Joy is the answer
(Nimue)
Choose joy. Do the things that bring you delight and enrich your life. Embrace whatever you find fun, pleasurable and happy. Be frivolous, be unproductive, be self-indulgent.
We’re used to spirituality being framed as a kind of austerity, where the joyless, dutiful life is seen as a good thing. That’s not the way for Pagans. Our ancestors of tradition embraced life and celebrated it. They asked what it means to live well, and we should do the same.
If everything is about work, who are we working for? What good is it being focused on money if we never get to enjoy it? Too many of us are currently in survival mode, and barely surviving, which is a political choice and utterly wrong. Grabbing what joy we can is essential in face of that. The more ground down you are, the greater your need for joy will be. Take any opportunity you can get for things that make you happy.
Joy is a healing thing. It’s the best antidote I’ve found to trauma. It’s how we can weather awful experiences and not end up bitter and toxic. Seeking joy where you can will keep your heart alive in trying circumstances. I’ve lived in marginal circumstances, I’ve lived with bodily pain, depression, domestic abuse. Those experiences have taught me that joy is a vital thing, and that we all need playfulness, fun and light-hearted things we can relax into and relish.
If we’re trying to help each other, bringing the joyful things is a good choice. If you don’t have much to share, then sharing laughter is still powerful. Setting out to bring each other joy is a beautifully supportive thing and is a means by which we can help each other cope, and make the best of life. Joy makes us more resilient, and in sharing it we can form the basis of community and mutual support systems.
It’s so important to give people space for what makes them happy – especially when it’s harmless. There’s no need to harass people for enjoying things. If something seems too trivial, too superficial, too pointless to you – maybe let that go. No good is achieved by crushing people because you aren’t into what makes them happy. When instead we can appreciate and enjoy each other’s happiness, we are so much better off. Being able to feel delight in response to other people’s joy is a life enhancing thing, and a gift we can easily give to ourselves.
Clearly some people do derive pleasure from knocking others down, but it’s no way to live. Embracing bitterness and derision is a choice that robs the person doing it far more than it hurts anyone else. If you knock others down, you’ll spend your time afraid that someone will do the same to you – and that’s the enemy of having fun and being content. When we enjoy what we have it’s so much easier to be relaxed about other people’s harmless pleasures. It’s bitterness that makes us want to control and limit each other, and it goes nowhere good.
Joyfulness and goodness go hand in hand. When we are happy we are able to be our best selves, we have most to offer, and the resources to make the best of whatever life brings us.
