The joy of age is recognizing the need to slow down and the appreciation for the moments of time you can relish in. This comes at a time when the battle for our attention is at a fevered pitch and the mildest of distractions are enough to derail us for huge swaths of our day.

Even the discipline of meditation is being sold as a mass market fix, which, unfortunately, is pitched as a utilitarian solution to accomplish other things. It simply defeats the purpose.

However, there’s something more sinister at play in our world: we are being stripped of our joy.

Yes, major news events have an effect, as does our current state of the world, but this has been happening for decades. The further we entrench ourselves in the world of others, the less we think of our own. And there’s nothing more than technocrats and leaders want than to get lost in their worlds while forgetting our own.

To combat this doesn’t require great efforts. It simply requires the wisdom of recognizing the simple as beautiful and immersing yourself in it.

Put on some music. Sit down. Just listen to it. Do nothing else.
Have a cup of coffee. Sip it slowly. Converse with someone.
Sit outside and listen to nature.
Read something simply for the pleasure of reading it.
Have a hobby for the sole purpose of having a hobby and enjoying it as such.

We can’t travel through time (yet), but we don’t have to be swept up in the torrent pushing us to forget that we live within it.