Joy
What brings you joy? Is it just a feeling or do you have to do something, then feel joy. Is contentment joy? Is peace of mind joy? 70 degrees and sunny brings me joy. Green traffic lights, a good night’s sleep. I think it’s both - you can just feel happy and you can do something that causes you to feel happy. How happy do you need to be/feel to consider yourself happy. I think it’s 80%. Definitely more than 3/4 happy, haha. I read somewhere that you are happy in a marriage if you are at least 75% happy. I don’t know how I feel about that. I’m in the first 90 days of my marriage - I think I’m above par. Maybe you net 75% at the end of it.
Ever meet someone who doesn’t have a bad day? They can’t be swayed from their happy smiling labrador retriever life. I wonder if they really are better off than the rest of us in the long run. I’d love the ability to turn off the stresses brought on from ‘small stuff’.
Reviving a sick plant, yes! That brings me joy definitely. Learning how to take care of plants was a process with a positive outcome, I come from a long line of plant lovers. Buy some plants, propagate your own, kill some, give the offspring plants away. When you think about it deeply, it’s the small things that bring you joy. When you give someone a gift, a plant, or a compliment and they really appreciate it. That’s joy to me.
A few years ago, I learned about clinical psychologist, Jordan Peterson. One of his books, 12 Rules for Life, breaks down things that will happen in life like joy, pain, grief. Every emotion is coming down the pike. Reading books like these and watching TED talks like Brene Brown’s on vulnerability and shame make me feel more human - normally human. These 2 people I would happily get stranded on a desert island with.
The individual moments that add up to be your life have both joy and pain. I guess you hope that at the end of it, there is more good years than bad = happy life.
