Above: A day hike on the snow-covered trails of Mt. Ranier, Washington State.
Discover the JOY in your everyday life!
“OK, so when do I find joy in my life?” a friend of mine asked me recently as he was lamenting a very recent and significant change in his life. I could tell from his tone and his body language that he was serious about his question..and really didn't know how to find the joy and happiness that surrounds all of us. Can you make one change in your life and then joy finds you? Or, do you have to search for joy? Or, is joy all around you just waiting for you to open yourself to it?
I thought that was a great question that he asked—a question which helped spawn the idea for this Adventure-Discovery website. So, when DO we find the joy in our lives? Is it ever-elusive, like the carrot hanging on the stick in front of the donkey, or is joy already there, patiently waiting, dancing in the shadows, like a gift simply waiting for us to untie it's ribbon? Valid and interesting questions.
Only the day before, I attended the funeral of Tom Hoskins, a good friend of mine who was killed, along with the cycling-event coordinator, Lee Ann Barry, while riding their bicycles in a fund-raising charity ride between Michigan and Charlotte, NC. Lee Ann had ridden the whole route and was only 7 miles from her home in Waxhaw, NC when they were both killed by a distracted motorist on an open, clear road.
"Now what does THAT have to do with JOY?" you might ask. Though it's a tragedy to lose someone in such a violent manner, it may have a lot to do with joy, if we think about it. You see, Tom, Lee Ann and many of the others on that ride were experiencing joy in their lives by being outdoors, being physical, rolling along with friends through the countryside, breathing fresh air, etc. They were basically finding the joy in their everyday life. Webster’s defines joy as, "a state of happiness or felicity," or, " a source or cause of delight."
Does that mean that we shouldn’t ride bicycles because they’re too dangerous? Should we not drive other vehicles since people get killed in them, too? Should we not fly because we might die in an airplane crash? What about swimming? Some people drown, right? Maybe we should just sit on our sofa and watch TV so nothing will happen to us. Would that be the thing to do? Well, I read a story back in the early summer where a dude somewhere in central Florida was doing just that—sitting on his sofa in his den watching TV when a small plane crashed into his house. The pilot was hurt, but eventually recovered, while the dude sitting on his sofa watching TV was killed. I imagine both the pilot and the couch potato were both enjoying what they were doing, but should I not go outside and experience the richness of life because it’s too dangerous? You can draw your own conclusion here, but I believe when the good Lord says it’s your time to shuffle off this earth, there are all kinds of creative ways that God comes up with to help you exit this life. If we all exited the exact same way, how boring would that be?
My point here is that we must find our own joy, then go revel in it. Let life take care of itself while we’re feeling the joy! Even when we're exercising and eating right to stay healthy, we want to have fun doing it. If we're having fun with most of our daily activities, we're much more likely to keep the fun going, because it's FUN! We can easily make exercise and staying fit a lifestyle instead of a yearly-repeated, short-lived New Year's resolution.
(This site is under construction. More to be added and fine-tuned soon. Visit again!)
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