Finding Meraki in Our Lives

This is one of my favorite words that I never get a chance to use. It’s a Greek word, which I find interesting because I think it looks and sounds more Japanese than anything. It is a verb–sometimes an adverb–and can only be attributed to a specific task, for example, to write. It means I want to put everything I have and am into the task at hand.

Sometimes I feel that way about writing. Unfortunately, sometimes I don’t. Some of you might relate to the feeling. I want to want to, but I just don’t. It’s the commitment to carry on in spite of the lack of feeling that helps us find it again. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow–but it will indeed return if you do whatever you do “with total love, and total soul.”

This blog is for us creative types, but it is also for those of us with a disability or chronic illness, who don’t want to live our lives with anything less than total love and total soul. We can’t. Living takes so much energy and effort we can’t live it any other way than with meraki. We have to live our lives with creativity because sometimes it’s the only way we can continue to face the challenges every day brings. It’s the only way we can even bring ourselves to get out of bed in the morning.

It’s not enough to choose joy one day. You have to choose to continue getting up in the morning. You can trust that the joy in your life will come back.