Today is the first day of December and the holiday season is underway. The word use more often this time of year than any other is joy.
For a long time, I didn’t understand what all the hub-bub was about joy.
I truly didn’t get why joy was a wonderful thing. It seemed like there were more important things like feeling empowered, fulfilled or healthy.
When I first learned of having a word for the year (in lieu of resolutions) on a podcast, the person sharing chose joy as their word. Upon hearing that, I remember dismissing it. I thought joy was a bit “extra”, overdone and unoriginal. Why work towards this form of happiness when I could be happy doing other things like work or parenting?
But the thing with joy is that it is happiness without the doing. It is to feel all the forms of tremendous happiness in the here and now without any strings attached. Who wouldn’t want that?
Well…someone who has been taught that the doing is more important than the being, that’s who.
So as that person, I am working towards more joy in my life. It is a uphill journey with regular reminders that joy is real, achievable and something worthwhile. It may very well be my word for 2023.
What if we aren’t to work towards the things that make us feel good? But to instead, look at the things that feel unimportant? We may feel things are unimportant not because they should be deprioritized but because we have been taught that they are not attainable or worthy of our efforts or that we aren’t worthy of it or because it wasn’t essential to our survival and therefore “extra.” That is a result of nurture, not nature. There are things we have a right to as human beings – joy being one of them.
What is your version of “joy” that you deem unimportant? How did it become unimportant?
