Joy

Today I found Joy. I went to church, sang hymns, learned about the gospel, and experienced joy. I then came home, made dinner and continued to experience joy. Later in the evening I played with my nephews and spoke with family and experienced even more joy. Today was a great day.

Joy isn't something you just feel. Joy is something you experience. Unlike happiness or sadness, joy doesn't come based on what others do--it's what you do. For me, joy comes when I quiet the negative voices in my head, the overly positive voices in my head (darn hypomania), and find myself. After I find myself I have to accept myself. When I do that I am at peace and have joy.

My path to joy is not necessarily your path to joy. And my path to joy varies from day to day. Some days I find it. Most days I miss it. Lately it has been completely absent from my life. For biological reasons, physical reasons, emotional reasons, and mental reasons I was too much preoccupied with other things in life to take the time to find joy.


I don't know why today is different than the last week. I don't know why today was special. I just know that today I see myself as something wonderful. I am not a perfect person. I will never be someone millions look to. I am simply me and that is enough.

The reality is tomorrow I'll probably forget to accept myself enough to feel joy. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day, I'm starting a new job. I will probably feel inadequate and stressed and somewhere in there I'll forget that I'm good enough. When I forget that, how can I have joy?

But tomorrow or the next day or whenever I'm feeling lost, confused, depressed, or alone I can look back and remember this moment and know Joy is possible. It may be something I have to fight for every day. It may be something I can't experience as often as I want to, but today I bear witness that it is possible. I know because for the first time in a long time I am experiencing it.

Life can be rough. That doesn't mean I can't have joy.