Three Steps To A More Enjoyable Life
Do you know joy in your life? To have a more enjoyable life firstly you must know joy. I consider joy to be more than happiness but not as great as bliss.
In Ancient Egypt they believed that upon death you would be asked two questions which determine the continuation of one’s journey into the afterlife. The first question was “Did you bring joy?”. The second question was “Did you find joy?”
You are born with joy. Witness the unconditional joy of a baby gurgling and laughing. What happens to most of us is that we chose to bury that inner joy and we seek the shiny things of life to satisfy our ego’s needs.
Those of us brought up in less affluent times remember the unbridled joy of our first car which was usually a “cheapie”. What joy we felt when driving our car and the freedom it brought us. Freedom is an ingredient of finding joy and once you find joy you want to share it. The feeling of joy is contagious!
Joy is found in sharing, giving, serving, feeling worthwhile and finding happiness in the smallest of things. Feeling gratitude for all we have and choosing to ignore what we don’t have enables this gratitude to unearth our inner joy.
There are three steps to take in most endeavours in life. These steps are non- resistance; non- judgement and non- attachment. In finding joy and giving joy these three steps remain constant.
1. Do not resist joy when you find it.
Believe, know and experience joy even if it lasts a second or a day or even longer. Don’t say why do I deserve to be joyful when the world is in such a bad way and thousands of people are dying daily of starvation. Don’t resist the joy that has found you. This joy has come to you and wants you to share it with others. You have been selected as a messenger of joy, don’t resist this opportunity to be joyful. Simply be joyful.
2. Don’t judge joy or your joy or anyone else who is joyful.
Don’t judge whether they or you deserve to be joyful and especially don’t judge the choice of joy to alight on you. Joy has chosen you whether you feel worthy or not, it is immaterial. Any judgement of joy and your feeling unworthy of being joyful is simply a judgement that lacks total understanding as all judgements do. Judging someone or something means that you have chosen not to understand them, or it, fully, and you are simply being too lazy to investigate. It’s much easier to simply judge anyway. Don’t judge the joy you feel, embrace it for this moment of now!
3. Let joy be who you are as your inner being and express that joy outward.
However, do not become attached to joy and hold it tight so it can’t escape. Joy is a feeling and feelings are usually fleeting. Only a well trained mind, in a meditative sense, can prolong the feeling of joy through gratitude and acceptance leading to develop joy into bliss. Accept that for this moment of now you are joyful and don’t attach yourself to only wanting to be joyful. Simply be joyful now.
In the world of duality that we live in on earth the counterbalance to joy is sorrow. If we didn’t know sorrow we could not recognise joy, its opposite. Expect that the see-saw of your life will alternate between joy and sorrow as it does with so many other dualities. Accept joy but let it go where it needs to be next after alighting on you. Be thankful for the moment of joy and express your gratitude in and for such joy.
For those on a spiritual path knowing that your Higher Power is only Joy, that your soul is a part of such a Higher Power and that you are joy as your inner most being. This inner joy is bursting to come out into your world but the mental obstacles your ego has placed in your way by doing, acquiring, defending its position and so many other ego -based actions are suffocating this inner joy expressed as your soul. Recognise these ego-based thoughts, words and actions and know that ego equals failure and learn to become more egoless and humble and joy will find you again and again as it lives within you in your soul.
For those who are interested I have written a free book found on my website PersonalEmpowerment.co
Ego = Failure subtitled learning to become more egoless and humble. Reading it will unlock your inner joy.