A Smile a Day Keeps the Doctor Away: The Role of Joy in the Face of Sadness

After eight years of working in the charity sector, having founded an arts-based school for homeless youth, I left to put little ceramic feet on ceramic cereal bowls.

I can’t think of a more frivolous thing to do after having saved lives (or at least contributed to their saving) than going into the home accessories industry and focusing on whimsical dish ware.

But, in fact, I think this new direction is every bit as important as what I did with homeless youth, because both businesses underscore the tremendous value of and need for joy in our lives.

I built Hollywood Arts to help homeless young adults.

I hypothesized that I could get very hard-to-reach homeless young adults with very little formal education and no real interest in rules, or indeed their own futures, to have a different experience of their lives through access and involvement with the arts, music, performance and fashion.

I was right.

Why?

Artistic experiences are enjoyable experiences, and we are hard-wired to seek out pleasure and avoid that which is unpleasant.

No doubt there is some evolutionary basis for this.