Want to experience more joy in your life? Here is what you should do.
As
we contemplate and reflect on the joys of this festive season
Some
perennial questions crop up:
Why
are we more joyous and generous of spirit during Christmas, than any other time?
How
can we experience more joy in our everyday life?
Why
is joy so fleeting and impermanent?
Is
it possible to always be joyful and exuberant?
We
thought this is an opportune time to look at the literature
To
see how we humans have attempted to answer these questions.
Let’s
begin at the beginning - what is joy?
There
seems to be two distinct meanings we ascribe to the word:
First,
is ‘a feeling of great delight or happiness’;
Second,
is ‘a feeling of gratification aroused by something good or desired’.
At
first reading, the two seem to be describing the same thing,
But
when you zoom in, you quickly realize,
The
first is describing an outward expression,
While
the second is describing an inner state of being.
That
is, we can see and know when someone is delighted and happy,
But
we can’t know if they are indeed gratified and content.
True, both are emotional states, but the last definition has more -
It is both an emotion and a state of being, or an attitude, if you will.
One author in explaining the difference between happiness and joy puts it this way:
"Happiness is because of. Joy is in spite of. Happiness comes as a result of the things that are happening in your life. When things are happy and good then that produces happiness. This comes from outside and works its way in. Joy on the other hand comes in spite of. While the things happening around you can in fact produce joy, your joy is not dependent on those things. Because joy flows from the reservoir inside of you it has the ability to sustain you even if nothing on the outside gives you a reason to rejoice. This is why you can have joy in the midst of trials, hardships, or even some of the difficult places in life because it is springing up from what is inside.’"
We are persuaded that the second definition yields better outcomes.
We thus think joy is an inner enlivening feeling of gladness and blessedness.
It's
the lightness of heart and spirit.
You
can tell a joyful person from the radiance of their eyes, the warmth of their smile,
Their easy and hearty laugh, their compassion and kindness,
Their
almost ethereal humility and humanness.
You
feel immediately magnetized and attracted to them –
Our
sixth sense tells us that they are worth of our trust, even if they are total
strangers.
Where, then, does joy come from?
There is near unanimity with the following statement by David Steindl-Rast:
"The root of joy is gratefulness. It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”
The literature is consistent and vivid:
Gratefulness
makes us full and overflowing –
It
makes us feel that we are enough, and that there is enough to go around.
A
grateful heart knows that despite its present conditions and tomorrow's fears,
All
is, and will be well.
When
we become conscious of how lucky and blessed we are,
That’s
when we are most joyous, most radiant, and most generous of spirit.
From
the literature, there seems to be three principal schools of thought
On
how joy enters our lives.
The
first school of thought sees joy
as
something arising from the boughs of sorrow and disappointment.
An
example of this is Kahlil Gibran:
"When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”
To
this school, joy and sorrow are two sides of the same coin.
The
second school of thought, and, perhaps, the dominant one in today's society,
sees
joy as a conquest – a reward for our struggle.
It
straps us unto a hedonic treadmill in which joy is tied to our victories and
statuses.
Without
achievement, we have no joy, a serious modern-day malady,
that
has led all manner of addictions and mental-health issues.
The third school of thought sees joy as a blessing that exists in and of its itself,
independent
of prevailing conditions, status or predicament.
It
exists in this very moment as you are reading this, and in every other moment.
We
just need to see it, choose it, and seize it.
An
example of this is Ashley Smith:
“Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.”
Another
example is in a song written by Shirley Caesar:
"This Joy that I have, the world didn’t give to me;
The world didn’t give it, the world can’t take it away"
See
also this poem by Mary Oliver titled 'Heavy'.
The
first and second schools of thought view joy as something that is fleeting.
It
ebbs and flows according to the vicissitudes of life and winds of fortune.
The
third school views joy as sacrosanct and endemic –
As
something embedded, emblazoned or engraved into every moment, and into life
itself.
To
this school, joy is not something that rises or falls,
And
it's not a reward you win for doing something,
But
rather, it manifests itself irrespective of pain, sorrow, disappointment or
frustration.
To
them joy’s bounty is never fleeting or empty, rather, it's always flowing and
full.
To
them, joy is something we choose to see and embrace, or not.
An
example of this is Henri Matisse when he writes:
“I didn't expect to recover from my second operation but since I did, I consider that I'm living on borrowed time. Every day that dawns is a gift to me and I take it in that way. I accept it gratefully without looking beyond it. I completely forget my physical suffering and all the unpleasantness of my present condition and I think only of the joy of seeing the sun rise once more and of being able to work a little bit, even under difficult conditions.”
Another
example is Matthew Buckley when he writes:
"There are a lot of people in this life that will try to convince you that they're selling something that will bring you joy. The simple fact of the matter is that *things* don't bring you joy. You have to find joy in life experience. And if you take along somebody you love, then that journey is going to be all the more enjoyable. I can promise you right now that both good and bad things are going to happen to you in your life. Good and bad things happen to everybody. Some people are good at finding the miserable things in life, and some are good at finding the joy. No matter what happens to you, what you remember is up to you.”
The key insight here is that, since there's something to be grateful for in every moment,
in
each circumstance, and at every stage of our life;
Then
joy (gladness) is embedded in everyday everything.
The
fact that we may not be joyful at the moment or, all the time,
has
nothing to do with our situation, condition, circumstance or prevailing predicament,
but,
rather, in our choice of what we give attention to, focus on and respond to.
Like
many other things in life, joy (gladness) is a choice.
And
yes, we are solely responsible for how joyful we are feeling right now.
What,
then, should we do to experience more joy in our lives?
How
can we become more joyful people?
The
first step is in choosing the right approach for achieving your joy.
Following
the first or second schools of thought means
joy
is transient, fleeting and dependent on the situation or circumstance you are
in.
Following
the third school of thought means
joy
is natural, and always there, irrespective and despite of the prevailing
circumstances.
The
third school of thought locates joy, gladness, blessedness and gratefulness
as
permanent features of the universe – always there, waiting in the wings.
Hence,
one way we can experience more joy or become more joyful,
Is
by becoming more observant of our blessings, and being grateful for them;
That
is, by cherishing what we have, and releasing what we don't have.
Another way of arriving at the same point is by taking a long view of things,
contemplating the vastness of the universe,
or,
recalling past generous deeds, especially those we’ve done without recompense.
In this regard Ravi
Ravindra writes:
“Pondering on large ideas or standing in front of things which remind us of a vast scale can free us from acquisitiveness and competitiveness and from our likes and dislikes. If we sit with an increasing stillness of the body, and attune our mind to the sky or to the ocean or to the myriad stars at night, or any other indicators of vastness, the mind gradually stills and the heart is filled with quiet joy. Also recalling our own experiences in which we acted generously or with compassion for the simple delight of it without expectation of any gain can give us more confidence in the existence of a deeper goodness…”
Hence, this third paradigm places the responsibility of accessing and experiencing joy on us.
It absolves joy of the dependencies we've attached to it,
and releases it to ether, where it belongs,
where anybody and everybody can reach out and touch it.
As
Dominic Owen says
"Beauty is everywhere, love is endless, and joy bleeds from our everyday existence. Embrace it."
And
when you experience the lightness that comes with knowing you are enough,
That
life is good as it is, that you have everything you need to lead a fulfilling life,
That
you are lucky and blessed to be here, and glad to be alive;
Only then do you begin to feel a sense of abundance,
a generosity of spirit that allows you to be joyful, radiant, kind, and compassionate.
The
ramifications of this are immense and transformative for us,
our
families, and the whole society.
In
the words of Pope Benedict:
“The world needs people who discover the good, who rejoice in it and thereby derive the impetus and courage to do good. Joy, then, does not break with solidarity. When it is the right kind of joy, when it is not egotistic, when it comes from the perception of the good, then it wants to communicate itself, and it gets passed on. In this connection, it always strikes me that in the poor neighborhoods of, say, South America, one sees many more laughing happy people than among us. Obviously, despite all their misery, they still have the perception of the good to which they cling and in which they can find encouragement and strength.
In this sense we have a new need for that primordial trust which ultimately only faith can give. That the world is basically good ...That it is good to live and to be a human being. This results, then, in the courage to rejoice, which in turn becomes commitment to making sure that other people, too, can rejoice and receive good news.”
May
be this is what the phrase joie de vivre is meant to capture –
Embracing
the joy of living,
Embracing the
joy of being alive,
Embracing the
simple pleasures of life that money and status can’t buy or take away,
Embracing the
vast and constant sources of gratitude that fill our days.
It's
this gladness for being alive,
this
belief that life is good,
this
generosity of heart and spirit
that
permits us to share, thereby multiplying our joys, and transmitting it to
others,
Thus echoing the words of Steve Goodier:
“The wonderful thing is that when we start spreading joy, we begin to actually experience more joy in our lives too!”
This explains why we all find ourselves in a joyous holiday mood during Christmas -
In our gladness and sharing, we not only experience more joy in ourselves,
but
we also transmit to others, hence multiplying it many times over.
And
here’s a final word from Desmond Tutu:
“Discovering more joy does not save us from the inevitability of hardship and heartbreak. In fact, we may cry more easily, but we will laugh more easily too. Perhaps we are just more alive. Yet as we discover more joy, we can face suffering in a way that ennobles rather than embitters. We have hardship without becoming hard. We have heartbreaks without being broken.”
Joy
(gladness) makes our loads lighter and easier to carry.
It
helps us bear our burdens, persevere our trials, and overcome our obstacles.
It
helps us heal faster.
It
makes us more resilient.
It
helps us think and act more humanely, and more sustainably,
for
our own health, and that of the planet.
It
gives us peace of mind and a contented heart.
May you find your joy now, today, tomorrow, and all the days to come.
And may you learn to trust that joy is and will always be there, waiting for you to embrace it.
Merry, Merry, Christmas!
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