How to Find Joy, Colour, and Strategy in the Unexpected
For many in the 2SLGBTQiA+ community, life has never followed a traditional path, and that’s exactly where beauty often lives. Whether it’s crafting chosen family, embracing fluid identities, or navigating a world not always built for them, queer life is filled with unexpected turns. But instead of avoiding the unknown, this community has learned how to meet it with creativity, colour, and intention. There’s power in surprise, and strategy in joy. When you live outside the box, you get to paint your own. Here’s how to find purpose, play, and pride in life’s most unpredictable moments.
Embrace Change as a Creative Force
Change isn’t always easy, but it’s often the spark behind people’s boldest transformations. Many queer folks know what it means to shift, to come out, to transition, to try again after rejection. What if, instead of fearing change, you viewed it as creative energy? When something falls apart, it makes space for something better. Whether it’s your style, your relationships, or your dreams, embracing the unexpected lets you reimagine what happiness looks like. Change can be a palette, not just a plot twist. What you build next is yours, and that’s where the magic happens
Build Strategy in Everyday Chaos
Life rarely plays out in perfect order, especially when you’re carving your own way through it. But being queer teaches you how to read a room, sense energy, and plan smart moves in uncertain spaces. This skill shows up everywhere, from navigating social situations to setting career boundaries. Even in how you unwind, there’s strategy in spontaneity. For example, when people play blackjack in Ontario through online platforms, the appeal isn’t just in luck. It’s in knowing when to take a risk or hold back. Whether it’s a card game or a conversation, trusting your instincts makes all the difference.
Celebrate Colour in All Its Forms
People often talk about queerness in terms of identity, but it’s also a vibe, a way of seeing the world through vivid lenses. Colour isn’t just about aesthetics. It’s about expression. From drag to dancefloors to flags waving at Pride, the 2SLGBTQiA+ community has always used colour as a symbol of joy, defiance, and visibility. Adding colour to life doesn’t require art supplies or makeup. It’s in your choices, your laughter, your resilience. Even on grey days, small acts like changing your outfit, curating a playlist, or planting something in bloom can bring brightness back into focus.
Find Joy in Chosen Moments and Chosen Family
Unexpected joy is one of the queer community’s greatest skills. It’s in the way they gather, the humour they carry, the traditions they create themselves. When blood family doesn’t show up, chosen family often does, and sometimes those connections are even deeper. Creating joyful moments can be as simple as a kitchen dance party, a spontaneous picnic, or an inside joke with someone who truly sees you. These aren’t distractions from real life; they are real life. Finding joy in the everyday isn’t naïve. It’s a strategy for survival, healing, and connection that queer folks have mastered.
Use Uncertainty to Strengthen Identity
Not knowing what comes next can feel terrifying, but it can also help you learn who you really are. The 2SLGBTQiA+ experience often includes questioning, rethinking, and exploring multiple identities before landing on something that feels true. That journey builds emotional depth, flexibility, and courage. When you don’t have a clear map, you make your own. You learn how to sit with discomfort, listen inward, and move forward anyway. And along the way, you start realizing that identity isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about learning to live fully in the questions.
Please play responsibly. The 2SLGBTQiA+ community is known to be at higher risk for gambling-related harm due to a range of social and economic factors. If you or someone you know is struggling with gambling, there are support services available in British Columbia. Contact the BC Gambling Support Line at 1-888-795-6111, available 24/7, or visit www.bcresponsiblegambling.ca for confidential help, information, and free counselling.