I've about decided most people may not have a huge capacity for joy. I think some people feel that joy is simply the absence of emotional pain. I think joy is like a muscle. If you don't exercise it often enough, it gets flabby--and we all know what flab looks like. Think of it as emotional cellulite.....fatty dimples all over your soul.
What do you do to find your joy? Do you have to spend a lot of money to have it? Do you look to other people for your joy? Is your joy confined to a certain zip code, designer, or make of car? Does your joy begin and end with a dollar sign? The way I see it, that's not joy, that's acquisition. Acquisition of stuff. Don't get me wrong. I like me some pretties just like everyone else, but those are things and things do not bring me joy. Fun maybe, but definitely not joy.
My joy comes from love. Love given freely, nothing expected in return. Service. Giving help to someone in need v. shopping mindlessly for something I don't need in the first place. And giving doesn't require money. It requires giving effort and time to someone who needs it. Joy for me is also the tee tiny stuff. Claire in her leggings with two pigtails on top of her head talking the whole way, walking down the block to her school. The first daffodil that peaks through the ground at our house that I planted 15-20 years ago. The tiny miniature Lady Banksia yellow climbing roses that bloom every year in the back yard. I don't think anyone else around here even sees or cares about them, and that's OK, but I freak over them every year. The hawks I see regularly flying overhead. Red bud trees when they burst into bloom. Seeing the smiles on Hudson, Hadley's, and Avery's faces when they play. Seeing my sons and daughter-in-law and hearing their voices. Hearing Fred and my two sons bray like donkeys, doing the wheezy laugh, when they are laughing so hard they cannot control themselves, tears streaming down their faces. For me, that's Joy.
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