What’s the difference between joy and happiness? In this instance, it boils down to the abstract versus the emotion. The concept of happiness is broad and vague. Joyful, however, is a more readily defined emotional state.
When you feel joyful you are more capable of practicing mindfulness.
I want to work on choosing the life I most desire to lead. Consciousness creates reality, and I desire to choose the reality that brings me the most joy and happiness.
This can be particularly challenging, especially in today’s society. You are bombarded every day with horrid, awful, ugly, unpleasant things. Terrible people, selfishness, greed, and a deluge of messages about lack and scarcity.
Maybe, if you are truly fortunate, for every ten pieces of negative information you receive one piece of info that’s positive and uplifting.
Because the overarching narrative of society is one of insufficiency and deficiency, it is really important to keep focused on your own mindful awareness. Being mindful of what you are thinking, feeling, and the intent of your actions is key.
One of the issues that this brings up is selfishness. You may have been raised to put others before yourself. That can be family, friends, coworkers, anybody. You believe that the needs of the many always outweigh the needs of the one, and put yourself last.
Or worse, when you do something for yourself you have to resist the feeling that you are being selfish. Or else you do twice as many things for other people to make up for it.
Finding things that make you feel joyful is not selfish. Why? Because when you feel joyful, you spread that to others. Like sorrow and grief and all the negative emotions, holding onto and expressing positive emotions is contagious.
What’s the difference between joy and happiness? In this instance, it boils down to the abstract versus the emotion. The concept of happiness is broad and vague. Joyful, however, is a more readily defined emotional state.
What makes me happy is not necessarily the same as what makes you happy. For example — fencing. I have been fencing for more than half of my life now. Almost without fail, if I am having a bad day fencing practice makes me feel happy. I take great joy in fencing, and while it is slightly less when I am not at my best, it’s still there.
Similarly, writing makes me happy. I love spilling words out of my head and onto the page or screen.
There are people who find fencing ludicrous and silly. I know people who find the practice of writing thoroughly challenging and unpleasant. What makes each of us feel joyful and develops happiness varies wildly.
Yet the importance of manifesting things that make us happy is almost immeasurable.
It is easy to get lost in the sea of social media. Twitter, Facebook, and don’t even get me started on the rabbit hole that is Instagram. However, when you start to focus on the negativity and see all the greedy, selfish, terrible people in positions of leadership and authority, it can be really hard to find things that bring you joy.
However, that makes it even more important that you pause and be mindful and aware of your thoughts, feelings, and subsequent actions. If you are holding onto negativity, you probably tend to create and draw more to you.
How many times, when you felt bad, did you manage to keep finding things to make yourself feel even worse? That’s conscious reality creation. Or more specifically, when you are not being mindful, unconscious or subconscious reality creation.
As I traverse the paths of my life, I strive to find opportunities to develop and experience more joy.
Neglecting yourself for the sake of others and sacrificing your goals, happiness, and anything else is not the noble notion many give it. Why? Because it makes the following statement: Because there is not enough, I will go without it.
When you sacrifice your time, energy, money, and so on for other people, you tell yourself that it’s noble and good in order to counter the negative feelings sacrifice tends to produce. When you give and give and give of yourself, but then do no self-care, you deplete what you have.
Also, sacrifice tends to lead to resentment, too.
If the universe is abundant, aren’t I, as an extension of the universe, also abundant? Yes. But while the universe is made of infinite energy, the energy contained in the meat-suit you occupy while on this planet is finite. This is why you rest, meditate and sleep.
You need to restore your energies in order to have enough on any given day. When you sacrifice yourself you deplete that energy. If you deplete too much you get depressed, sick, and even so ill as to threaten your physical existence.
When you take care of yourself you have more to share. This is applicable to the spiritual, emotional, and physical levels. When you do joyful things you build up your reserves and become more capable of giving more.
When you have more you can give more. It’s a stunningly simple concept easily ignored.
It is not selfish to care for yourself. There is a fine line between giving and giving away from a lack of mentality. Giving comes from the heart, and makes you feel good. Giving away comes from the head, and you have to tell yourself you’ve done well to counter feeling bad.
Sound familiar?
This is one of the larger issues we are facing as a society right now. When so many people have it so bad, how can I feel joyful? We see all this negativity, and when we find our own positivity we might just find ourselves feeling guilty for that.
Remember this: there will always be someone who is experiencing loss, grief, sadness, depression, distress, and every negative emotion you can imagine. Empathy and compassion are important, but that does not mean you should not do things for yourself that make you feel joyful. Why? Because the law of attraction states that like attracts like. Feed the negative and it grows. Feed the positive and IT grows.
Everybody has had an experience where you were feeling good, but then someone grieving, injured, or otherwise hurt happened by. Suddenly, you felt guilty that you were feeling joyful when they were feeling awful.
That is empathy. It’s a natural feeling, but you do not need to cease to feel joyful for their sake. Instead, you can empathize, show compassion, and let go of the guilt while still living your best life.
Eventually, those people will be past their unhappiness, and then your joy can help make them feel joyful again, too.
Be kind. Be loving. Let yourself find joy joyful things throughout your life. Consciousness creates reality, and when you are joyful you can manifest amazing things.
Did you LOVE this article as much as I did? I stumbled on this article written by MJ when I was wondering if anyone else thought joy was as important to focus on as I do. Thank you, MJ for explaining to us that JOY is important. Joy is really all we need to find, be, and share so that we can get to whatever it is we want.
Then pull up a chair. It’s time for JOY!
Website – www.Joyely.com
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It’s time to immerse ourselves completely in the conversation of joy, to prioritize it above most things.. There’s no time to wait; it’s a matter of life and death.
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