Who Wants a Joyful Life???…I Do! Do you?
I don’t talk about my life on here as much I used to because…
1) I’m busy with college. Chem. Math. Chem. Math. Chem. Math. Chem. Math. And as of lately…dinosaurs. My final paper is a movie/novel comparison of Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton.
..but more importantly..
2) I believe my life is interesting…I’m just too lazy to write about it and tell the whole world about it amidst all of the pictures that come up on the average tumblarian’s dashboard. A picture is worth a thousand words, right? I doubt I’ll even reach a thousand words on here to hold your attention…that is, if you haven’t skipped this post by now. I’m still writing because I found something I’d like to share. That’s what tumblr is right?
I got this from my friend Abby. She attended a seminar held by a priest and there were some pretty uplifting things said.
The 5 Essential Strategies for a Truly Joyful Life.
- Be intentional about being a grateful person. They asked us the question, ‘what percentage of your happiness depends on your circumstances?’ Like, are you happier because you lost 10 lbs or are you sad because you messed up on something? Fr. Joe Kempf (the session leader), said we need to first start out by being grateful. Grateful people focus on blessings, regardless of how it makes them feel. The more we find stuff to be grateful for, the more joy we’ll have in our lives. Same goes for the opposite. The more we find stuff to complain about, the more misery we’ll have in our lives. So, be intention about being a grateful person. He gave us an idea which Mark and I started and have been doing so for over a month now, and that’s to start a GRATITUDE JOURNAL. At the end of the day, write down 3 different things each day that you are grateful for. I just re-read some of our entries and it’s fun to see how much more appreciative we are of things because of it. Fr. Joe said don’t deny your crosses (because life still happens), but if we can at least find 3 things a day that we are grateful for, the percentage that we talked about earlier will go down.
- Understand that our lives are not all about us.You mean, they’re not? =P Fr. Joe started explaining this one by sharing that he loves the beauty of motherhood. He defines it as ‘the incredible risk to have part of your heart walk out of your body for the rest of your life.’ Ugh, right to the heart. Re-read it again. ‘Motherhood is the incredible risk to have part of your heart walk out of your body for the rest of your life.’Man, that made me tear up. Imagine, you, right now, has a piece of your mother’s heart in you right now. Your life is not all about you because even YOU have a part of someone else in you. That’s some craziness, right there! We have to give of ourselves (aka LOVE) to others. Jesus said, “Love one another as I have loved you.” And we just saw recently on Good Friday just how much he loved us. Fr. Joe said, ‘we can’t get into heaven without getting a letter of recommendation from the poor.’ Ain’t it the truth, ain’t it the truth. It reminds me of that song, “And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, they will know we are Christians by our love.” We have to remember - our lives are not all about us.
It just occurred to me that there are only TWO strategies on here. Haha…I suppose the other three were forgotten….
After reading this, I have decided to start my own GRATITUDE JOURNAL, and I hope and pray that I stick to it.
If you’ve read this much by now…thanks. Haha. Maybe these two strategies were helpful for anyone else out there? Maybe…maybe not.
Until next time…
-Gio
