Are YOU Getting the Full Value out of JOY?
“To get the full value our of Joy you must have someone to share it with” is a bold statement. There are good intentions behind the statement and the goal here is to have you consider the thought processes that support it. My search for the thought processes associated with sharing joy first began when I heard someone say, “Marriage represents a witness to your life.” I had never thought about marriage that way before and it appears to be one of the truest statements a person could make. More than perhaps anyone else in the world, your joy is your spouse’s joy, and their joy is your joy.
When getting married, many couples light a unity candle from two separate candles or combine two vessels of sand into a larger one, to signify that moving forward, their two lives will become one. They will share in everything. That constant and consistent sharing results in a tighter bond with each other. No other person will understand them better than the person they’re married to because no other person will have experienced anything even close to what a spouse does. Thus, shared joy becomes one of the most powerful forces for ongoing appreciation, respect, and love being a long-lasting positive force within a marriage.
Shared joy can also be utilized to get people through and beyond the rough spots that pop up unexpectedly in life. Facing an extreme medical diagnosis may become a little more tolerable when we go through it with someone by our side that we have a “shared joy” history with. They have good reason to shower us with empathy, compassion, and loving care knowing our personal history that includes shared successes, failures, joy, sadness, challenging times, and times that produced treasured memories. As a cancer survivor, I’ve embraced great comfort in being able to reminisce about the shared joy I’ve experienced with my wife, our four sons, and additional family members that I love. Friends also continue to play a large role in the value I’ve found from sharing joy and having them share their joy with me.
Great News: If you’re not in a committed relationship, close and trusted friends offer a great resource as individuals you can share your joy with. This includes traveling together from cruises or destination vacations to day trips which might be as simple as taking a hike, watching a sunset from a perfect spot, or kayaking down a nearby river. It’s the shared part of the experience that creates joyful memories for both participants. It’s those shared memories of joy that can be re-lived over and over again and it’s those shared memories that help define the very best moments of your life.
It’s worth pausing for a moment right now to focus on some of the most joyful moments of your life so far. Where were you? Who was with you? What were you doing? What about the experience made it memorable and filled with joy? Was food involved? What conversations were sparked by the moment? What was the weather like? Was any windshield time involved? Was air travel involved? What mishaps occurred that ended up being part of the overall story? What are the best parts that you like to share with others when reminiscing about the joy you felt? What value did the person/people you were with bring to the overall experience? Do others remember the experience the same way? Were the things that brought the most joy similar or different for each person?
If you actually paused and took the time to ponder the most joyful moments of your life, you should have been able to experience the joy that was previously created all over again. That was the intent. So, why don’t we all re-visit joyful moments on a regular basis if we can live and experience that joy all over again? Part of it comes down to being so wrapped up in what’s happening in the present moment that we don’t allow ourselves a break from the present to re-live joyful times stored in our memories of our past. I want to believe we could all do better at this and all that would be required is dedicating a few minutes each day to experience our own personal “Joyful Moments from Our Past.” Would it prompt you to contact the people that were present and involved in your joyful memory? I’d hope so.
How would someone feel if you called them right now and began the conversation with “Remember when we (fill in the blank with joyful memory) and how much fun that was?” Might that person be sitting right next to you at this very moment?
There’s some additional benefit from embracing the joy of others and being happy for them. It’s the antidote to envy and jealousy. I love the quote from Viktor Frankl claiming, “Our greatest freedom is the freedom to choose our attitude” and love how this old quote remains true to this current day.
Social media offers up joy that millions of people share with us each day. It’s easy to develop envy and jealousy when so many people seem to be living lives filled with nothing other than complete joy. Social media posts never really offer a complete picture of a person’s real life and that’s okay. I figured out early on that when I celebrate someone else sharing their joy on social media, it resulted in making me feel better even if I simply clicked on the like button. The more I was happy for others, the better I felt about myself. Frankly, I like feeling happy for the good that occurs in other people’s life. That’s why I hope you’ll consider trying it yourself. It really results in a happier you. Hey…I Believe In YOU! GiddyUp!