Delight of Children
Children don’t admire an orchid more than a dandelion.
— Alexandra Stoddard, Choosing Happiness, p. 36-37
Category: Joy
10 Posts
Miraculous Present Moments
Whenever we do anything well, when we do our best, embracing an activity wholeheartedly, we are satisfied and energized. Tucking a child into bed and saying a prayer after reading a story is a small act of grace with lasting benefits. Rituals can never be rushed or be skipped. The joy is in our instantaneous recognition of miraculous present moments.
Don’t plan it. Live it.
— Alexandra Stoddard, Choosing Happiness, p. 16
Focusing on Possibility
Lovers always focus away from negativity, to beauty, goodness, and joy. Though they are aware of the dark side of life, they avoid gravitating to it. Obsession with what is wrong with the world assures our blindness to what is good and right. On the other hand, solutions become more visible in the light of possibilities.
Beauty and goodness are successful forces against ugliness and evil. Negative people look for (and always find) confirmation for the negative, just as positive people look for and find the lightness of being. Both exist. Both are real and are always with us. The difference is as basic as a decision, and as simple as opening our eyes.
— Leo Buscaglia, Born for Love, p. 225
Living in the Present
However we perceive the past, whether in a positive or a negative light, concentrating on it makes us unhappier in the present. The past is past.
Through deliberate present-minded focus we can breathe in new life, new positive energy, letting go of the way things were in the past. When we grow more mindful, we open our hearts to forgiveness and choose not to get bogged down in placing blame or getting even with others. When we let go of the past, we gain in wisdom. We feel lighter and brighter, inspired by what we’ve learned, ready to move on.
— Alexandra Stoddard, Choosing Happiness: Keys to a Joyful Life, p. 14
Created for Laughter
We were created to have joy. We were created to enjoy laughter and share it with one another.
— Debbie Macomber, Knit Together, p. 160
To-don’t Lists
We need to rid our to-do lists of things that don’t matter, don’t create value, don’t make a difference. We need to restructure our lives and take more time to do things that bring us joy. Women need to carve out time for the activities that will create meaningful lives and discard the things that won’t.
— This Is Not the Life I Ordered, by Deborah Collins Stephens, Jackie Speier, Michealene Cristini Risley, and Jan Yanehiro
Not Self-improvement
Sure, you may want to change some of the ways you think, feel, eat, breathe, value, choose, or move. That’s fine. The point is to make these changes not to make yourself “better” or “different.” The point is to make such changes because they enhance and nourish, amplify and magnify, illuminate and celebrate who you already are.
— Lisa Sarasohn, The Woman’s Belly Book, p. 5
True Fulfillment
How gracious God is; how gentle with His earth-bound children! Despite my reluctance to follow, little by little He led me deeper into His truth. How could I know that in committing myself to God’s sovereignty I was embracing the richest love, the purest joys, the truest source of fulfillment the human heart can know?
— Margaret Clarkson, So You’re Single, p. 35
What Faith Sees
What does faith see? For that, we must return, I think, to the moment when we saw by faith for the very first time. In that moment, we saw differently than we had ever seen before. We had x-ray vision then. We were able to see through the things of this world and recognize in them God’s invisible qualities — love, order, patience, enthusiasm — revealed in the world he created for our benefit. Faith, after all, merely confirms what creation shows us in that first lightning bolt of believing. We looked at apples, grass, shade and saw provision. We looked at algebra and saw order. We looked at our pain and struggles, even our terror, and recognized God’s patience and his amazing gift of free will.
— Patty Kirk, Confessions of an Amateur Believer, p. 55
Vibrancy
When your tribal beliefs conflict with your soul, your vibration drops, your inner light dims, and you open yourself to physical, emotional, and spiritual maladies.
This doesn’t mean you have to give up your tribal heritage and throw away everything you own, but simply the items that cause a conflict or that do not raise your vibration or allow you the life you want and deserve…. You need to consciously and happily — not forcefully — decide what to keep, what will raise your vibration.
— Christel Nani, Sacred Choices, p. 194-195