Choose Joy

At the beginning of this year I began this campaign which I call "Choose Joy". The purpose of this campaign is to learn to make a conscious effort to be joyous daily. It helps me to remember the things I have to be joyful about in life even when the silver lined clouds recede into the horizon. I know it's easier said than done but the power of positive thinking and taking accountability for oneself is highly under rated.

This campaign was born from a combination of things. When I first moved back to Columbia for the fourth time, I had the pleasure of working with a rather large gentleman whose name I will withhold. This six foot over three hundred pound man would proclaim "joy" in his deep baritone every time he greeted another employee. Upon getting to know him, he and I exchanged stories about how the past two years had shown us a great deal of financial struggle. It was inspiring to me that despite all that had transpired, he was still able to be joyous. It made me feel foolish that I was throwing myself a pity party when this man was not only supporting himself but a family of five on a minimum wage salary. In true gemini fashion I immediately decided that I was going to spread joy too. Later on in the year this gentleman became ill and was forced to leave our employer yet his message of spreading joy never left.

Around the middle of this year I began to see commercials for Oprah's Life Class on OWN. Now I know what you're thinking but Oprah's advisers must know something, I mean look at her success story. Anyway, in one of the episodes she mentioned what she calls "joy rising". The idea basically observes the way that positive action causes more positive action. Something like paying it forward. She described how in giving away the things she did, she was creating joy for people which in turn created joy for her. It was very informative and it got me thinking about how joy rises in my life. It made me reflect on how me doing for and giving to others created a joyous feeling in their lives, how that positive energy transferred back to me, and how it manifested itself throughout my daily activities.

Being extremely cerebral, I began to analyze this sociological phenomena. I came to the conclusion that in order to spread joy, one must first choose joy in their own lives. The way I have managed to do this is by taking accountability for the things and events in my life that I can control. Rather than be a victim, I decided that I would make better decisions in my daily life. I'm not trying to make it seem like choosing joy is easy, trust me, it is far from it. Some days you will have bad days it's inevitable in this dynamic world but the challenge is to find the joy in your life despite those pitfalls. Some great figure once said something to the affect of a person's character is not when he is at peace but rather when he is at war. This is so very true.

I believe that pain and struggle are relative. It is not up to me to validate your struggle nor you mine all we can seek to do is empathize with each other. So as you go about your day, try to remember to find the joy in your life and if you have some to spare, share it and watch it rise. #choosejoy