Finding Joy in Tough Times

A reflection from the September 2026 Conscious Wealth Salon.

At our September Salon, we welcomed Mark Kendall for a conversation about humor, creativity, and finding joy when the world around us feels difficult.

The morning centered on a question:

How do you find joy in tough times?

Brandon began by reading Wendell Berry’s poem “The Peace of Wild Things.”

In the poem, Berry describes waking in fear for the world and finding his way back to a sense of peace by going outside, lying near the water, and spending time among wild things.

Mark immediately thought of a neighborhood park.

Months earlier, after a Conscious Wealth Salon with Michael Halicki of Park Pride, Mark took on a simple exercise: go to a park and sit there for a while. He chose one he passed every day. A place he had seen for years.

But this time, he stopped. Sitting among the trees and paying attention to a place he usually passed through changed his experience of it. The park hadn’t changed. His relationship to it had.  

Mark told us that when circumstances aren’t particularly joyful, he often returns to gratitude, journaling, stories, and reflection. He also asks himself another question:

What would you want to see?

That question shows up frequently in his work.

Mark is a comedian and filmmaker who often works with organizations tackling difficult subjects. One project focused on redistricting in Georgia. The realities surrounding the issue were serious, and Mark and his collaborators wanted people to understand them without leaving the audience feeling defeated.  

So, Mark dressed up as Bob Ross. Wig and all.

In the video, he painted a map of the Georgia he wanted to see. Potholes were filled with peaches. A red line drawn through a community disappeared beneath his paintbrush. Difficult realities remained part of the story, alongside a picture of what people wanted their community to become.

Comedy has given Mark a way to think about this.

Early in his career, he spent time in the writers’ rooms at “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Colbert Report.” Both shows found humor in the news of the day, but Mark became particularly interested in what happens after someone laughed.

Does the person leave feeling defeated? Or does laughter give them a reason to participate?

For Mark, those questions matter. Making fun of the world as it exists creates one kind of comedy. Asking people to picture the world they would like to live in creates another.  

Mark shared an exercise that takes this idea a little further. Start with a problem and come up with ten solutions. Every solution has to be impossible. His example was a community center that needed saving. Raising money doesn’t count. That’s possible. Prince coming back to life and performing a benefit concert? That counts.

Once you have your impossible ideas, start working backward. Prince isn’t coming back, but perhaps there’s something within that ridiculous idea that points toward a possibility you haven’t considered.

Mark has found that removing the boundaries of what seems realistic sometimes makes it easier to see other possibilities.  

As the morning came to a close, Brandon returned to the question we started with.

How do you find joy in tough times?

Mark talked about the people around him. He finds joy in watching his friends make music, write poetry, create art, and put their ideas into the world. Their creativity feeds his own.

Then he offered a distinction between happiness and joy. Happiness, as Mark sees it, tends to move with our circumstances. Joy is something he chooses to look for despite them.  

Perhaps the question isn’t how we escape the difficult things around us. It’s what we choose to do while we’re living through them.

What would you want to see? And what happens if you start there?

Sometimes the answer might even begin at the park you’ve passed a hundred times.

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Below is the audio recording of the September Conscious Wealth Salon conversation with Mark Kendall.

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