Joy

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I just happened upon a Youtube clip of Joan Baez on her "farewell" tour. The first time I saw Joan in concert was with my sister, when we were young adults and so was Joan, for that matter. The last time was about a year ago.

For many years though, my sister was a miserable old cuss, interfering with other people's lives and spreading misery. Her face looked like a dried up turnip. I often thought she had no pleasure in her life. She couldn't even experience pleasure if it landed on her shoulder. I don't think she still was going to any concerts at all. She told me she changed churches because the Episcopalian one she went to didn't do enough real charity - "they don't give until it hurts." My sister was the kind of malignant narcissist who thrives on being a martyr, on being long-suffering, and expecting her family to do the same. Sick stuff. And the coup de grace was committing suicide this year in February.

My feeling is life is a gift, and if you don't live it with joy, you are throwing the gift away. You can experience joy even if you are severely disabled. You just have to open the door.

My daughter and I are both autistic and both have chronic depression. I keep reminding her, and myself, how very important it is to schedule enjoyment into your life. I encourage her to follow her hobbies. I try to the best of my abilities to follow my own.

I'm writing this post I guess in response to the thread about self-hate. I think that can become such a habit of thought that there is no doorway to joy to open. I encourage you to take a break from it and crack open that door a bit.

Good Advice.

"Take Time Out for Joy"

Taking time out to have fun has been a daily goal of mine since my first heart-attack. Before then, I was just another "miserable old cuss". Nowadays, just going outside to walk along the creek is sometimes all it takes to put me in a better mood. Joy doesn't have to come from accomplishment or the actions of others; sometimes, lacking a goal takes all of the pressure off of the moment.

Bea, I am sorry to read about your sister. I hope that her soul is in a better place.

The joy of being outdoors is missing these days with all our devices and demands to multitask.

I think most people would not relate to these songs from the 60's songs today

I started this morning by watching a "Raspberry Beret."

I'm sorry to hear about your sister as well.

I agree with you that life is worth living. I'll never give up on it no matter how hard it is. Life is everything; meaning, it's all things: happy, sad, good, bad, easy, hard, fun, boring, terrible and awesome, pleasure and pain, elation and agony, etc............

I'm not a bubbly "joyful" person. My Mom had a "Baby book" that she wrote in when I was born. I found the book among photo albums that I was looking through to make photo boards for her funeral this January. She wrote a very touching letter to me in that baby book about how she loved me. She also said: "You're not a happy baby.".....

I feel I lack many emotions others seem to display easily. Sometimes I feel dead inside, but other times not. I would say that I experience joy but often it's deeply "on the inside".

I agree totally with you that it's important to look at the bright side of things, "count our blessings", etc especially when we're in a negative or depressed rut.

"Pain is inevitable; misery is optional" -- Attributed to Barbara Johnson, an American literary critic and translator.

So cool about seeing Joan Baez live.

I have a troubled relationship with my sister. I now keep a respectful distance. I love her because she’s my sister, but I don’t like her because she’s toxic.

I’ve found working on my own issues most helpful in coping with other humans anyway.

I wholeheartedly agree with this philosophy. We all are born knowing how to cry first, and learning how to smile later. Happiness is something a person has to work for. It doesn't come for free. Negativity is safe, it's easy, it's natural. Fear is adaptive, it's both innate and able to be learned. It is no surprise that it's really hard to step outside of this, especially when there's a lot of heavy stuff going on in your life. I truly admire and respect people like you who are able to find their way to moments of joy, or even just contentment (which is really my favorite feeling), amidst everything else going on.

For me, I try to generate little bits of joy in my day by taking my mind away from future worries and out of the past re-lived dramas. For moments at lunch and on my walk to work, I try to bring my mind to the present moment. i like to look around me, and take it all in, as if I'm a tourist in my own life. What pictures would I snap? Sometimes I look around and pick something I find interesting, then I let my mind mull over that for a while, instead of the repetitive negative thoughts that would otherwise circulate in my head.

I wonder if the pursuit of happiness ever really ends up with an acquisition. It seems almost intuitively valuable in some sense. Maybe it's the a spark of why everyone is here, chasing shadows. Here's to the better runners.

I also see life as a gift. I like my life to the fullest and I like to get full enjoyment out of my life. I like to do the things that make me happy and live my life like there's no tomorrow. I life life for myself and I don't worry about now anybody else feel that I should live mine.

I think we always have something to loose, no matter how bad the situation, there is something we would miss when it's gone. My sympathies to you Bea and Magna.

When depressed I'm numb to joy, I can only feel pain, the difficulty for me is in remembering and knowing that it's not really me in charge of my thoughts at these points.
To remember that it's an illness manipulating my experience of the world, to reimagine the moments of joy or sensory pleasures and know they are true reflections of what is important to me.

I agree with this whole-heartedly. I can say from experience that living your life in misery only feeds your own self-loathing, and the longer you spend your life doing so, the harder it'll be for you to break out of the cycle.

(((Bea)))

I too, find joy in small things. I love my varied activities, seeing my cats (I just have feral cats now, but they bring me joy watching them), watching tennis and seeing the success of the players I support and my work. I feel bad for people who can't feel joy in anything.

I really got into "small things" after my wife's son passed away at age 36.

I realized....that I liked the lines in the road, even...as long as I'm ALIVE!.

Before then, the Mundane sort of bothered me at times.

Thank you for sharing that, KK.