Finding Joy

6:16am... Finding joy can sometimes be a challenge. Our lives are so very hectic. We find ourselves ruled by a continuous stream of information pouring in from all directions and rush to and fro in an attempt to placate the ever-ticking clock. I often wonder if it has to be this way. Do the benefits of living in modern society come with this price tag? Or is there some middle-man retailer who is deliberately marking up the price and profiting by our madcap scrambling about?

It's a good question for us to mull over now and then. Don't you think? Most of us have pondered, at one time or another, living life in a bygone era. Some of us have even pined for it. Perhaps herding sheep and raising a few crops back when life was nasty and short, but simple and somehow romantic to our overloaded brains. But if we really think about it, we'd never go back. As Mill famously said, it is "better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied." First of all, about half of us would be dead already, from some disease or infection that modern medicine protects us from. Or, perhaps, from a wild animal that challenged us for our precious food and won. The rest of us would be eking out a subsistence living on some patch of dirt, or working in filthy conditions in the town where we grew up.

To paraphrase Dave Chapelle, Ignorance is not bliss, but sometimes it wears bliss' uniform. (For those who don't get the reference, please click here... BUT, this is not work friendly, nor kid friendly... Funny though!!!) The point being, that we want life to be simpler or easier or less hectic, but we don't want it to be less modern. Just think about going back to having to find a phone which is attached to a wall in order to contact someone. Or crunching data on paper for goodness sake! Let's just not go there people... it's not worth it.

So, here's my point, finally... sometimes life is frustrating and when that happens we tend to look for joy in the distance. That's the wrong place. Look for joy at your feet, at your fingertips, in your mind. Several times a day, just take a breath and appreciate your new shoes, an old song you love, the clouds in the sky, or the cool autumn air. Remember that 99% of the people who have EVER lived would look at our lives and go "Wow!! You've got it made!!!"

Life is hard enough, without us making it worse in our minds... Take time to find some tiny pockets of joy today... Hey, even hand a few out to those around you... it's Friday, after all... 6:49 am...