“It is only in sorrow bad weather masters us; in joy we face the storm and defy it.” ~ Amelia Barr, British novelist
The clouds will gather. The storms will come and they will go. We can’t control them. They are bigger than us. Bigger than all of us banded together. But what we can control is the amount of joy in our lives. We can choose happiness. We can choose, in this and every moment, to be grateful, to love, to be kind, to be strong, to pay attention.
Too often we have come to think of joy as a luxury. We think we should thank our lucky stars for the opportunity to be joyful when in fact joy should be the default state. We weren’t born to trudge through our existence with a heavy load bearing down on us, constantly downtrodden and agitated.
We are made for joy. I completely reject the idea that, “It’s called a job for a reason, and not because it’s fun.” Who decided that work couldn’t be joyful? Who decided that we couldn’t find enjoyment in our efforts?
What if we made that path a non-negotiable? What would come of us if we decided that joy had to be an integral part of everything we do? And going a step further, what if we refused to do things in which we couldn’t find any joy or purpose? What would our world be like then?
Christa Avampato 