Finding Joy

I knew immediately she wasn't a conference attendee. Not so much based on what she wore, clothes I remember seeing at Grateful Dead shows in the late 1980's. Colorful, loose-fitting shirt and pants. A little dingy, but no body odor smell. She had a small, kind face, tan and leathered, but I assumed she was only in her forties. She also didn't have on a conference badge, so that was telling. 

She stopped in from our table in the exhibit space eyeing the LEGO figures we had on display. They were part of our fun giveaway; attendees could build their ideal job candidate with the Legos and then we'd talk with them about optimizing their candidate and experience. Our company, Survale, helps companies improve their recruiting, hiring, and retention, through candidate and employee experience feedback. 

"How's the conference going for you so far?" I asked. I instantly felt bad asking her that, knowing that she wasn't attending.

"Great," she said. 

I wasn't surprised she said this. She was eating one of the tapioca deserts they had served at lunch. 

"The tapioca's good, isn't it," I said.

"Yes. Can I build one?" she said, referring to the LEGO people. 

"Of course," I said. 

My co-workers engaged with her as well as she built her first LEGO person. We all knew she wasn't attending the conference.

One of them asked her about the conference, and she said, "Oh, I'm not attending. I was just walking down the beach and saw this event. I came over and had some lunch and now I'm building a Lego person."

As she built her person, her face awakened with determined joy. There weren't a lot of parts to build these Lego people, but she methodically took her time, selecting and re-selecting the legs, body, head, hair, and accessory the figure would hold. 

She finished and I told her it looked great. Then she asked, "Can I build another one?"

"Sure, please do," I said. 

More determined joy. The exhibiting part of the conference was almost over, so we gave her the space and the time to build. 

One of our team asked to take her picture putting the Legos together. Her joy drained away and she looked concerned. "No, I don't think so," she said. But she ultimately agreed when she didn't have to look directly at the phone camera, that it was just for our marketing team.

When she was done with her second figure, she started to walk away, paused, her eyes fixated on the Legos still, and then turned to face us again.

"Can I just do one more?" she asked.

"Of course," I said. 

After the stranger left our table, I realized I never asked what her name was, nor did I share mine. I knew nothing else about her -- whether she was unemployed and/or unhoused; whether she had a criminal past or not; whether she was alone or had her own family; whether she had physical and/or mental health issues. 

What I did know is that for a few moments, she found intentional joy in putting together the LEGO people, and we encouraged her to do it, without shame or judgement. A simple moment of empathic humanity.

I also knew she was someone's daughter, and that made me think about our own daughters, and their adult lives that have yet to unfold. Supposedly humans make over 35,000 decisions each day equating to nearly a billion decisions in a lifetime. Because adulting is hard, we've encouraged our kids to consciously manifest a happy and healthy life. But there will unforeseen circumstances to deal with and poor decisions will be made along the way. Hopefully fewer and farther in between than we experienced, especially me. 

If there's one thing I believe we've imparted on them to date, it's finding joy in everything they do. Always. Intentionally. Unequivocally. Joy.