It’s time for a confession.
Yeah, I know… If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, it’s been a while since I’ve made one of those.
Here’s my confession: I wasn’t sure if I would be publishing anything this week. I’ve been doing my best to stay ahead of the weekly schedule to which I committed, but the past couple of weeks were pretty rough. Along with the normal ups and downs of daily life, I’ve also been going through a mild bout of depression.
The crazy thing about this lifelong relationship I’ve had with depression is that I’ve gotten so used dealing with the periodic episodes I tend to forget what it is I’m really facing. I simply adapt and keep going. The going may be harder and I may slow down, but I still keep going.
If you’ve read my past reflections, I hope I’ve made it clear that I’m as human as the next person. I do my best to “walk my talk,” but I do so from a place of “I’m walking with you and sharing this journey.”
I wish I could say that I have all the answers to life’s challenges, but I don’t. Nor do I consider myself an “expert” on anything in particular. I just make the decisions that feel best for me and then I act on them. Whatever insights I gain, I share, and whatever feedback I get, I appreciate.
From what I’ve been able to tell, there’s no “secret” to living a joyous life. In fact, if you read the Tenets of Joy and allow yourself to connect with them emotionally, you’ll find that they all point to a simple truth about our adventure on this planet:
We are human beings, not human doings.
What I’m saying is that all you need to “do” to live a joyous life is to be yourself. Be human. Be joyous. Be sad. Be angry. Be forgiving. Be understanding. Be anything you want. Just be.
And when you allow yourself to just be, the “doing” part gets a lot easier.
Oh, sure, when we start “doing,” there will be inevitable moments of mind-numbing fear and even more paralyzing moments of self-doubt… but hey, that’s part of the package. The joy of “doing” can’t be truly experienced nor appreciated without the contrasting emotions that make us want to find the nearest cave and hide.
Speaking for myself, I just embrace the fear and make it my friend. I hang with the self-doubt and laugh at the outrageous picture it paints of me.
In the end, I find that by simply BEING and allowing myself to do what feels best, I can keep smiling because I’m at peace. You can’t put a price on that.
Remember… there’s no “secret” to a joyous life. The joyous life is already part of us.
A version of this post was originally published on AppioHunter.com and is republished here with permission from the author.
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