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After all, when we see depictions of joy it is often ecstatic joy--"I won the lottery!" joy or "everything in my life is so perfect!" joy. What I think of, and feel, as joy is quiet. It comes to me in hard times or in bright times, in lonely times or among friends. It comes on suddenly sometimes, unexpectedly taking hold of me for a moment, and sometimes I can feel it coming gradually over the course of days. When it arrives, it does not often long endure, but however long its moment is (a minute, an afternoon), in that period I am happy to be alive--happy even though I know I'll die and all that I love will end. Happy because I stop being afraid or anxious and feel free in myself, in the world, and at peace with it.
Do you think that you generated it? The decision to receive joy is the decision to receive God. He will fill your cup to overflowing.True joy is not something that can be generated from the world of things, that's happiness, and is as fleeting as a rainbow. Why would vintage bags melbourne God fill us with this joy that is resilient in the face of suffering, that is inspiring and energetic, that is restorative and eternal?
Don't Hesitateby Mary OliverIf you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,don’t hesitate. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very oftenkind. And much can never be redeemed.Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instantwhen love begins.
As a kid, death was such a overwhelming thought and it's something I was anxious about until my mid thirties. I would often have reccuring dreams about my family being murdered and the thought of dying seemed like a terrifying, abstract concept.My anxiety about death was so great, for my 40th birthday, I took myself off to do a 10 day vipassana mediation. Over 10 hard, long days I grappled with my mortality and while sitting in the large, still hall I realised that by clinging onto control and avoiding the reality of death, I was making things much worse.Life since has taught me about death in real time. My father passed suddenly from pancreatic cancer, a dear friend from bowel cancer and friend's daughter from a brain tumour. Death found it's way to my door and made me sit with it.Death has taught me about the fragility of life and the importance of the very very small moments of joy.
I’ve had two brushes of cancer and since then I make the most of life and whatever it throws…the good and the not so good. I work hard, care for my family and love to travel. Joy is seeing the smile on a child’s face as they look at their dad pulling funny faces. Joy is the warmth of the sun as it rises. Joy is being in a crowd singing along with your favourite band. Joy is cooking a new recipe and seeing the enjoyment it brings to your friends.
Whilst I’ve spent my fair share of time stuck in the doldrums, I’ve also experienced the deep wellspring of joy. Pure and unfettered joy, in my opinion, is dropping everything we think we know. The great burden of who we are and what the world is made of laid down. Less than zero, with no iota of clinging - yet at the same time miraculously full.
Now that my children are older I get my joy from the dog. Sad/predictable maybe but he lives fully in the moment in the way that they used to. He is a clingy breed, what they call a Velcro dog (wire haired Hungarian vizsla). He is super upbeat and I fully recommend.
That is a paper notebook the cover of which includes seeds of sesame and chrysanthemum and once you’re done with it, you can supposedly plant it and wait for it to grow and bloom. So, I thought that I would write one haiku for each day during which I felt grateful for at least one thing, no matter how small or big.The first entries were rare, but as I kept writing, I caught my mind looking for things to be grateful for in the day. This began to give me joy not only for the next haiku I was excited to scribble but also for the small things I have been leaving unnoticed that gave me pure joy. My dog’s breath of relief before sleep. A kiss.My brain gradually started looking for its dose of hormones in these moments and places and the haikus became more frequent.One of these days we visited a cemetery here in Athens and I saw a grave statue of a man writing.
There is also a sea of fur and sand but it’s well worth it.My experience is there are many flavours of joy to be found in all sorts of places but you must look or they can pass by unrealised and that is tragic. Life isn’t a dress rehearsal, this is it, you have to make the most of it. My trick is to use that gift of self-awareness to stop, reflect and appreciate. It could be a moment to marvel at an insect or a block of time considering one’s life. It is a decision; it does takes practice. Tonight after work my wife and I went for a walk on the beach with our dog.
Keep your eyes and ears open, collect enough of them, and one day, maybe, towards the end, you might even look at this gallery you’ve been curating and realise they aren’t actually all that small after all, are they? They are, in fact, rather wonderfully, larger and deeper and richer than you ever dared imagine. That they’re nothing less important than the very constellation points of your time here in this strange, sad, and sometimes fucking jaw-droppingly lovely world we are, each of us, in our own way, going quietly mad within.
I just have to remind myself that I don't always know how to clean off the muck, that I'm human, but I will feel that joy again. How obvious and pedestrian and surely the Red Hand Gang expect better than this? There was time when I was surrounded by babies and small children.
They are, we are so vulnerable an in order to experience joy I must make peace with this truth.What brings me joy? There is 3-year-old who fills my top pocket with dinosaurs and feeds them cheese. When something makes me feel completely myself and simultaneously at one with the universe, then I feel joy. I felt it at the total solar eclipse in April and immediately began researching the times and locations of future eclipses. Unfortunately, it quickly became obvious that I cannot afford to chase the moon's shadow. I'm not so sure I agree with you, Nick, that joy is something you have to seek out.
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It isn’t a choice, it is something that happens to us. Completion is joy, in every sense of the word. Anything that allows for that quiet but exuberant sigh, where you stop any reflect and smile.