“Beauty is whatever gives joy.” 

-Edna St Vincent Millay

I have a memory of my husband and I purchasing our very first couch together. We were in our mid/late 20’s, excited about our very first home. So there we were at the furniture shop – in the land of black, brown, grey and other neutrals. I had been reading up on decor mags, and it seemed that every suggestion was to buy neutral colored furniture and to add “pops” of color with pillows, rugs, and other accessories. This made perfect sense to me and I wanted to follow the rules. Really. But there was this one couch in that entire gigantic furniture shop that stood out and seemed to call to us, “Pick me! Pick me!” According to the magazines, it was all wrong. It was big and it was bright RED. Oh no!

This became a pivotal moment in my joy journey.  John and I considered the red couch, trying to decide if we should take such a leap? Wouldn’t we get more “use” from a neutral couch? Wouldn’t it be easier to “match” other furniture to a brown couch? Wouldn’t it be “practical” to get the grey couch? As we discussed it, we decided that it was more important to purchase what made us LIGHT UP, what made us get super excited, what gave us joy.

So, we bought the red couch, and it provided a great level of enthusiastic momentum to then create a home space that felt like us without compromises, without following anybody else’s “rules” except our own. We loved it. 

It’s been about 15 years since that day in the furniture store, and we’ve had many moves and spaces since that one, but purchasing the red couch was a lesson that stuck with us: Always choose joy.

I deeply believe that these micro decisions that we make everyday: which colors we choose to paint our walls, what kinds of furniture we buy, what we bring to our cubicles at work, what we wear – it all matters. DEEPLY. If we’re choosing (and trusting) our own unique brand of joy along the way during all these micro decisions, then we’re primed and ready to choose joy for the bigger macro decisions when it really really really matters: what job to say yes to, who to date, who to marry, who to be friends with! It all matters. 

Our jobs, here on Earth, are to choose joy. To integrate it into our homes, our work spaces, our friendships. To radiate it out into the world through the expression of ourselves whether that be our clothing, our perspectives, our outlooks on life, our decor, and so much more.

This is what it’s all REALLY about. (Love, Trust, and Joy).

Big love,

Kelly Rae