Joy

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There are many things that can give us a sense of joy ~ and many of them appear to be small or casual things... Like a dinner with friends or family. Observing young children at play.

And then there are the things that ‘strike a cord in us’ Things that are personal to us in the sense that they mean something more to us than they might to anyone else. It can be an object of exceptional beauty, a bunch of flowers, music, a good book, a movie ~ or something we see in nature; be it the urban jungle or ‘proper’ nature.

When we really give it some thought, there are many things that can bring a sense of joy into our lives.
Looking from this perspective, the fact that there are so many things that can be joyful to us brings up the question why we don’t experience this sense of joy on a more continuous basis... Why do we have ‘joyful moments’, even an evening that fills us with joy, or a joy-filled day the memory of which will be with us for ever ~ rather than living a joyful life?
Now, I don’t mean to say that those moments, evenings and days of joy aren’t something to be treasured and kept close to our hearts. Yet it seems that if there are so many little, casual things that can give us joy we should be able to experience it way more often than just on those special occasions...

It makes me think that while there are many things that can induce in us this sense of joy ~ we need to open ourselves to receiving it as well.
It is not enough to just know that there are things that bring joy into our lives; just like life itself it is one of those things that requires a certain level of participation on our part. We need to be willing to truly see the things of beauty and joy that are coming our way ~ perhaps even be on the lookout for them!

This involves a state of mind that is nowadays often described as ‘mindfulness’ ~ the calm awareness that allows us to live in the moment.
When we stop spending time and energy thinking about things that already have happened, or can happen in the future we suddenly may find that we are not quite as busy as we thought we were ~ leaving us time to be open to the good things our lives have to offer. Like joy.

In a sense one could say that while there are many things capable of bringing joy into our lives, we can choose to experience those joyful moments!
And who wouldn’t want to do that?
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