Occasionally, we come across an article that describes 7 ways to find joy or happiness and we immediately get drawn to its content in search for the missing piece in our life. Amazingly, we like to find shortcuts to this complex matter. Amid these articles, we search for the one thing we can do to change things for the better, the thing that sets our world right, and makes sense of all the nonsense we must deal with daily.
It is as if enjoying life is another millstone we need to hit and if we fail to do so, we are immediately prompted by our social media reminders: a friend enjoying a vacation in Bali, our next-door neighbor hosting an amazing event and the girl we went to college with sipping Rose in the middle of the day by the beach. All these reminders create a mental note to self, “Your life isn’t good enough…”
Now how can we find joy if we are constantly falling short?
Our definition of joy or happiness is so externally oriented that we can barely keep with it. We are constantly caught up between what we want and what we think we should do. This internal dilemma rules our lives and emotionally drags us from one extreme to the next, keeping us from truly paying attention to the voice within, which articulating our most inner desires. Instead of allowing the wisdom within to guide us, we buy into the illusion of creating a joyous external life with all its false promises.
We sacrifice our true need and enslave ourselves to the mirage of accomplishments. We define our sense of self through our external achievements, whereas the true self resides within us all along. The more we do and the more we have, the more we feel worthy and successful. However, our consciousness can easily lead us to the path of joy if we just remain still enough to listen. We can’t rely on the guidance of the external to bring peace to the internal. True joy is a desire of the inner world and cannot therefore be achieved by the accomplishments of the outer.
Brining joy to life cannot be achieved by following the steps in an article.
Joy is the byproduct of following the desire of our true self.
Comments