{"id":1357,"date":"2013-08-25T19:42:53","date_gmt":"2013-08-25T23:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/simplelifecorp.com\/simplelifeblog\/?p=1357"},"modified":"2013-08-25T19:42:53","modified_gmt":"2013-08-25T23:42:53","slug":"finding-joy-in-life-its-not-that-hard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/simplelifecorp.com\/simplelifeblog\/2013\/08\/finding-joy-in-life-its-not-that-hard\/","title":{"rendered":"Finding Joy in Life – It’s Not That Hard"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Woman<\/a><\/p>\n

“People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.” <\/em>
\n~Abraham Lincoln<\/em><\/p>\n

Sometimes daily life can seem like drudgery, something to just be tolerated.\u00a0 When I find myself feeling this way, it is almost always because I have been focusing relentlessly on a problem that overshadows me.\u00a0 It might be a looming deadline, a bit of family drama, or something of the sort.\u00a0 It might be nothing definable; I’m just in a rut and forgot to even think about finding joy in life.<\/p>\n

Getting back to enjoying life, rather than enduring life, is really quite simple:\u00a0 look for things that bring you joy.<\/h3>\n

Sometimes that may take a little effort if you’ve been in a long stretch of colorless and harried days.\u00a0 You may have forgotten what makes you smile.\u00a0 Even so, there is probably nothing to buy and nothing complicated to learn in order to bring back those points of joy in your life.\u00a0 There’s no need to wait – you can start immediately.<\/p>\n

Just start paying attention.\u00a0 What brings a burst of happiness?<\/p>\n

Here are some suggestions if you need a bit of nudging for finding joy in life:<\/h3>\n
    \n
  • Pick a flower<\/li>\n
  • touch a piece of silk<\/li>\n
  • pet your cat<\/li>\n
  • listen to your favorite song<\/li>\n
  • watch your peacefully sleeping child<\/li>\n
  • sip a smooth drink of coffee<\/li>\n
  • watch the sun rise<\/li>\n
  • bake some cookies<\/li>\n
  • breathe in the scent of lavender<\/li>\n
  • dance to the music<\/li>\n
  • sit on the deck<\/li>\n
  • walk barefoot in the sand<\/li>\n
  • hug a friend<\/li>\n
  • kiss your spouse, slowly and meaningfully<\/li>\n
  • walk your dog<\/li>\n
  • sing out loud<\/li>\n
  • give away a good book<\/li>\n
  • read a good book<\/li>\n
  • taste a piece of fruit<\/li>\n
  • eat a piece of dark chocolate<\/li>\n
  • …. what gives you joy? Do it! And again!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Deliberately do at least one thing every day that brings joy and you may be astounded at how happy you can be right here, right now.<\/h3>\n

    What brings you joy or makes you smile?<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    \u201cHappiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.\u201d <\/em>
    \n ~Elizabeth Gilbert – Eat, Pray, Love<\/em> <\/i><\/p>\n

    “Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.”<\/em>
    \n~Joseph Campbell<\/em><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Sometimes daily life can seem like drudgery, something to just be tolerated. When I find myself feeling this way, it is almost always because I have been focusing relentlessly on a problem that overshadows me. It might be a looming deadline, a bit of family drama, or something of the sort. It might be nothing definable; I’m just in a rut and forgot to even think about finding joy in life.
    \nGetting back to enjoying life, rather than enduring life, is really quite simple: look for things that bring you joy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,35,55],"tags":[380,381,378,383,379,384,382],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/simplelifecorp.com\/simplelifeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/simplelifecorp.com\/simplelifeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/simplelifecorp.com\/simplelifeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/simplelifecorp.com\/simplelifeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/simplelifecorp.com\/simplelifeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1357"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/simplelifecorp.com\/simplelifeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1361,"href":"http:\/\/simplelifecorp.com\/simplelifeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357\/revisions\/1361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/simplelifecorp.com\/simplelifeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/simplelifecorp.com\/simplelifeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/simplelifecorp.com\/simplelifeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1357"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/simplelifecorp.com\/simplelifeblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=1357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}