I am coming into a fuller understanding of being joy.  It’s like losing weight.  I have to decide that the unhealthy food I want to eat is not worth my health, my appearance, and my self-confidence.  Likewise, I have to decide that external circumstances are not worth the loss of my joy.  I truly enjoy feeling content, happy, and at peace; therefore, I want to get into the habit of choosing joy, happiness, and fulfillment.

I now ask myself about people and circumstances – is this worth my joy?  With regard to food, a friend of mine said she asked herself, “Is this worth gaining weight?” each time she chose not to eat something fattening.  She said that, with time and continuous practice, she didn’t even have to think about choosing.  She just didn’t eat certain items.  That’s where I want to be with my joy.

I think about the effects of oppression and discrimination and other forms of unfair treatment.  As a result of my personal experience, I became suspicious of statements and behavior.  My negative interpretations became protective devices.  Once one has been hurt many times, one tries to anticipate situations of pain based upon past hurtful behavior.  This then becomes cyclical.  If you anticipate pain, you usually incur it, if only because you tense up and don’t speak freely or positively.  Therefore, you potentially invite the hurt that you were trying not to incur.

I’m not saying that there aren’t those who intentionally cause harm and mayhem.  I’m recommending self-analysis, to see if and how we contribute to the loss of joy in our lives. Even in the midst of severe circumstances, there are people who manage to maintain a positive outlook on life.

It takes great courage to open yourself up to being hurt again and again, to greet each person and encounter as though you’d never had any bad experiences.  This is virtually impossible unless you fill yourself with so much joy within that no one can disturb this wellspring.  Like any other goal, it takes time and consistent practice to achieve that level of beingness.

I am around a few people who seem unhappy even though, from my limited perception, they have a wonderful life.  The parents of one woman paid her way through college and graduate school.  She married a guy who is wealthy, enabling her to stay home with her children.  She is now an empty-nester with a job that she says she loves.  Yet, she is perpetually unsatisfied, very competitive, always challenging people, comparing herself to others, and wanting to prove that she is better.  Even people who don’t have much adversity in their lives must still make an effort to choose joy.

The way that people treat others says a lot about them.  I have to remember this when I think of the people who have hurt me, limited my growth, and otherwise restricted me.  Their actions reflect them and how they see themselves, their world, and their places in that world as magnified or minimized by me.  My reactions to them exposed my feelings of lack and limitation and my belief in myself as a victim, a person whose potential can be controlled by others.  Why did I choose to believe that I had no choices and no power to effect change in my life?

There is no power that has yet been born that can take away my joy.

Years ago, I tried to be a mediator between two friends who were having marital tensions.  I told the wife that the husband was hurting too.  She said that she didn’t want to talk about his hurt anymore because that characterized their marriage.  Recognizing that he was suffering, she changed her behavior so as not to contribute to his anguish.  Constantly empathizing with his misery and always helping him feel better, she began to be regularly depressed.  She was tired of hurting.

Many of us are like that.  We want to protect our loved ones, ease their pain, heal their hurts, make them happy, and bear their burdens.  Some of the people we want to help seem to be committed to being unhappy.  Maybe they don’t have the awareness, perseverance, or desire to grow.  Others believe that joy is only possible in heaven.  For whatever reason, they remain stuck, and our commitment to making them happy is blocking our joy.

You don’t always have to leave an uncomfortable external situation.  But, if you are not strong enough to identify and work on your inner needs while you are in the midst of a storm, you may need to walk away, if only temporarily.  If you feel drained, exhausted, and depressed, begin to choose life.  Choose joy.  Choose yourself.

You do have power.  You do have the ability.  You do have choices.  Believing that anything external to you is greater than you is an illusion.  There is a strength within you that will enable you to overcome, to succeed, and to flourish.  Take a step today to open yourself to that Reality.