The Joys of Life

"The sage calmly stopped pouring tea and looked at him: Your mind, sir, is much like this teacup.  I'm afraid it is already too full for me to be able to fit anything else into.  Else it will surely run over and spill everywhere."

- Traditional Adage

Playing with an elephant in a river in Nepal

As you go thru life it's way too easy to focus on the negative and what's going wrong in both your life and the world.  This isn't the full story though.  There is always good to be found, no matter your circumstance.  Even if it is simply: I am alive today.

The news focuses on what sells and what gets clicks, which is usually negative.  You will never see a news headline that says, "Person Lost Car Keys, Neighbor Picks Person Up and Gives Them a Ride Home."  Nobody would read that article or watch that segment, even though it's uplifting.

The truth of the matter is that is exactly the type of headline that fills the majority of our lives and world, but you'll never see it since it doesn't sell.  The negativity that you do see is such a small portion of what actually exists, miniscule in fact.

If you find yourself focusing on the negative of your life or the world then I challenge you to find the joy amongst the negativity.  Don't ignore the negativity but rather acknowledge it, let it move along and find the joy that exists amongst it.  Such as a flower growing through a crack in the sidewalk.

When you find yourself struggling to find the joy, think back to a moment where you were truly happy, a moment where you experienced a tremendous amount of bliss and laughter that no amount of negativity could suppress.  For myself, at the moment, that is playing with an elephant in a river in Nepal at an elephant sanctuary where the elephant appeared to have just as much fun, if not more fun than we were having as we all played in the river.

Once you have that moment in your mind, close your eyes and just relive that moment.  Let that happiness, bliss and laughter of that past moment wash over you and just experience it as if it were happening all over again.

When you open your eyes, focus on what you can do right now to cultivate the same joy in your life, presently and in the future.  It might be as simple as taking a deep breathe, going for a walk and appreciating everything around you.  Or it could be as complex as booking an international trip to somewhere where you don't speak the language and will surely be way outside of your comfort zone.

We can't change the past but we can certainly learn from it and we can harness what made us happy in the past to recreate that in the present and future to give us hope.  Plus, when you relive those moments, your mind doesn't know the difference between the past and present so your mind and body act as if you were experiencing that past moment in the present.  If you relive negative moments, your putting your body through the full stress of that moment over and over and over - which is not good.  If you relive positive moments, you're giving yourself a gift and you are reliving the positivity of that moment, over and over and over - as if it were happening right now, every single time.

When you find yourself getting caught up in the constant bombardment of negativity in the world, ask yourself, "Does this matter?"  Really, does that news headline actually matter in the grand scheme of the universe?  Tomorrow there will be another equally negative news headline as there will be next week, next month, and next year.  It never ends.  Meanwhile, out in the real world, there's a whole lot of positivity going on that you will never ever hear about.

As you go through life, focus on what you are spending your time on and ask yourself, "Does this matter?"  I'm looking at you social media.  How much of what you spend your time on actually matters to you?  When you find yourself spending time on things that do not matter then stop doing them and replace them with things that do matter.  Goodbye social media and hello playing guitar!

What you spend your time on matters so make it count.  What you focus your mind on matters so make it positive.  Don't ignore the negativity but acknowledge it and let it move along, just like watching a cloud roll across the sky.  This is a practice and this is a choice.

Find the joy in life - it always exists, no matter how dark things may seem.  Find the candle that exists in the dark room and focus on the candle shining bright instead of the darkness surrounding it.  Better yet, become the candle that shines bright.  Become the one that guides others out of the darkness.  Shine so bright that nothing can ever suppress your light, no matter how hard they may try, make it a spectacle.

When you find yourself stumbling around in the dark room, tripping across stools and cracking your head open.  Remember that every single person has been in that exact spot at some point in their life and for some of us, we can't even start to see the light until we're laying motionless on the floor and bleeding out.  Then you roll your head to look to the other side of the room and you see that faint flicker that you've never noticed before but it has always been there.  As you focus on it, it grows brighter and brighter and brighter and then it guides you out of that hell hole of a room to a land where you start seeing unicorns and rainbows everywhere you look.

Become one with the light, anyone can, even you!

If you find yourself currently stuck in that dark room and it's starting to seem like you'll never find your way out then I have one word for you:

HOPE

Hold On Pain Ends