E D I T O R ’ S
M E S S A G E
E d C o m e y - L a w C l e r k t o U. S . B a n k r u p t c y Ju d g e M i c h a e l G. Wi l l i a m s o n
Wishing You a Joyful New Year!
“[J]oy is something that we can always hold onto.”
“Had it. Lost it.” That was Klay Thompson, all-star
shooting guard for the Golden State Warriors, talking to
ESPN about his team’s quest for joy during a rare four-
game losing streak. The Warriors, winners of three of the
past four NBA championships, operate on four core
values: the first is joy.
When discussing the importance of joy, Kevin Durant,
another Golden State Warrior all-star, mused about the
distinction between joy and happiness: “I feel like a lot
of people confuse joy
and happiness. I think
happiness is a feeling
that is fleeting. It means
you can go back and
forth all the time. I feel
like joy is something that
you can stand on.”
Until reading those
comments, I always
assumed happiness and
joy were the same.
But it turns out
Durant is on to some -
thing. According to
psychologists, happi ness
tends to be temporary,
while joy tends to be longer lasting. More important,
happiness tends to be based on external events. We
are happy when things (jobs, relationships, etc.) go our
way. Joy, however, is internal.
And it exists even when things don’t go our way.
Durant explained how joy has been crucial to the
Warriors’ ability to grind their way through the ups
and downs of an 82-game season year after year
and why it was so important for them to find their
joy: “[W]hen you’re enjoying what you do, you don’t
mind the adversity, the tough times, the challenges.
The little obstacles you got to climb to get to where
JAN - FEB 2019
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HCBA LAWYER
you want to go. I think joy is something that we can
always hold onto.”
Thompson was more to the point about how having
joy can change your perspective on things:”It’s been a
while since we’ve been on a losing streak like this, but at
the end of the day it’s not the end of the world. We still
play basketball for a living and make people happy, so
it’s pretty easy to find joy in that.”
All this got me to thinking that maybe I need to join the
Warriors on this elusive
quest for joy. As lawyers,
it’s hard not to get caught
up focusing on — and
linking our happiness
to — things like billable
hours, col lections, books
of business, outcomes
of cases, etc. Although,
for me, working for a
judge lessens some of
those external factors.
With the internal peace
that comes from having
joy, it’s easier to say,
to borrow from Klay
Thompson: “At the end
of the day, our hours, or collections, or book of business,
or the outcome of a case is not the end of the world. As
lawyers, we still get to make a living helping people. So
it’s easy to find joy in that.”
At the end of last school year, my oldest daughter
came home and hung up a sign she had made at school.
It read: “Be Joyful.” (She goes to a school run by Salesian
Sisters, an order of nuns known for their cheerfulness
and joy). We took the sign down to hang up our
Christmas decorations. But you better believe it’s going
back up January 1 as a reminder of the elusive quest to
find joy. Here’s wishing you a joyful New Year!
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