Will You Be The Joy?
A few weeks ago, I met a woman and her two small children at the doctor’s office. Her 6-month old boy sat in his stroller smiling like Buddha. Her 3-year old girl frolicked around the office playing and laughing like a whimsical fairy.
As she played, her expanding joy touched us like fairy dust. We all smiled at her and began chatting among ourselves. After my appointment, she was still playing, still bringing joy to everyone in the waiting room.
I smiled at her mother and said, “So much joy!”
The mother remarked somewhat resigned, “It’s too bad children have to grow up into adults and lose their joy.”
For a moment, I felt offended.
I looked around the room. Everyone was smiling, laughing, and talking. There was lots of adult joy in that room! But I was also offended because after facing my own mortality, I did my best to live for joy. I know a lot of other adults who do, too, including those of you who read these blog posts!
I didn’t explain myself to her. If she wanted to believe that we’re all miserable, I couldn’t stop her.
But I pleasantly disagreed with a smile, “I don’t think all children grow up and lose their joy.”
As if to clinch her argument she said, “But the world is such a miserable place. It’s hard not to.”
“There’s definitely misery and pain,” I replied, “but if we each live for joy, the world would be minus one miserable person and grow a bit more in joy. Isn’t that how we can each make the world a more joyful and less miserable place?”
She tilted her head, puzzled. Then nodded in agreement, “I guess so.”
Trauma Is Real
Everyone’s experienced trauma and misery to one degree or another. And though trauma brings loss, shock, and often drastic change, even a trauma can turn out to have a silver lining.
I’ve been learning the lesson of joy on a daily basis since my bicycle accident, when that trauma changed my life forever. One person in particular helped me learn the lesson of joy. It was a total stranger.
Flashback to a few years earlier, 2013, when I lived in New Orleans for a few months to get hyperbaric oxygen treatments (HBOT). Before the treatments could begin, I had to have pre and post SPECT scans done at the hospital. These scans would show whether HBOT might resolve the effects of my concussion.
At the time, I was experiencing a wide array of health issues that threatened to force me into early retirement, which would have created financial hardship for me. The HBOT treatments alone would dig into my savings, and I had no idea if they’d help. Fortunately, people with much worse injuries had benefited from HBOT. So I was hopeful, but still stressed.
I relaxed and slept during most of the scan preparation. The scan itself only took a few minutes.
Love Is Free
Afterward, I stopped at the hospital cafeteria to buy a snack for the drive back to my hotel. While I waited in line with my banana, I heard the man in front of me urge his mom to get moving.
“Come on, Mom. Let’s get going!” he repeated. She continued to loiter.
Then she turned around and looked at me. When our eyes met, we smiled.
“Does he always tell you to keep moving?” I asked.
The man turned to me and rolled his eyes, “If I don’t, she stops and gives everyone a massage.”
“Really?” I said. I was definitely in need of a massage. But the cashier’s station in the hospital cafeteria would be a really odd place to get one!
Just then, the tiny woman took my hands in hers and began to massage them. She looked sweetly into my eyes, smiled with glee, then hugged me and said, “Love is free.”
All my worries dissolved in her hug. On a day when I had to face challenging possibilities both medical and financial, she reminded me of a bigger truth: that what really matters—love—is free. No matter what happens in any realm of life—financial, medical, or personal—we always have love within ourselves to share with others.
Will You Be The Joy?
All around the world miserable, criminal things take place. People experience hardship of every variety. “Life” happens, but flowers can grow in it when planted and cared for.[1] When I say “life,” I mean all of it: the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good can feel like walking on water. That’s the easy stuff. The bad and the ugly can be life-shattering and crappy. It’s what we do with the bad and the ugly that either ends up like something that has to be scraped off the bottom of our shoe or used to fertilize the flowers.
The beauty of the bud, the blossom, and the fruit don’t erase the stink of the fertilizing crap that feeds them. Flowers take time to grow and the fertilizer will be there to remind us what gave them strength to grow.
So what will it be? Will we lean over to smell the roses and revel in the scent? Or will we stick our noses in the fertilizer and point out the crap? Do we choose joy and be the one who believes our smile helps lift the weight of misery from the world? Or do we join the forces of miserable adults who believe misery is inevitable?
I definitely prefer joy. Let’s be the Ones who make the world a joyous place of wonder. When that mom sees all of us smiling, maybe she’ll change her mind about the nature of the world.
How do you find joy? What makes you smile? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
Joy
/joi/
Great pleasure and happiness.
Bliss, euphoria, delight, jubilation, triumph, exhilaration, glee, exuberance, elation, gladness, rapture, exultation.
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