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Do You Tend To Cultivate Or Sabotage Your Joy?
Choosing joy is like checking in with yourself to confirm that you are fully awaken to life.
Life gifts us with many wonderful happenings and magical ordinary moments, bringing us pure heartfelt joy and happiness. Only that when we are too busy, too distracted or simply have our priorities messed up, we might fully miss out these moments and positive feelings. Few years ago, in the midst of busy-overwhelmed-distracted season of my life, I embarked on a journey of self-awareness and mindfulness. Choosing more joy has been a natural part of it.
What Is Joy?
While opinions and perspectives regarding the difference between joy and happiness diverge, joy is approached more as an inner feeling and happiness is seen as an outward expression. Happiness tends to be externally triggered, based on things, places, other people, while joy is more internal, rising from making peace with who you are and how you are (1).
I very much happen to enjoy the way David Brooks speaks of joy and happiness in one of his articles. He says that happiness tends to involve a victory for the self, often coming from an accomplishment, while joy involves the transcendence of self, being “the present that life gives you as you give away your gifts” (2). Joy is something bigger and deeper, involving authenticity and transparency (with yourself and others), often rising from affectionate connections.
While personal accomplishments and celebrating our victories is a great source of happiness and an important part of our life, a lot of meaning and beauty can be found, in between these pursuits, in the mundane. As Dr. Brené Browns puts it “Joy comes to us in moments — ordinary moments. We risk missing out on joy when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary.” (3). With years passing, the value and appreciation for these ordinary moments grow. We start knowing ourselves better, we start enjoying ourselves and our journey more, and we have the wisdom to recognise what really matters for us in life.
Why Feeling Joy Matters?
Joy is our natural state. Just look at babies starting to discover the world — they are smiling and excited about everything happening around. And well, once we were babies too, so we…
