Joy and Suffering in the Same Season

There’s a particular ache that comes with December, when I’m wrapping presents while scrolling past news of suffering, when carols play in stores where people count coins for necessities, when my own table is full and I know so many others are empty. I’m caught between genuine gratitude for my blessings and a gnawing guilt about enjoying them. The question “How can I celebrate when others are hurting?” isn’t abstract moralizing. It’s a real tension we’re living with every day.

Here’s what I want to say first. The fact that we’re asking this question already tells me we’re not selfish. Selfish people don’t lose sleep over whether their joy is justified. But I also think the framework of “either enjoy Christmas or help others” is a false choice that will leave us depleted and less able to do either well.

The Guilt Trap

Many of us have internalized the idea that feeling good when others feel bad is somehow morally wrong, that joy in the presence of suffering is callousness. But this logic, followed to its conclusion, means no one should ever feel joy until all suffering ends. That’s not ethics, it’s a recipe for collective despair.

Our capacity for joy doesn’t take anything away from someone else. Refusing to experience pleasure doesn’t put food on another family’s table or ease anyone’s pain. In fact, running ourselves into emotional bankruptcy makes us less capable of showing up for others in meaningful ways. Compassion requires energy, and energy requires replenishment.

Holding Both Truths

The spiritual and psychological work here isn’t choosing between joy and awareness of suffering, it’s learning to hold both simultaneously. This is harder than it sounds because our minds want resolution, not paradox. But reality is paradoxical. We can light candles on the darkest nights. We can grieve injustice and still laugh with our family. We can acknowledge that the world is broken and still find moments of sweetness in it.

This isn’t compartmentalization or denial. It’s integration. When we’re genuinely present with our children opening gifts, we’re not ignoring suffering, we’re participating in the stubborn human insistence that love and connection matter despite suffering. That act itself is a form of resistance against despair.

From Guilt to Responsibility

The key shift is moving from guilt to responsibility. Guilt says, “I shouldn’t feel this good.” Responsibility says, “Because I have these resources, emotional, material, relational, what can I do with them?”

This reframing is crucial for my mental health. Guilt is passive and self-focused. It circles endlessly around my own worthiness to feel good. Responsibility is active and other-focused. It asks what needs doing and whether I can help do it.

Practically, this might mean:

∙ Setting aside a specific percentage of my budget or time for helping others, then allowing myself to enjoy the rest without second-guessing

∙ Engaging in direct action that addresses suffering I’m aware of, volunteering, donating, advocacy, so I’m not just feeling bad but actually responding

∙ Bringing people who might be alone into my celebrations rather than dimming my own light

∙ Using my joy as fuel rather than a source of shame

The Oxygen Mask Principle

We know the airplane safety instruction, secure our own oxygen mask before helping others. This isn’t selfishness. It’s recognizing that we can’t pour from an empty cup. Our mental health isn’t a luxury separate from our ability to help others, it’s the foundation of it.

Protecting our mental health during this season means:

∙ Setting boundaries on news consumption and social media doomscrolling

∙ Not apologizing for taking time to rest, celebrate, or simply enjoy

∙ Recognizing that self-care isn’t selfish when it sustains our capacity for care

∙ Accepting that we can’t carry the weight of all the world’s suffering, and we were never meant to

Joy as an Act of Hope

There’s a radical element to joy that we often miss. In a world full of suffering, choosing to celebrate love, connection, and beauty is an act of defiance. It’s saying that suffering doesn’t get the final word. It’s modeling for others, especially any children watching, that life can be hard and still worth living, that darkness doesn’t cancel out light.

This doesn’t mean toxic positivity or forced cheer. It means letting ourselves feel the full range of what’s real, the grief and the gratitude, the worry and the wonder. Our joy doesn’t erase others’ pain, but our misery doesn’t ease it either.

A Both/And Season

So here’s my answer to the question. We manage our mental health while helping others by refusing the false binary. We feel joy and we take action. We celebrate and we serve. We accept gifts and we give them. We rest when we need to and show up when we can.

We don’t have to earn our right to experience pleasure. We don’t have to justify our joy by proving we’ve suffered enough or helped enough. Our joy and our compassion can coexist, in fact, they often feed each other. The deepest compassion comes not from those who’ve extinguished their own light out of solidarity with darkness, but from those who’ve kept their flame alive and use it to help others find theirs.

This year, let’s give ourselves permission to be fully human, complex, contradictory, capable of holding sorrow and joy in the same heart. That’s not selfishness. That’s wisdom.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​