Being In Joy

Are you enjoying your holiday season? Are you in joy? If not, let’s see if we can find a way to

help you get there.

The first thing you need to do if you are going to be in joy, to feel happy, is to give yourself

permission to do it. I know, that sounds sort of ridiculous, because who doesn’t want to be

happy? But it’s not always as easy as it sounds. There are all kinds of barriers to happiness, and

two of the biggest ones are feeling undeserving and feeling guilty. Let’s explore those and see if

we can figure out how to sweep them away.

Deserving Happiness

Feeling like you don’t deserve happiness is a fundamental barrier to joy. This is a topic I know

intimately well, and feeling undeserving kept me depressed for years.

I spent a large chunk of my life under persistent criticism. When I was growing up, nothing I ever did was quite good enough to earn the praise of my parents, and possibly because of that foundation, I married a man who also could not be pleased. I always felt that I was not good enough, whatever that means. That basic assumption eroded my sense of joy for—I’m not exaggerating here—40 years of my life.

It’s not that I was never happy, because there were times when I was, but I

always had that nagging sense that I didn’t deserve to be fully happy. My experience of

happiness was always contingent on someone else being happy, whether it was my parents, my

husband, my children, or some other person who was important to me. There is a saying that a

mother can’t be happier than her unhappiest child, and many of us, both male and female, find

ways to make sure we don’t outshine someone else in the happiness department.

But it isn’t a contest! Your being happy doesn’t take away the happiness of someone else,

unless what you enjoy is making other people suffer, in which case you need help far beyond

what I can offer.

I was recently talking to a friend about how previous holidays had been difficult. At one point, he said, "We deserve to be happy." I think “deserve” is a difficult word. Who really gets what they deserve, and for that matter, who really knows what anyone deserves?

Here is what I know. You have to decide to be happy, whether you believe you deserve it or not. Or maybe you have to decide you deserve it. Either way, it is up to you to claim it. It isn’t about deserving. It’s about deciding, and daring, and doing what we can to create happiness for ourselves.

Guilting Yourself Out of Joy

Feeling guilty about being happy is related to feeling undeserving, but with the added layer of

comparing yourself to other people and their situations. If you want to destroy your own

happiness, one quick way is to start making comparisons.

If you compare your situation to that of others, and if you are better off, you may feel happy, but

you may also feel guilty. Who are you to be happy when others are not? If you are prosperous,

and someone else is poor, do you feel bad about it? If there has been a death in your family, is it

okay for you still be happy about some things? Is it okay for you to be happy when they are not?

How can you be happy, when the world is so full of terrible things? People are hungry and homeless and chronically ill and dying and losing their jobs and heartbroken and grieving…and the list goes on and on.

If you want to be in joy, you have to choose joy. You have to choose to be joyful, to be in joy, in

spite of the terrible things that coexist in this world with the wondrous things. And you can

choose to be in joy. In spite of not being perfect. In spite of not feeling you are good enough. In

spite of not having the same level as success as your neighbor or your old rival from high

school. In spite of not living up to the lofty goals your parents set for you. In spite of becoming

an accountant instead of an artist and feeling like you didn’t live up to your potential. In spite of

your unhappiest child being quite unhappy indeed.

Your happiness is not dependent on anything other than your decision to honor yourself and allowing yourself to enjoy the joy that does exist in your life.

A Sense of Wonder and Gratitude

Do you know what is one of the most wondrous things in the world to me? It’s the miracle of hot running water. I have never taken that everyday miracle for granted. For nine years of my life, from the age of 7 to the age of 16, I lived in a house with very primitive plumbing, including a small water heater that was attached to the coal burning furnace that heated our house.

We only had hot water when the furnace was active, so from about April through about October, we had no hot water on tap. We heated water for things such as cleaning and washing dishes, but the house had only a shower stall and no bathtub, so it we took extremely short, cold showers during spring and summer. Even when the water heater was operating, we could not take long showers, because the tank was so small.

In addition, our source of water was a small cistern, which sometimes ran completely dry. As you might imagine, I was not a fan of cold showers, and to this day, I rarely step into a hot shower

without a deep sense of gratitude. The ability to take a hot shower whenever I want, for as long

as I want, feels like the ultimate luxury to me, even all these years later.

As unpleasant as it was to live with a shortage of hot running water, I know there are many

children who grow up in much worse circumstances. That doesn’t mean I can’t rejoice in the

taking of long, hot showers. It does not serve me or my mental health to engage in making

comparisons.

The things you take joy in don’t have to be complicated or unusual or expensive. I

was in a public place recently where televisions were tuned to a program about extreme

Christmas decorating. I was amazed at some of the table settings and tree decorations and

incredible light displays, some with more than a million lights.

Before I even realized what was happening, I started to feel bad about my skinny little Christmas tree in my tiny apartment living room. I had really enjoyed decorating that tree just a few days before, and every time I see it, I am reminded how happy I am with it.

But when I started the comparison game, suddenly I felt unworthy, even though I have no interest whatsoever in over-the-top Christmas decorations. In fact, I felt quite claustrophobic looking at some of the homes featured on the program, with decorations on every surface, hanging from every ceiling, and covering every wall. I have no desire to decorate in that way, but I allowed the comparison of my simple efforts to the extreme ones to bring my mood down.

You have heard that happiness is an inside job, and this is what is meant by that. It is your

choice what to see in the world. You will find what you look for, because it’s all there. The ugly

and the beautiful, the terrible and the wondrous, the despair and the joy. We will all experience

all of it at times, but we all get to decide which things we will dwell on.

You deserve happiness. You deserve joy. You don’t have to feel guilty about it. Your joy doesn’t

take joy away from someone else. Your joy means there is more joy in the world. I hope you will

decide to create as much joy as you can. I hope—especially during this season—you will allow

yourself to be in joy as much as possible.

Have a joyful week, and remember, the world doesn’t change. You do.