Hilarie Burton says for every dark documentary project she takes on, she has to put equal effort into creating joy. She got her kids a cat as a concrete example of staying intentional about happiness and connection, even when life is busy.
In a world of distraction and chaos, the happiness machine is something that we, the real one, is the thing that we have to hang onto.
That thing is being present with the people that you care about. Present, intentional, purposely joyful. How do you personally balance that?
Yeah, I mean, that's, I do a show, a documentary show about really hard subject matter. And the question I always get asked is, you know, what is your balance? How do you deal with darkness on a regular basis? And the answer is that for every moment of effort I put into poking the bear and fighting the fight and beating the drum and all of those things, I have to counterbalance that with just as much intentional effort building joy. So like, I'm getting my kids a cat today, like, and the kids are so excited about a cat. And do I have time for another animal? No, definitely not, but we're doing it. And these kids are so pumped. You have to be dogged about finding the joy and the connection and that real life experience. So at the end of the day, you're balanced. You've put in your hours doing the hard stuff and you've put in your hours doing the joyful stuff.
