A Night at the Lucas Museum Made Me Ask: When Did Joy Become a Luxury?

Sep 08, 2026

I was standing in the middle of Target last Friday around 5:30PM, cart full of things I was supposed to have picked up Monday.

And that’s when it hit me.

My body was done with my shenanigans. My eyes had that heaviness you get from not sleeping. My throat started to tickle a little bit. And the headache I woke up with decided to get loud enough for me to actually pay attention to it, which gives you some insight into the week I was having.

Then my phone buzzed; a spontaneous dinner invite came in from a friend. Part of me wanted to say yes. But my body said, “Don’t you even dare. We have been on the go all week. You haven’t spent time with your wife. You haven’t been sleeping. Your gym routine was all messed up. You are tired. Get your butt home.”

My body was right. And thank goodness, I’ve developed enough respect for it to pay attention to its warning signs earlier when the cost is low. So, I grabbed the bag of Spicy Doritos that were staring at me the moment I walked in. I don’t usually buy stuff like that…but the craving was real! When I got home, my wife spotted them in the Target bag and said, “Oooh. It’s been that kind of week, huh? Perfect choice for movie night.”

So what made the past 2 weeks so hectic? Oh, you know, just LIFE. Project deadlines landing on top of each other. Legal documents that needed to be reviewed and signed. Travel logistics to finalize. My wife being out of town on some of my busiest days, which meant I had to take care of our furry baby. It was just A LOT. The physical load, the mental load. I usually am in bed by 9PM…but these past weeks I was going to bed at midnight! Waking up at 5AM. And to be honest, through most of it my mindset was pretty damn good. I was like, we got this. One step at a time.

a gas pump is connected to a car at a gas station

Putting Only $20 of Gas in the Tank

I managed the stress the way I think most of us do. Focusing on getting from point A to point B. Worrying about Point C and D later. My body would ask for something, and I’d give it just enough to get by. A coffee. A 15 min nap. Water. A protein bar. And my brain would say, “Okay, great. Let’s keep moving.”

It’s like being on a road trip and only ever putting $20 dollars of gas in. Enough to make it to the next stop. So you have to KEEP stopping. If I had just filled the thing up, I would have gone so much further! And I’d probably enjoy the drive more because I wouldn’t have to keep eyeing the tank the entire time.

That’s what I had been doing for two weeks. Top-offs I was trying to write off as “taking care of myself.” And listen, if you’ve been feeling a little foggy, unsettled, you’re not making it up. We just came out of eclipse season, and that stretch tends to shake things up. We’re just the little people inside the snow globe right now, waiting for the snow to settle.

Date Night Starting Off Wrong

So, Friday night, we stayed home. Movie, couch, Spicy Doritos, no agenda.

Saturday morning I let myself sleep in and it felt AMAZING. Then I sat in my office and looked at my list. What was an absolute priority? Reorganized my list and started executing before our big date night later that evening. One that had been planned for MONTHS - opening night of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.

That morning we decided to go out for dinner too. Wasn’t part of the original plan, but thought, why not make tonight a whole experience. No reservations were available, but we figured if we got there by 4:30PM we’d be fine…because who eats dinner that early besides senior citizens?

Well, apparently a lot of people, especially on a holiday weekend. The wait was like 2 hours or something ridiculous. They offered us a table outside, but it was humid; we were downtown, and it was just a NO. Not the experience I wanted to have. I was super bummed because I’d been wanting to take her here for months. But I didn’t want to sit outside and sweat, so we walked a few blocks down to another restaurant we’d been to before.

“I know you’ve been wanting to go to that restaurant for a while. I would have been okay with sitting outside,” said my wife.

“It’s okay. I just didn’t want to force it. I’d rather we go to the other restaurant, be comfortable, take our time, and not be in this rushing, forcing energy. Worst case, we’re a little late to the museum opening. All good,” I replied.

She just smiled at me and nodded. You see, I used to have really bad anxiety. When I planned something for us, it had to go according to plan. And if it didn’t, I would get worked up, annoyed, frustrated…and my poor wife would have to navigate all that. So that smile was her acknowledging the work I’ve put into regulating my nervous system.

Museum or Disneyland?

The museum was way more crowded than we expected. Lines, people, the general chaos of an opening night. So instead of getting flustered, we just looked at each other, laughed, and said, “Okay…so this is going to be like visiting Disneyland, thank God we didn’t wear heels.”

And then as we walked in through the giant glass doors, someone said, “Here are your members-only lanyards. Welcome.”

It made me smile ear to ear; it felt like when we first got Disneyland passes many, many years ago. Disneyland always felt like a place that gives you permission to be a kid. To enjoy the awe, the wonder. Turns out a museum can do that too. Here’s one of my favorite moments with R2-D2 as we walked through the lobby.

But the thing I kept thinking about is how we walked through it. We didn’t try to see everything; we just let our curiosity guide us. There was no pressure to consume the whole museum in one night, because we’re members. We can come back next month. And the month after that. Very different than being in that “tourist” energy, where you aren’t sure you’ll ever come back…so you’re trying to do all the things all in one go.

That night, we just lingered in front of pieces. Glancing over at each other, whispering, “How cool is this?” And another thing that kept happening was naming all the people we wanted to bring back with us, “Oh, so-and-so would LOVE this!” The joy was already overflowing into who we wanted to share it with.

You’re Living Things You Once Couldn’t Imagine

After hours of walking, our feet began to hurt, and our backs got tired. Like a true Disneyland experience, haha. So we decided to wrap up the evening and begin the walk back to the car. We were walking in silence until I said, “Thanks for coming with me. It really meant a lot to me that we got a chance to experience this together.”

“Really? What felt so special about it?” she asked.

I took a moment to think. How could I articulate what I was feeling? And after a few beats of silence it came to me.

“I think it’s the fact that I’ve never done something like this before. I’ve never been a “member” of a museum before. And not just any museum. The George Lucas museum. The guy who created Star Wars! I’ve loved museums my whole life, ever since I was a kid. They’ve always activated this sense of awe in me. And to think that I get to now “contribute” to the preservation of beautiful places like this."

It also makes me think back to the version of me in college. Working multiple jobs to make ends meet. I was in such survival mode; I couldn’t even always afford to put gas in my car, let alone a museum membership. That version of me could not have pictured a night like this: getting dressed up, going to a nice dinner, driving out to LA for a members-only opening night.”

She just listened, like she always does, and said, “Isn’t that amazing to see how far you’ve come?”

“Yes, it is. And how cool to wonder what the future holds. What incredible things will we do that we cannot even imagine right now?”

Because if younger me couldn’t have imagined this, then current me probably can’t imagine what’s coming either. That uncertainty about the future used to scare me, but now it excites me to think that anything is possible.

Reorganizing Your Unconscious Decisions and Beliefs

When is the last time you scheduled time to “be?” We’re all so good at the “doing” part of life, less good at the “being” part. Presence, slow days, joy, wonder, and awe. We label these things as luxuries that come “later.” After “xyz” gets done, we will consider such luxuries.

We treat it as the reward we get at the end of the “doing,” which means most of us never get there, because the doing is endless! You have to decide when enough is enough. You have to decide to STOP even though things are “hectic.”

Because awe, joy, and wonder can only be experienced in the present moment. But sadly, there is Harvard research that reveals we spend about 47% of our day wandering outside the present moment, and it is correlated to our unhappiness.

Your body will give you the “time to slow down” cues before your mind ever does. The mind, the ego, wants to go, go, go all the time. But your body will speak to you early…it’ll give you the “check engine” light early on. But too often we override it. We say, just a little longer. Just a bit more. And then we find ourselves sick, burnt out, or overwhelmed. And the cycle repeats over and over again. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can function a different way. You can decide to deliberately include time for slowing down. For joy. For play.

You just have to figure out what old program is operating at the root. The story dictating your relationships with work, play, and stillness.

My old program was:

“Presence/Play is what I get after the work is done.”
“Rest is something you earn.”

You may think, yes. That’s me too. Great. You have the awareness! So, what’s holding you back from implementing a different way of being? What’s holding you back from showing up differently?

That missing implementation is the whole reason I built the 10 Day Language Code Activation. I wanted to help people who are in that “in-between” space. Perhaps you’re not ready for the commitment of coaching, or feel a little too nervous to book a breakthrough session. This 10 Day challenge is a way to dip your cute little toe in the water.

It starts next week, September 15th and it’s only $44 to join! Everything has been designed to move at the pace of your real life… No matter what time zone you’re in!