I recently ran across this old picture of myself. What struck me was the look of raw, unfiltered joy on my face. It made think about how often I feel that same sense of intense joy now, in my adult life. What I realized was…not as much as I would like.
Back then, as a kid, it all came so naturally. It’s built into our DNA to experience life joyfully, and to take delight in the world that surrounds us. But somewhere down the road to adulthood, other things tend to creep in and push the joy aside…negative experiences, imposed expectations, the need for perfection, obligations. We get to a point where we become so focused on “becoming” or “doing” or “achieving” etc. that the joy becomes lost in the day to day.
Big things, little things, things we love, and things we dislike, things that come easy, things that seem like work – there is joy to be found everywhere. We just need to let our instincts kick in and reclaim it.
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