Embracing Joy and Taking Care
On Joy, Care, and the Radical Act of Slowing Down
Summer is here, the light is lingering longer, and with it comes a quiet invitation: What if we allowed ourselves to slow down?
After diving into Chapter 6: Everyone is an Entrepreneur, where we explored how internalized capitalism forces us to monetize survival and treat basic needs like side hustles, I’ve been reflecting on what we do when we aren’t hustling. What’s left when we stop grinding long enough to breathe?
The news doesn’t make it that easy. Every day seems to bring more heartbreak, more backlash, more reasons to clench our jaws and keep going. But as the days stretch longer and the summer sun lingers into the evening, I’m trying to let that extra light be a cue—a reminder to slow down, breathe deeper, and open up to something softer.
That brings us to Chapter 7: Embracing Joy and Taking Care—a chapter that was one of the most healing (and honestly, joyful) for me to write.
Creating Space for Joy (Without Guilt)
For so long, I didn’t know how to let myself rest. I thought hobbies needed to be productive. I felt like rest needed to be earned. The messages I’d internalized ran deep:
“You can sleep when you’re dead.”
“Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”
“Rise and grind.”
The result? Burnout—more than once. I told myself I was doing it for me, for my friends, for the people I cared about. However, somewhere along the way, I began to isolate myself from them and ignore my health and well-being. I wasn’t making more space for connection—I was working myself into a hole. And no amount of ambition could fill the emptiness that constant achievement was creating.
In this chapter, I discuss how I began to unlearn those narratives. It didn’t happen overnight—and it didn’t happen by accident. It took breaking down and being forced to reckon with what I was missing: joy, connection, and self-worth that wasn’t tied to output.
Parenting, the Pandemic & Redefining Work
Becoming a parent during the pandemic cracked everything wide open for me. I had just entered this wild new chapter of life with a tiny human who needed me, completely and consistently. But the workplace I returned to didn’t seem to understand that. Or worse, didn’t care.
Instead of asking what I needed or how the system could shift, I was applauded for “doing it all.” For working while rocking a baby to sleep. For answering emails at midnight. For staying “on” even when I was falling apart. I wasn’t being recognized—I was being romanticized. My boundaries were seen as inconveniences. My parenting, a distraction. My worth, still measured by output.
But here’s the thing: I also felt like I was doing some of the best work of my life. It was more focused, intentional, and efficient. I gained clarity, purpose, and a deeper capacity for care through parenting because I had to make every moment count.
Yet the old-school business model—rooted in surveillance, micromanagement, and a deep mistrust of workers—couldn’t see that. It couldn’t imagine that someone (especially a woman, and a new mom) could both parent and lead without being penalized or pushed out.
This chapter was personal. Not because I want to rehash the trauma of being undervalued, but because I want to name what so many of us know deep down: The system is broken, not us.
We don’t need to prove we can do it all. We need systems that are smart enough to see when we already are—and support us in doing less, with more care.
Care Work Is Real Work
This chapter isn’t just about working parents, though that’s a big part of it; it’s about honoring care as the most essential kind of labor we have. Caring for children, elders, community members, or ourselves is what sustains life. Yet care work is chronically underpaid, undervalued, and made invisible. Many care workers—nannies, home health aides, early childhood educators, nurses—are overworked and under-protected. And too often, it’s women, immigrants, and people of color doing this labor with little recognition or respect.
Capitalism doesn’t reward care. It exploits it.
We applaud people for “doing it all” rather than questioning why they have to. We call flexible schedules and leave policies as “benefits” when they should be standard features of every job. And we treat burnout like a badge of honor rather than a system failure. However, when we prioritize care within our systems and design with caregivers in mind, everyone benefits.
Just like curb cuts were designed for wheelchair access but ended up helping everyone from parents with strollers to travelers with suitcases, care-centered workplaces and policies offer real freedom and flexibility for all of us. This isn’t just about making work more humane. It’s about recognizing that care is the work, and that it should be resourced, respected, and shared.
Reflection for You
If embracing joy and rest feels hard, you’re not broken. You’ve just been taught to believe that your worth is tied to output. Let’s question that—together.
🌀 When was the last time you felt joy that wasn’t tied to achievement?
🌀 What would change if you treated care—not hustle—as your primary job?
🌀 How can you build or support work environments that make space for multi-hyphenate humans, not just workers?
Why This Matters
Even though Pride Month just ended, I believe Pride is every day. The queer community has taught me so much about joy as resistance—about turning up the volume on love and aliveness in the face of systems designed to erase, silence, and harm.
As a cisgender, white woman, I don’t pretend to understand the stakes fully. But I do know this: the best “F you” to systems of control is building spaces where people are safe, celebrated, and fully themselves. So thank you to the queer community for modeling that kind of radical love and inclusion—for making room for folks like me, and showing us all how to live more fully.
Joy isn’t frivolous. It’s fuel. And care isn’t extra—it’s essential.
This chapter reminds me that even in a world that tries to wring us dry, we can make space for what matters. We can honor the parts of ourselves that need softness, slowness, silliness, and love.
We deserve that care. And we can build systems that reflect it—not just in theory, but in practice.
With care,
💛 A Joyful Rebel