B-Side

Do What You Want

If You Want It, Give It. The Rest Figures Itself Out.

I told my mom once — during that stretch when she said she’d lost her joy — to try something that sounded almost too simple to work.

I said, "If you want joy, give joy."

She looked at me like I'd handed her a riddle instead of advice. And I get it. When you're the one running on empty, the last thing that makes sense is to pour into someone else. It feels backwards. Mechanical. Like smiling when you don't feel like smiling.

But I meant it. Not as a performance — as a practice.

Go make someone laugh. Bring flowers to a neighbor for no reason. Call your friend and ask about her week — not because you want to talk about yours, but because you're genuinely curious about hers. Do joyful things. Put joy into the room. And somewhere in the doing, the feeling catches up.

It doesn't happen the first time. Maybe not the second. But there comes a moment — and it sneaks up on you — where you realize you're no longer manufacturing joy. You're in it. The doing became the being. And you didn't have to wait for it to arrive from somewhere else. You built it with your own hands.

The Principle

This works everywhere. Not just with joy.

If you want friendship, give friendship. Be the one who reaches out. Be the one who remembers. Be the one who shows up without being asked and without keeping score. You don't wait for someone to befriend you — you become the friend you're looking for.

If you want generosity, be generous. If you want patience, offer it first. If you want someone to listen to you — really listen — start by listening to someone else the way you wish they'd listen to you.

It sounds circular, and maybe it is. But the circle works. Because what you give freely is what you understand most deeply. And the people around you feel the difference between someone who's keeping a ledger and someone who's just showing up with open hands.

The satisfaction of giving the thing you want is closer to having the thing than you'd expect. Not identical — but closer than waiting for someone else to hand it to you.

Pay Attention

There's a quieter version of this that nobody talks about.

People tell you what they want by what they give. Not with words — with actions. If someone holds your hand in the car, it's a good indication they want their hand held in the car. If someone writes you a long message on your birthday, they probably wish someone would do the same for them. If someone always asks how your day was — really asks, not just fills the silence — that's them telling you what they need without ever saying it.

It works in small moments too. The friend who always brings food to your house wants someone to bring food to theirs. The person who texts you first thing in the morning is telling you that early morning texts mean something to them. The one who remembers the details — your kid's name, your surgery date, that thing you mentioned three weeks ago — is hoping someone will remember theirs.

We spend a lot of time guessing what the people around us want. But most of the time, they're already showing us. We just have to pay attention to what they do, not what they say.

The way someone loves you is usually the way they want to be loved. The way someone shows up for you is the way they're hoping you'll show up for them. It's not a mystery. It's a mirror.

Start With What's Missing

I think about my mom sometimes during that joyless stretch. She wasn't doing anything wrong. She'd carried an enormous weight — losing her mother, being the only daughter, being the caregiver nobody thanked enough. The joy didn't leave because she failed. It left because she was exhausted.

But when she started doing small joyful things — not for herself, but for the people around her — something shifted. The giving wasn't a fix. It was a bridge. It carried her from where she was to where she wanted to be. And eventually she stopped crossing the bridge because she was already on the other side.

That's the thing about doing what you want. It doesn't ask you to fake it. It asks you to act first and let the feeling follow. To trust that the motion creates the emotion — not the other way around.

If you want joy, give joy.

If you want connection, connect.

If you want someone to hold your hand — hold theirs first.

Do what you want. The rest figures itself out.

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