This is the time of year when people begin to abandon their new year resolutions. Mine – eating less chocolate and flossing regularly (not necessarily in that order) – have already gone out the window. But after reading many friends’ Facebook updates recently, it seems that an important theme in resolutions for 2014 has emerged: to channel more joy into everyday life. Poet Mary O’Connor explores this journey in her blog, “Three Powerful Channels of Joy”:
Smile. There is an old Chinese proverb that says every smile makes us a day younger. That said, begin and end your day with a smile. It will not only make you younger, it will cause others, even the flowers, to smile back at you.
Wonder. To wonder is to open our eyes to the magic things of the world, to comprehend beauty in its fullest capacity. John Keats, the English Romantic poet, tells us that a thing of beauty is a joy forever, that its loveliness increases, that it will never pass into nothingness. Set your mind and your soul free every day and let that sense of wonder provide the nourishment you crave.
Reach. There is much out there for us to enjoy, though sometimes it needs to be tasted, to be experienced, to be hugged. Things of joy are ours only if we reach out and take them. “Let a joy keep you,” Carl Sandberg prompts us. “Reach out your hands and take it when it runs by.” To live with joy is not a passive state. It requires us to hold out our hands, if not to grasp the stars, to hold, at the very least, their star dust.
Here’s to smiling, wondering and reaching our way to everyday joy this 2014.
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