How to find joy in the madness of the world

I get asked this question a lot: How do you navigate the weight of it all?

When you spend your career covering war zones, human rights atrocities, and the darkest corners of geopolitics, people want to know how you keep going. How do you not let it consume you? How do you find any lightness at all?

The honest answer? When I was younger, I didn’t navigate it well. I let war and conflict and the horrible things humans do to each other, and the horrible things fate delivers, consume me entirely. I wore that heaviness like a badge, as if carrying the world’s suffering was proof of my commitment to the work.

As I’ve gotten older, something has shifted. I’m learning that having lovely, happy, simple moments isn’t a betrayal of the people suffering in the stories I cover. It’s a luxury, yes. One that millions don’t have. If you have it, you owe it to yourself and to them to actually seize it.

The Fish Out of Water

Right now, I’m based in DC, and I’ll be honest: I struggle here. The winter claws at me. Gray days bleed into each other, cold wind cuts through the streets, and people walk past each other with this perpetual misery etched on their faces. I’m a free-flowing summer girl, a water baby at heart. This place makes me feel like a fish gasping on dry land. Not to mention, the toxicity of politics and the anger and hatred it infuses into everyday existence.

I just got back from Colombia. Within hours of landing, you’re reminded, viscerally reminded, of how much joy people can radiate when they have nothing material to show for it. People dancing in the streets. Music spilling from doorways. An energy that feels like pure, unfiltered life. That sense of vitality is what I crave. It’s what makes me question everything about how we define success in places like DC, where success often looks like expensive unhappiness.

Redefining Success

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what success actually means. The definition has changed for me. I’ve finally permitted myself to let it change.

Massive aspirations are great. I still have them. There comes a point, though, where you have to accept what you have and what you can do. Right now, I’m pregnant with my second child, just over halfway through, and it’s been a different experience from the first. Pregnancy exhausts you in ways that make you reassess everything that once seemed important.

Crawling into bed with my toddler at the end of a long day to read a book? That’s a marker of success now. That’s unconditional love made tangible. That’s peace in its purest form. It’s something I genuinely look forward to, not something I’m squeezing in between the “real” work.

That may sound small. I want to acknowledge the smaller moments in life, though. I want to let go of the idea that there always needs to be something grandiose happening, and that being a good person, helping your friends, and being there for other people are only for the grandiose. These things matter infinitely more than titles and accolades and whether you’ll ever make Time Magazine’s list of influential people.

Those things can peel away so quickly. They do peel away.

Advice I Give Now

When young people reach out for mentoring and tell me they want to get into journalism, I find myself giving different advice than I would have even five years ago.

To be honest, journalism is a depressing field right now. As much as I’ve loved my career, if I were 20 again, I’d probably not go into it, for a multitude of reasons. We can unpack that another time. What I do tell people is this: Don’t let the weight of the world steal your joy. Don’t feel guilty for finding happiness in small moments.

Walk through life with a smile when you can. Don’t be afraid to do silly things, say silly things, wear a wig, dance, and go to that concert. Whatever brings you joy, chase it. Don’t apologize for it.

Here’s the thing: having that capacity for joy is a huge luxury that many people in the world don’t have. If you have it, really seize it. That doesn’t make you shallow or disconnected from suffering. It makes you human. It makes you sustainable.

The Guilt We Carry

A lot of us who work in these heavy spaces carry this guilt. We feel like we don’t deserve lightness when we know what’s happening elsewhere. We feel like joy is somehow frivolous when people are dying, when injustice is unfolding, when the world is burning in real time.

I’m learning to release that guilt. Or at least I’m trying to.

The work matters. The stories matter. So do you. So does your life, your family, your moments of genuine happiness. You can hold both the awareness of suffering and the experience of joy. In fact, you have to hold both. Otherwise, you’re no good to anyone, least of all yourself.

So yes, I’m finding joy in the madness. I’m choosing to find it. Some days, that looks like dancing in my kitchen. Some days it’s just surviving the gray DC winter and remembering that summer will come again. Some days, it’s feeling my baby move and knowing that this small miracle of life matters as much as any story I’ll ever write.

That’s the balance I’m still learning. That’s the work that never ends.

What brings you joy amid the heaviness? I’d love to hear how you navigate it.