I’m trying to develop the habit of posting every day before life gets busier and I perceive that I don’t have time to post. I asked John what I should write about today and he said something about finding joy in everyday life.
I’m reminded of that quote by Annie Dillard, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.“
There was a time when I looked at joy as out there or other. I equated experiencing joy with saving things for good. It’s something that I would do on special occasions. I really looked forward to the rare times when I would be joyful. I expected to be “surprised by joy,” as C.S. Lewis might say.
I didn’t understand what joy really was. I thought being joyful was being happy. Extremely happy. The idea of abiding joy was totally foreign to me. My emotions were all over the place on a good day (I have a mood disorder and have only been stable the past 15 years). How could I expect to feel joyful as a way of life?
Somewhere along the way, I learned to be joyful. Maybe it’s because I have the love and devotion of a good man and some really good friends. Maybe it’s because I’m goofy and silly and playful. I don’t know, but somehow, I learned that if I want a joy-filled life, I have to have joy in my days. Every day.
I remember a therapist listening to me talk about my life in an external, detached way. He finally said to me, “This is it. This is your life.” I remember being stunned by that and it totally changed my outlook. Sometimes, while I’m washing dishes or folding laundry, I still think to myself, “This is my life. This is it.”
I don’t say it in a “poor pitiful me” way, as though I feel that washing dishes and folding laundry is all there is to my life, but rather, to remind myself that these moments are my life. And there are a lot more of those moments than there are peak experiences.
So, I wait patiently for my husband to come home from work each day; I still get butterflies in my tummy when he’s on his way. I read good books and I do something creative most days.
If I want a joy-filled life, I must have joy-filled days. So, most days, I spend more time looking for the goodness in the day than whining about the badness. I spend more time loving than judging and complaining.
What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.
I try to remember that.
