposites. Our souls work like prisms, always capable of beauty even when we can't see it.
Joy itself is a force more potent than anger or hate - a superpower worth developing. While forces like hate and despair will try to keep us from joy, our job is to fight darkness not with more darkness, but with light.
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The Finite Nature of Time and Joy's Urgency
During a visit to her family cemetery with her grandfather and children, Backstrom had a profound realization about time and joy. While placing flowers on her great-grandmother's grave, her daughter Holland innocently asked if the dash between birth and death dates meant her ancestor was a math teacher. This tiny symbol represented an entire life - all its joys, sorrows, achievements, and mundane moments compressed into a single line.
In a perfect moment of existential reflection, Holland came prancing into view with the grave flowers arranged in her hair, announcing "Look, Mommy! I am Te Fiti!" The juxtaposition of mortality and childlike joy perfectly captured the book's central theme.
Backstrom compares life to the 90s game show "Supermarket Sweep," where contestants raced through stores grabbing valuable items before time ran out. We're all given a finite budget of time and must decide how to spend it. Too often we load up on trivial "bags of beans" instead of what truly matters.
Joy doesn't have to be expensive, but finding it requires intention and attention. We're all playing in the graveyard during our allotted time. We can use our "dash" between birth and death to become relentless joy-seekers or waste it in distraction and despair.
Tim McGraw's song "Live Like You Were Dying" captures this sentiment, though Backstrom argues we don't need to live "like" we're dying - we are dying, every day. Only by accepting our mortality can we fully engage in joyful living. Joy pairs with the knowledge of our brief existence - it's compelling precisely because it's a choice we make despite our limited time.
Our treasure isn't money but time, and where we spend it reveals our hearts. As Nietzsche observed: joy wants eternity. The things we pursue in the name of joy on this finite earth should be the things that can accompany us into eternity.
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Present Joy vs. Future Happiness
One of Backstrom's most profound realizations came through her failures - including being kicked out of college for failing remedial math (she would later be diagnosed with dyscalculia, or math dyslexia). This experience, though devastating at the time, taught her valuable lessons about resilience and self-acceptance. Despite this academic setback, she kept living and eventually found her calling as an author and storyteller, discovering that her true strengths lay in creative expression rather than numerical computation.
Her struggles extended to relationships as well, particularly in managing daily responsibilities and maintaining healthy boundaries. As a college student, she was a terrible roommate - prioritizing fun over responsibility until her roommate Celeste finally asked her to move out. She would leave dishes in the sink for days, scatter clothes across their shared space, and frequently miss her turn for cleaning duties. When she quickly signed a "rebound lease" with another sorority sister, she believed it would be her fresh start. All she needed was to make good grades, do dishes, keep laundry off the floor, pay bills on time, buy groceries, and maintain boundaries. New roommate, new year, new me. Except it wasn't - it was new roommate, new year, same me. The same struggles followed her to her new address, proving that geographic changes don't automatically lead to behavioral ones.
Through these experiences, Backstrom realized she'd been searching for joy in all the wrong places - new roommates, changed appearances, relationships, and money - always thinking "when this happens, then I'll be happy." She'd catch herself making promises like "When I lose twenty pounds, I'll be happy" or "When I get that promotion, everything will be perfect." She'd been treating joy as a future-tense term instead of present-tense, constantly pushing happiness into some idealized future that never quite arrived.
The secret to joy, she discovered, isn't in what's next, but in being fully present in the current moment. That's what made her preschool "Bear Hunt" storytelling special during her teaching days - not her creativity, but her full presence with the children while other teachers watched the clock. She would fully immerse herself in the story, making monster noises, creating sound effects, and matching the children's enthusiasm with her own. This experience taught her that joy doesn't require perfect circumstances or future achievements - it exists in the simple act of being present and engaged in whatever you're doing right now. Whether reading to children, sharing a meal with friends, or simply enjoying a quiet moment alone, true joy comes from embracing the present rather than waiting for some future condition to be met.
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Self-Compassion and Understanding Your True Self
Sometimes our worst enemies are inside our heads, waging constant battles that exhaust us mentally and emotionally. Backstrom vividly describes how her internal dialogue was particularly brutal - relentlessly criticizing everything from her appearance and parenting skills to her fundamental worth as a human being. She would catch herself thinking thoughts like "You're not good enough" or "A better mother wouldn't make these mistakes," creating a toxic cycle of self-criticism that affected every aspect of her life.
When her therapist, Dr. C, first suggested she needed to "be kind to yourself," Backstrom initially misinterpreted this advice in a purely external way. She thought self-kindness meant indulging in surface-level comforts - lengthy queso-filled lunch breaks, frequent massage appointments, and endless pajama days complete with pints of ice cream. While these activities weren't inherently wrong, they weren't addressing the deeper issue at hand.
Dr. C helped her understand that true self-kindness was about transforming the relationship between her mental and emotional selves. The mental self often acts as an internal bully, constantly judging and criticizing, while the emotional self bears the brunt of this harsh treatment. Self-compassion, rather than self-esteem, emerged as the crucial element for healing this internal divide. Unlike self-esteem, which often depends on external achievements or comparisons to others, self-compassion involves treating ourselves with the same understanding and acceptance we'd offer a dear friend going through difficult times.
Joy, Backstrom discovered, has a unique signature for each individual, deeply embedded in our authentic selves. It's like a personal frequency that resonates differently for everyone. Finding this joy requires getting all aspects of ourselves - mental, emotional, and physical - to communicate harmoniously. This might involve various pathways: traditional therapy sessions, medication when necessary, spiritual practices, or even finding comfort in simple pleasures like favorite foods. The key is recognizing that these aren't just coping mechanisms but tools for deeper self-connection.
The path to joy isn't about learning new techniques or forcing happiness; it's about tuning into what's already there. Joy is constantly calling us back to our authentic selves, like a beacon guiding us home. The challenge isn't in the availability of joy - it's always present - but in our willingness to listen and respond to its call. This requires creating space for self-reflection, practicing genuine self-acceptance, and learning to quiet the harsh inner critic that drowns out our inner wisdom.
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Community: Essential for Lasting Joy
Despite her ongoing battle with social anxiety, Backstrom emphasizes that community is the single most important factor for a joyful life. Her conclusion is backed by compelling research from the Great Depression era, which revealed that the happiest people weren't the wealthiest or most successful - they were those who cultivated deep connections with friends and family and experienced mutual love and support. Even in times of severe economic hardship, these relationships proved more valuable than material security.
Joy inherently requires vulnerability and the courage to risk your heart on friendship repeatedly. The physical and emotional ache we feel when isolated isn't just psychological - it's our body's way of signaling a fundamental human need, similar to how hunger drives us to seek food. This biological imperative for connection explains why truly joyful moments often carry a bittersweet quality - we're acutely aware of their temporary nature and long to preserve these precious connections indefinitely.
Through years of personal experience, Backstrom has discovered that major life transitions often reveal our core relationships. She notes that you can typically count on one hand the friends who remain steadfast through career changes, moves, marriages, and personal transformations. This isn't necessarily a reflection of failed relationships, but rather a natural evolution as people grow and change. She offers a compelling metaphor, comparing friendships to planetary orbits - each person follows their unique trajectory around the sun, sometimes moving in close alignment, other times maintaining distance, yet still connected by invisible forces of mutual care and history.
The challenge of building and maintaining community requires persistent effort, especially in the face of common obstacles. Backstrom advocates for showing up consistently, even when facing uncomfortable situations: when social groups feel exclusive, when relationships experience ruptures, when anxiety creates barriers, or after embarrassing social interactions. She emphasizes that creating community isn't solely about serving others' needs - it's equally about fulfilling your own requirements for encouragement, shared laughter, and emotional sustenance. The key insight is to prioritize showing up for yourself first, creating a foundation of self-acceptance and authenticity. When you approach community-building from this grounded place, she observes that "crazy joy" naturally emerges as a byproduct of genuine connection.
This understanding helps transform community from something fragile and anxiety-inducing into a more resilient and natural part of life. By accepting the ebb and flow of relationships while maintaining commitment to showing up, we create space for authentic connections that can weather life's inevitable changes and challenges.
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Comparison: The Joy Thief
"Comparison is the thief of joy," Teddy Roosevelt famously said, and Backstrom wholeheartedly agrees. She describes how comparison invades with sticky fingers, stealing confidence, peace, and contentment while we're distracted by others' shiny things.
Her "Great Pie Lie" at Thanksgiving illustrates this perfectly. Desperate to impress her in-laws, she bought Publix pies, disguised them as homemade, then crumbled under questioning and confessed. Why couldn't she just bring herself to the table instead of a lie? Because comparison had her believing she needed to be something she wasn't.
This pattern started young and continued into adulthood, always dreaming bigger than her abilities permitted - like signing up for half-marathons only to text "911-MY LEGS HAVE STOPPED WORKING" to her husband from a stranger's yard.
Studies show comparative thoughts make up 12% of our thinking - a constant background drone that steals our peace. What if instead we embraced our uniqueness? What if we said, "I'm not a PTA mom, and that's okay. I'm not less than; I'm a different shape"?
The comparison trap keeps evolving with changing standards. What was beautiful or successful a generation ago doesn't measure up today. When this generation passes the baton, a new measure of perfection will rise. Why aim for a target that shape-shifts daily?
We are handcrafted to be unique. There is only one you - this one, today, this moment, this breath. The thief of comparison is a masterful liar with whispers that feel warm and sexy. We must identify where those "you're not enough" voices come from - social media? gossipy friends? certain TV shows? - and eliminate them. Joy is more powerful and precious than we realize.
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Finding Joy in Dark Times
Of all joy's obstacles, crisis is unique - we can't control or predict it. Like squirrels meticulously hoarding nuts for winter, we must consciously stock up on joy for when crisis strikes unexpectedly. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Backstrom initially felt that celebrating or seeking joy was inappropriate amid so much suffering - like bringing a smiley balloon to a funeral. This sentiment resonated with many who felt guilty about experiencing happiness while others suffered, creating a self-imposed barrier to experiencing positive emotions.
But this thinking keeps us from healing and ultimately proves counterproductive. Joy isn't just powdered sugar sprinkled on life; it's written into our DNA, essential for surviving and thriving. When we lose joy, we lose everything that reminds us to keep living - our resilience, our connection to others, and our ability to see beyond current circumstances. Research shows that positive emotions, even in small doses, can help buffer against depression and anxiety during difficult times.
Backstrom compares crisis to the massive waves in the film "Chasing Mavericks." The movie shows a young surfer learning to navigate Mavericks' unique dangers, including the "wash" - a chaotic wall of white water that traps surfers underwater. These waves, reaching heights of up to 60 feet, represent the overwhelming nature of life's biggest challenges. In the climactic scene, the protagonist gets caught in the wash for three minutes before miraculously surfacing, smiling and unbeaten, demonstrating the raw power of human resilience.
That desperate gasp for air mirrors how our souls fight for joy during crisis - it's not pretty, but it's necessary for survival. Dark humor in difficult times is our soul's way of coming up for air, a natural coping mechanism that shouldn't be suppressed. Healthcare workers, first responders, and others in high-stress professions often use gallows humor to maintain their mental health. The difference between surfers and our souls is choice - surfers can choose their waves and train accordingly, but our souls don't get to determine which crises we face or when they'll arrive.
Life alternates between smooth sailing and Mavericks-sized challenges without warning or preparation time. To survive, we must practice holding onto joy in both small and significant ways - through daily rituals, maintaining connections with loved ones, and finding meaning in simple pleasures. This is what joy does - it nurtures defiance against crushing adversity and keeps your soul fighting when everything else suggests surrender. Joy is countercultural and won't make sense from shore, but it's essential for those in the midst of life's storms. Like a lighthouse in darkness, it guides us toward hope and reminds us that even in our darkest moments, light persists.
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Embracing Crazy Joy in an Upside-Down World
Backstrom masterfully draws parallels between the supernatural "Upside Down" dimension in Stranger Things and trauma in our real-world lives. Like the show's dark mirror world, trauma doesn't discriminate, touching everyone regardless of age, status, or preparation. Just as the children in Stranger Things encounter demogorgons and mind flayers yet return to arcade games and school dances, we too must learn to maintain our capacity for joy even when facing life's darkest moments. This resilience isn't about denial - it's about choosing to embrace life's brightness while acknowledging its shadows.
Fear, counterintuitively, emerges as a crucial element of authentic joy - not the paralyzing panic or terror that freezes us, but healthy fear that keeps us alert and engaged. We must learn to distinguish between reasonable caution that protects us and debilitating fear that imprisons us. Like a swimmer at the ocean's edge, we can choose to live safely in the shallows, paddling in familiar waters. However, true joy requires venturing beyond our comfort zone, paddling out deeper where the real adventures - and yes, risks - await. This calculated courage opens doors to experiences that shallow living never could.
Joy defies simple definition - it's far more expansive than fleeting happiness, more complex than mere emotion. It manifests as a deep-seated richness that puts fire in your eyes and steel in your spine, providing the strength to continue when mere happiness would falter. The journey toward joy is marked by milestone moments of contentment, hope, and peace, creating a stark contrast to the chaos and discontent that often characterize our modern lives. It's about finding stability in instability, peace in turmoil.
Finding this crazy joy requires developing an ear for its subtle call, which remarkably costs nothing but attention. It reveals itself in countless everyday moments: in the way you love your people fiercely and learn to love yourself gently, in children's uninhibited laughter echoing through a park, in age-old church hymns that still raise goosebumps, in your mother's cooking that tastes like childhood memories, in the rustle of autumn leaves that sound like nature's whispered secrets. Joy resides in every relationship, place, and moment you wish could stretch into forever - those instances when time seems to slow down and life feels completely right. It's like a whisper from God, serving as a spiritual compass pointing toward life's truest north.
Embracing crazy joy means looking at life's wild, foamy ocean - with all its uncertainty and challenge - and declaring with conviction, "I'm going to surf those waves." It's making the conscious choice that when you wipe out (and you will), you'll hold onto joy like a lifeline. When caught in the wash of life's turbulence, you'll fight for air with everything you've got. And most importantly, no matter how many times you get knocked down, if you surface, you're committed to paddling back out to the break, because that's where life's most exhilarating moments await.
