“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
—Thomas Edison

We all want it. Joy, that is. Is it possible to live with a sense of peace and joy without it being the holidays or a celebratory event? What about mundane days when ordinary moods and issues singe the edges of every memory and we can’t recall ever having joy? More, we don’t know to get it.

It may be hard to believe that you can have a place in your mind and body that is separate from the mind’s chaos; your mind that sounds like the breaking evening news with threats, worries, fears and more.

You have choices. We all have choices. We can complain, blame, stay angry about real things that have happened to us. Real people who have wronged us. Notice I write those sentences in past tense. None of that is happening now. And yet, it’s so easy to get trapped into the notion that we should spend our time, precious mental life energy, rethinking, remembering and reliving the past rather than live without the baggage. Well, it can be done and plenty of others have found that it’s not hard to change a few things in order to escape the misery of negative emotions and limiting beliefs.

On a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is the lowest level and 10 the highest, evaluate how justified you believe you are to feel unhappy, angry or some other feeling about a situation that affects your daily mood. 1 would indicate no impact at all on your daily life and numbers toward 10 would indicate that you believe you have a right to feel this way.

Now, on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is the lowest level and 10 the highest, what is your level of joy, happiness or peace on an everyday basis?

Would you like those numbers to change? It’s all up to you.

You see, we are all responsible for our ongoing negative moods as well as our positive moods. I know you’re saying, “But what about….?” Yes, it’s true tragedy, death and upsetting events will happen as long as we live. Some of these will challenge us to the core. That’s why it is important to learn and practice the little changes now and add skills over time, such as learning to carry a sense of peace within no matter what is happening.

Here are a few things you can do to make small changes. You can become aware of your worry thoughts. It may take effort but most people can write down a few things on their minds. Ask yourself if there is anything you can do to change it. “It” can be a memory, wish, worry that intrudes into your thoughts. Has “it” already happened? Is “it” happening now? Is there any reason to give up your happiness, time and wellbeing thinking about this? Does it feel good to think about “it”?

If “it” were a nagging child, what would you say? Stop! Quit! Something like that? Hmmmm…

And, if you were to stop and release this thought, how do you imagine you would feel? Use our 1 to 10 scale again.

It’s up to you. It’s up to all of us to be responsible for ourselves and live out our days with more sense of control, esteem, creativity. Don’t let the past stand in your way. You have a creative spirit just waiting to feel the joy of living. What else do we have?