“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” – James 1: 2
Joy doesn’t come into my life like a fleeting emotion or feeling. For me, it is a state of `being’. It’s an `is’. It’s an `am’. It’s a constant and endless flow of grace, much like breathing, that has become such an integral part of my existence that I feel disconnected from my own self, and from the world, when I am not living in a state of joy.
Let me explain.
Joy, as I interpret it, has nothing to do with `happiness’. Nothing.
Because `happiness’ is conditional. It depends on outside stimulus to exist. For example, we think we will feel happy if certain positive events take place in our lives. Like a job promotion, or more money in the bank, or a new car or a Caribbean holiday…
We deeply feel the lack of these much-wanted things in our lives, and believe our happiness lies in the having of them.
But what is often the result of this “pursuit of happiness”?
We achieve our material goal – for example, finally buying the new car – and feel happy in moment. Then, as our mind settles into the knowledge that we already possess it, the novelty begins to wear off. We’re less and less happy about the new car in our garage. Our hearts now look for a new goal to latch on to, and we predicate our happiness on that next outcome. And so, on and on it goes, this pursuit of happiness with no security, surety or longevity.
It is a proven fact that lottery winners do not – cannot – maintain happiness for the long-term. Because happiness is attached to people, events and things that are outside of us, and fully dependant of them being a certain way. The new car, for instance, can never grow old, scratched, dented or dirty because that would rob us of the `new car’ happiness we pursued so hard.
The second loophole in the “pursuit of happiness” is not achieving it. What happens if a milestone we set in our lives is never reached? Will we spend the rest of lives being unhappy?
Don’t get me wrong. I love being happy as much as the next person. But I do not risk my sense of peace and contentment in the pursuit of it.
Instead, I choose to always be looking for joy. The “pursuit of joy” is not conditional. It does not depend on outside people, objects and events to make me feel good or complete. In fact, joy can completely exist in a state of misfortune and chaos.
As an entrepreneur, I have consciously chosen a life where there are few guarantees of success. There is no surety that a new venture or a new project or even a new employee will work out exactly as I envision them to. But when I am looking inwards for those good-feeling emotions, and feeling peaceful and content on account of them, nobody can take that grace away from me.
Joy is a very personal business. It is a gift from God or a higher power that comes in the form of self-awareness and living in the moment without wasting precious `now’ moments in dark contemplations of `what ifs’. I read my Bible first thing in the morning, and start each day with a promise that I will work from the inside to feel content and grateful, no matter what is going on in my outside world. I will do good things for people, say kind, supportive words and find joy in my own actions of grace.
And you know what? Joy is infectious. When you’re interacting with people with an awareness of joy in your heart, they are affected by it too. Like an invisible energy osmosis, joy transfers to humans and animals, and even the smallest interaction leaves them feeling better.
I see examples of that in my life every day, when I’m taking a few extra minutes to focus on my employees, and not just the job they are doing for me. The simple act of asking them how they are, and really being interested in the answer, establish pathways of empathy that releases feel-good hormones in both of us.
When my kids come home from school with hurt, angry feelings and I see them spiraling into tantrum mode, I shout “Joy, Joy, Joy, Joy…” in their ears. As you can imagine, the interruption is not at all welcome in that red, hot moment, but it does stop them in their tracks and help re-calibrate their mind to the lessons of joy I try to teach them every day by practicing to be a living example of it.
Joy is probably life’s most precious grace, but it requires practice. I fall off the path myself, again and again, but I count my blessings in the fact that I am aware of the dissonance as soon as it happens, and begin practicing to get back into that free-flowing, all-embracing, non-judgemental space again in my heart from which true joy flows.
For me, there is no other way to live…
