Recently while performing music I met a lady who was full of the joys of life. She told me that a few years beforehand she’d got a brain tumour. As she lay in the hospital bed wondering would she live or die, one of her dominant thoughts was that the very thing that had brought so much joy into her life she had given up years beforehand. For her that was music.
She swore that if she survived the brain tumour she would bring it back into her life again. Well she did survive and shortly after getting out of hospital she went to her parents house and there in the attic was the old banjo she used to play. She took it up, got a few lessons and now plays joyfully once a week in her village pub.
Is there any price we can put on joy in life? Yet many times the paradigm we live by is “there’s no gain without pain”, so we let go of what we find joyful and attach ourselves to what we find painful! We struggle on sometimes for years hoping that one day we will find joy!
Maybe it’s time to break the chains of this self imposed struggle and align our lives with that which feels truly joyful. And not joyful in the future but in the present. In truth that is the only way we can measure joy – in the present! And not only does this joy help us in-joy our lives but it touches other people in ways we could never even imagine!
As the author Richard Bach, states in Illusions – “In the path of our happiness shall we find the learning for which we have chosen this lifetime”.
Do something that makes you joyful this week. Even if only for a day – create a day where your only intention is to be joyful! Then watch the magic happen!
Remember we don’t have to wait until life gives us some wake up call, we simply have to make a conscious decision to “be” joyful and “do” what we find joyful!
In-Joy
Sean