JOY IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY

Your personal joy is your personal responsibility. 

Imagine looking for as many red things in the room as you can. Then closing your eyes and pointing at all the blue things. How easy would that be, when your mind is full of red?

Has someone complimented you on something and you thought, “That was nothing!” You didn’t accept the compliment. You feel that what you did was not significant enough. Or have you ever felt great over something that happened, told a friend about it and they brushed it aside? Have you ever had a really great day, and then something happened… A rude comment, an unmet expectation, or a small inconvenience. Did you allow the event to influence your mood & determine how you feel? Did the day become a bad day? Did you allow that one event to ‘colour’ your day? 

Is there a better way to handle this?

Our emotions are our responsibility. It’s funny how you can take one bad event, fixate on it and magnify it, and ignore everything around us that’s great. How cheap is your happiness? How quickly are you willing to put your happiness aside for some small event?

You cannot take responsibility for how other people feel. Even it’s about you, or something that you did or did not do – how they choose to react is their responsibility. How you choose to respond to their actions is your responsibility. If you’ve made a mistake apologize for it and make amends. But you can’t take responsibility for another person’s emotions. To do so is to not take responsibility for your emotions.

If somebody gives you a gift that you can’t accept, who does the gift belong to? The giver. If someone is negative and says something hurtful to you, those emotions are theirs. They do not belong to you.

The takeaway is this:

1. Your personal joy is your responsibility.

2. Do not base your happiness on things that are outside of your control.

3. When challenges arise always keep them in perspective.

You are never at the mercy of people, circumstances or your past. Those things are at the mercy of your thoughts, words and behaviours.

It’s not the world’s job to make you happy, that’s your job.