Happy March, everyone! My March has started off with a winter storm dropping several inches of snow and temperatures in the teens for the next couple of days. It’s not sunny and 80 degrees, but I still don’t object to it! Don’t worry, it’s not that miserable. Although my oldest son keeps stating “I can’t wait for winter to be over, I want to live in a place where there are palm trees.” Don’t worry big guy, heavy perspiration, boiling-hot park slides, and gallons of Gatorade with fresh fruit are just a couple of months away.
Anyway, I know what you all must be thinking. “Pushing buttons… ok, I see what this is going to be about. The weather or something, maybe someone has been aggravating him lately – so he is going to talk about the proverbial ‘button pushing.’ Is he going to rat someone out?” No. While I can relate to that kind of button pushing, that is not my reason for this post. Believe it or not, it’s about joy. Surprised? Confused? Me too! Let’s talk about it!
Attention all readers, here’s a disclaimer: This post is not meant to tell you where joy is. Repeat. There is no pot of joy at the end of this rainbow. I am simply offering perspective and encouraging maybe a little patience while we go adventuring for it.
So, where is joy? What is joy? Well, I think that is different for everyone – and it is fully dependent on your perspective. My young kids remind me of the importance of perspective each and every day. Take my youngest son (18 months), for example. Regardless of his emotional state, if given the opportunity to open the microwave door and push the start button to heat up his milk before bed, everything changes. Tears go to smiles. Ear aches fade away to laughs. Stress turns to joy. Why is that joyful? I personally have no clue, because he’s been crying for thirty minutes and I am now wondering if it is plausible to patent a contraption that hangs from the ceiling in front of the microwave. Perhaps his fascination of beeps and lights, and his exploring brain connect to button-pushing captivation.
That very situation the other evening got me thinking, how can I relate to this type of joy? Warm milk seems less than appealing. Unless… it’s in my coffee. Bingo, coffee. My morning coffee is equally as joyful. Maybe it’s not a long-lasting joy, and maybe it seems trivial. But my point is, over time having many (dare I say, ‘a latte’ of?) joyful experiences leads to sustained joy – if you let it. Wherever you are in life, whatever your situation – even in the deepest of despair – joy is there for you. But you might have to work for joy. You have to find ways to make life joyful. It’s all about perspective.
Think back for yourself, and identify a moment, or a place in time where you experienced joy. And I’m not talking about a stint of “happiness.” I mean JOY. That deep-seeded thing that resonates in your heart. That fulfillment that isn’t temporary. Do you ever wonder how it lasts? Because those particular moments in time are over, yet somehow the joy persists. It doesn’t look the same throughout the different phases of our lives. I’m certain that at 18 years old, my son isn’t going to enjoy hitting the microwave buttons as much as he does now (unless it’s for a chicken and steak Chipotle burrito). But if we adapt to where we are – if we keep our “joy perspective” as our lens changes – it will be more natural to recognize new joyful moments. For example, I have found (and still do find) tremendous joy in sports. I can still remember the feeling of running out to my favorite position as a young kid playing baseball. Ok, let’s be truthful, I still had that EXACT SAME feeling at 22 years old playing college baseball, but I was just a much taller, gigantic man-kid. Either way, that was truly joyful for me. My heart leapt as I ran out on the field. While today I don’t still run out to the same position that I did at 22, my now much tamer, sports-enthusiast-self finds joy in knowing others can appreciate that same feeling in their lives.
I can fast-forward through the years of my life, and now I’m on a totally different field. My position now is being a good husband and father. I remember some of those monumental joyous occasions: the moment I asked my wife of 10 years to marry me, our wedding day, and the birth of each of our three children. Don’t get me wrong, I know that occasions such as these don’t sit the same with everyone. What may bring joy to some, may be tragic or uninviting to others because of circumstances beyond their control (or perhaps in their control, but they made a wrong choice). But there is joy somewhere for all of us – remember to keep searching for it. You can’t find something you’re choosing not to look for.
“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
Wayne Dyer
A purposeFULL thought: What kind of “joy-lens” are you looking through?
purposeFULL 