It seems that in the month of December we hear the word 'joy' alot. The 'joy' of Christmas, 'joy' to the world, the 'joy' of the season, and it goes on and on. Now I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing but it gave me cause to wonder as to why we hear it so much in December and yet barely an honorable mention the rest of the year. Well, it may be mentioned here and there, but certainly not the way it is exalted in December. The last month of the year is practically filled with joy and the rest of the year seems to go without. Hmmm.....why is that?
I looked up the definition of joy and it's said to mean "the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying; keen pleasure; elation". Ok, that sounds good to me. Makes alot of sense and I can say that December is often filled with much of what the definition states. So what happens the rest of the year? Is there no 'delight' or 'happiness' in the first eleven months of the year? I realize we won't be walking around filled with joy each and every moment of our life, but I think it can be present alot more than what it is. I just don't think we need to be joy-'less' from January til November. There must be 'joyful' things in our lives in the first 11 months. I like joy. I like delight and happiness. It makes me feel good and who doesn't want to feel good?
I look around as I move through life and see alot of people that do not express happiness. Maybe they don't know for themselves what that looks like or are unable to realize it in their life because they really don't have an understanding that happiness can be afforded for them also. The prevalent feeling in the world these days is not joy. We are much more surrounded by misery and unhappiness than joy. This has become our norm and then leads us to minimize even the possibility of happiness or joy. Our thinking and believing has been turned around and held at bay because of how the world has shifted itself to live in unhappiness. How did we get so unhappy? That's a whole other blog post but I think you know what I'm getting at. I think this is more than likely a big part of the problem. It's not uncommon for people to be puzzled by another person's happiness or good mood. I have had people come up to me and ask me how I am and when I say I'm 'great' they respond by questioning that. For a moment they make me think I maybe shouldn't feel so great and that I should re-examine that. It's not the norm anymore to be happy or feel joy. So then is unhappiness the 'new normal'? Oh dear.....we have really messed this up, but like I said if you look around, alot of everything points toward non-happiness. So how do we begin to change this attitude...... because it is an 'attitude' and it can be changed. Somewhere back we chose misery and unhappiness and now we can choose something different. I know it's not as easy as waking up and just being happy but if we even have the understanding that we have a choice then it makes a difference. We can be in charge instead of letting others be in charge for us. The more that we collectively begin to make a change then we will see changes reaching farther and farther from us. It's the ripple effect and it will simply do what it does so beautifully and it all starts with us.
There will always be something, even if it's only one little thing, to be joyful about in life. It need not be big. Yes, we may be living in a world prevalent with misery and unhappiness but let's choose to turn that around and fill our lives with joy. Start with even a few moments of joy and you will find that it will change how you feel. Then increase the moments of joy and you will find that it feels a whole lot better than miserable. Hopefully the scale of happiness vs. unhappiness will tilt itself to a new normal for yourself and you will feel the effects of joy. It does make a difference. It will change your whole being because what we do and how we feel affects us as a whole person.
Let's look for and experience joy all year round. Let's find joy in our daily life and then bring it to others by simply being who we are and living the life that we do.......
May your day be joyful .........
Namaste
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