Finding Your Joy - Be Happy Every Single Day

This post is a re-post from Today's DailyOM

Being happy doesn't come naturally to everybody. It is your birthright to be happy, choose happiness everyday.


Our lives are rich with potential sources of happiness, but sometimes we become victims of negative thinking because we believe that focusing on all that has gone wrong will provide us with the motivation we need to face the challenges of survival. When we choose to focus on what makes us happy, however, a shift occurs in the fabric of our existence. Finding something to be happy about every single day can help this shift take place. The vantage points from which we view the world are brought into balance, and we can see that being alive truly is a gift to be savored. There is always something we can be happy about; it is simply up to us to identify it.

On one day, we may find happiness in a momentous, life-changing event such as a marriage or the birth of a child. On another day, the happiness we experience may be a product of our appreciation of a particularly well-brewed cup of a tea or the way the sun shines on a leaf. If we discover that we literally cannot call to mind a single joyful element of existence, we should examine the cause of the blockage standing between us and experiencing happiness. Keeping a happiness journal is a wonderful way to catalog the happiness unfolding all around us so that joy has myriad opportunities to manifest itself in our lives. Writing about the emotions we experience while contemplating joy may give us insight into the factors compelling us to resist it.

Happiness may not always come easily into your life. You have likely been conditioned to believe that the proper response to unmet expectations is one of sadness, anger, guilt, or fear. To make joy a fixture in your existence, you must first accept that it is within your power to choose happiness over unhappiness every single day. Then, each time you discover some new source of happiness, the notion that the world is a happy place will find its way more deeply into your heart. On this day, find one thing to be happy about and let it fill your heart.

The importance of work

Today I learned how much I need to practice detachment in my life.

Like most men I know, I tend to hold my job in too high regard, it is too important to me. For most of my adult life I have identified myself by my professional success, or at least my potential for success. My self worth and self image have been tied exclusively to my success in professional or educational endeavors. For some people this may be the status quo, and if it works for you, that's fine. I do not see this as inherently bad or detrimental to a person; instead, it simply has not been working out well for me.

I am now trying a new approach, seeking my self worth from within, acknowledging my own, everybody's for that matter, intrinsic worth. We all have an inherent value regardless of race, nationality, education, social status or economic condition, none either greater or lesser than any other.

As my source of self worth migrates to more sustainable and stable ground, I have found that the relative importance of the areas in my life are shifting to a more balanced state. As my priorities realign, and my career is no longer my defining characteristic, I struggle to find a new relationship with my job. I feel that the appropriate relationship is one of detachment, where I do my level best, but feel no sense of identity with the outcome. This is quite challenging for me since I have poured myself into my work so often hoping to have the positive outcomes be seen as a reflection of my own worthiness.