Rule #5 - Find Your Joy & Share It - Part 1

Part 1:

Here we are, the 5th and final rule on the road to finding joy. This one is the most important and it builds on the foundation of the first four. So many of us feel that emptiness, that void, left from the joy we know should be there. So many know that pain and longing for something more. What we seem to blind ourselves to though is the fact that the joy we want so badly is all around us just waiting to be seized. We have to be open to it when it comes our way, we must be able to recognize it and know how to accept it. We must choose to be joyful and live with intent. Never stop looking for the joy in life because it is always there, just coming from different places sometimes. Find the things that make you happy and hold on to them, hold them strong as a life raft and never let go. When the dark skies gather overhead those things that you carry with you are what will be your beacon of shining light in the storm. They are what will rescue you and what help carry you along through life. 

It may help to keep a journal, write down one thing every day that made you joyful. Or just write whenever you can remember to. Write before bed or carry it with you and write throughout the day. Use the Notepad app on your smartphone, or another journaling app. Make a photo journal if you like to take pictures. Do whatever it takes for you to recognize your joy and grab hold. You can start by looking for and recognizing things around you that you see everyday that bring you even the littlest spark of joy. Maybe it's the special coffee you get every morning or the color of the sky just after it rains. Maybe it's the smell of the ocean or maybe it's the feel of the forest floor. It could be reading a new book, an old book, a favorite book, a comic book or just about anything else. Joy is specific to each and every one of us, just stand still and listen - you will hear the call of joy. Too many times we put so much time, effort and energy into trying to be happy and joyful that we don't see what's right in front of us - joy itself. The noise that we make and the clamor from all of our actions drown out the truth facing us everyday. 

I recently saw a quote from Chuang-Tse saying "Perfect happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness." It is confusing to think about at first, searching and yet standing still. How does that work? Well, it's pretty easy if you just let go. Stop stressing, stop worrying, stop grinding your teeth, stop biting your nails and every other bad habit that exists. The active part comes from choosing to see the joyful things in life and focus on them even with the troubled and dark times. Standing still means taking a deep breathe to realize that you are alive and things will be ok. When you take a second to stand still and focus on your breathing or your heart rate it becomes much easier to rationalize and make yourself understand that in this moment you are living and thinking. For that alone you can be joyful. It is just like love, don't go searching for joy or you will never find it. When you search for something your vision becomes tunneled and focused and you lose sight of the things surrounding you, the very place where things are always hidden. Take a moment today to relax and focus. Try to do it every morning or everyday at lunch or every morning in the car. It can be for ten minutes for for two. Listen to your favorite song or look at your favorite scrapbook. Take a moment for joy because however cliche we don't know if we will get a tomorrow or not. We don't know if we will get a later today or not. We must treasure the greatest gift we could ever receive, joy to fill the short time we are here on this planet. We can get caught up in life and work and our crazy hectic schedules and forget that we are mortal and our time here is limited. We do forget to stop and smell the roses, which we say we don't have time to do now but what are we going to think and feel the day we die? Will we wish we had taken it in more then? Yea, probably, so let's not let it be too late. It's never to late to change, ever. Don't be like a fallen leaf carried place to place on the wind, let yourself take a minute and just soak it all in. Things are never as bad as they seem to be, don't let yourself get tricked by all these people telling you where to go and who to be. You are you, there's no changing that, and there's no changing that you are going to die someday - let's live the time we have filled with and motivated by Joy. Find Your Joy & Share It!