The Aesthetics of Joy

I had to read the headline twice.

The Surprising Psychology of Why Work Feels Harder Than It Should A few weeks ago, when I chatted with Chris Duffy for our Commons book club, I asked him if he had fun writing his book Humor Me.

What a delight to share this Q&A with Chris Duffy, author of Humor Me, our upcoming book club pick for the School of Joy Commons.

You’re staring at your screen, rereading the same paragraph for the third time.

For many years, I’ve stayed out of the gift-guide fray.

Our first book club pick for the Commons (our new community) is Styles of Joy, and I’m beyond excited that author SC Perot will be joining us for an intimate conversation next Thursday, Sept 4, 2025 at 1pm ET.

Years ago, in a dimly lit yoga studio, an instructor introduced me to an exercise that quietly upended my approach to not only listening, but thinking itself.

For more than a decade, I’ve been exploring how the aesthetics around us — color, shape, texture, and pattern — can lift our spirits.

7 Key Joy Indicators: How to Measure What Really Matters at Work In a world obsessed with metrics, we’ve become experts at measuring everything from website traffic to quarterly earnings.