What is the joy of living? I dare say the joy of living is the art of living life in bliss and happiness daily. This by all means does not mean your life would be free from the normal everyday hardship, or stress that comes from pursuing a worthy goal. And although, there will never be a time when life would be free from the burden of life’s challenges. However, what this means is that you have to master the art of living so that nothing can shake you off the perspective of the meaning of life and true happiness and how to maintain your balance no matter what comes up in life. 

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Many people through defects in their core values in life constantly make wrong choices in marriage, work and the very art of living. They tend to do the opposite of the things that guarantee the joy of living. For example, if you are always ill due to the intake of the wrong choice of food and exposure to risk factors that cause ill health, you cannot experience the joy of living. A wrong choice of mate in marriage will always lead to depression which can also affect your overall wellbeing. Similarly, a wrong job and bad spending habit will lead to disaster. Therefore, how do you give yourself an edge in living a joyful life? There are things and practices you can do to have the experience of joyous living. We are going to look at some of them in this article. If you take them to heart and apply them in your life, most certainly you are going to find the joy of living.

STEPS TO EXPERIENCING THE JOY OF LIVING

FIND THE RIGHT BALANCE IN EVERYTHING YOU DO

The right balance means you should always do things that are neither too extreme on one side, so that the other side suffers. Which means you should always be at the zero limit or equilibrium. For example, giving full attention to your job to the extent that other aspects of your life are not giving the required attention in areas such as your relationship, and in both your spiritual and recreational life.  Striking the right balance between work and building a strong family ties, religious practices, socializing, investing, buying luxury goods, giving selfless service, is the right fit and source for a happy and joyous life. You should be deliberate about how you organize the details of your life, so that in the end you gain the fullness of abundance, good health and wealth. Today you can find many busy executives who spent their best lives giving 100% attention to their job to the neglect of other areas of life. Many of them lost their marriages and health to their job, so that at end of their career they find out they have wasted their life neglecting the most important things in life like having a loving relationship and good health. Most of them die shortly after retirement.

LETTING GO OF THE NEWS ON RADIO AND TELEVISION

Many people do not realize that the cause of their fears, worries and anxiety comes from listening to negative news on radio and television. Every day, negative news like the Russia-Ukraine on going war, Covid-19 pandemic, kidnapping, terrorism, global inflation and other negative events are being beamed live into their living rooms. The tendency is for people to be worried about their future as the possibility of WW3 stares us in the face. Unbeknown to many they carry this fear in their system resulting in high blood pressure, insomnia, migraine, and the many other conditions we suffer from daily. The solution is to simply cut off the news and control what you listen to and watch on television and radio. For me I have not watch the news for about 5 years now after I discovered it was impacting on my health negatively. I am not bordered about WW3, or being hit by a terrorist because according to law of average the possibilities of these events happening is near zero. In doing this, I noticed I am more relax and happy to live everyday as it comes.

BUY EXPERIENCES INSTEAD OF THINGS

I am an advocate of investing your hard-earned money for the raining day. But again, who want to work and work without occasionally enjoying the good things life can offer? I am sure living that way would be sad and boring. However, how do you spend the money budgeted for leisure and luxury? Many people go out of their way to buy luxury items like cars, jewelries, piece of clothing, furniture, and things that can be considered as a liability and do not add real value to life in the long run. This is because the things you buy like cars, furniture, and jewelries get old and lose their value over time. Clothes get worn out and thrown away. On the other hand, when you buy rich experiences, they stay with you for a lifetime. By travelling to beautiful places around the world and learning about the different cultures of places visited, adds value and enhances your world view and education. Ordinary people are living behind their jobs and beautiful mansions and embarking on life changing quest to discover who they really are. 

 A family of four John and Nancy Vogel and their 10-year twin sons rode on bicycle from Alaska to Patagonia Argentina, Nate Damm walked 3400miles from Maine to San Francisco across United State. Matt Krause walked across Turkey, ending at the Iranian border. These people said they are happier while pursuing a quest on the road and facing their fears as they anticipate the joy, they would find on the road ahead. The joy of living is found in your experiences and the happiness that comes from knowing you are pursuing a purpose or a passion.  Happiness is not motivated by the amount of money you have or the position you attained in life.

GIVE SERVICE

This is one way to increase the joyous experience. Go out and give off of yourself to others. But what do you give? You can give your time by volunteering for a course anywhere in the world or you can give your money. When you give to life, something lifts up in you and your heart sings with joy.

Another aspect of this is to always give credit to people who are deserving of it. Don’t be the one who would always take credit for the success and achievement of others in the workplace, church or social organization. These types of people are the stuff dictators are made of. They are never happy because they need validation from outside themselves to be. For them happiness must come from outside of themselves and not from within. And so, they continuously look for drama and people that will bolster their ego. On the reverse side, truly happy people have reached a place, if you like call it a place of great awakening and enlightenment where they remain happy always no matter what comes up in their day to day living. This type of people does not need outside validation to have a joyous experience because their default settings is to be happy. They judge their success by the success of the people around them and the lives that they have impacted. The best way to make your dream come true is simply to make others people dream come true. This is a principle that work all the time. However, to give to others and help them succeed you must operate from a consciousness of abundance. Your consciousness must be abundance personified. People with scarcity mindset always want to grab things for themselves, families and their cronies. Scarcity mindset put you in a box where you are always afraid of lack, and this includes the lack of love, lack of money and happiness. Fortunately, there’s abundance in the universe, one way to open yourself to this is to always give and the more you give the more you flourish in abundance.

HEALTH IS WEALTH

A sick man cannot be a happy man. If you want to experience the joy of living your health must be a front burner in the decisions, you make about your life. Unfortunately, most people only give priority to their health after it has started failing and declining. While I am not a health practitioner, the only advice I can give here is that you should set aside once or twice a year to go for a comprehensive health check as this could unravel problems in the heart, liver, kidney, lung and other vital organs before they become life threatening. And this can help catch heart attack, strokes, and diabetics before they occur. Hence, you can see the importance of the clichés “A stich in time saves nine’’ and ‘’ Prevention is better than cure’’ as they can serve as a reminder to you to always be mindful of your health and well-being.

There is also breakthrough in alternative medicine which you may want to look into. Some of them can be helpful to maintain your overall health and wellness. A caveat here is to be careful when applying most of the suggestions given by alternative medicine practitioners. For me I have tried most suggestions and seen remarkable results. While for others it didn’t work for them.

Another aspect to maintain good health is to eat what is right for you, this is because what is right for A may nor be right for B. A while ago I was suffering from hypertension as I was always on anti-hypertensive medication. No matter what I did my blood pressure refuse to go down. Then I came across an article in the internet, in it the author was talking about the effect of red meat on certain blood group. And specifically mentioned blood group A+. The blood of these people struggled to break down the meat compound. And that’s why the blood pressure is always high. However, when I discussed this with my doctor, he dismissed it with a wave of hand. Nevertheless, I decided to skip eating meat completely for 6 months. After this time, test shows that my BP has become normal. Please, note that you can be a blood group A+ like myself and may not have these symptoms and even if you do, skipping meat may not work for you. We are all different, you should find what works for you, since what you eat or drink is personal, only you can make that choice.

SLEEP IS A HEALER

Don’t underestimate the power of sleep to heal and revitalize the weary and tired. When you learn to use the hours of sleep very well, you would find that you are always full of energy, this is because sleep replenishes lost energy and help calm the brain. The recommended hours of a normal day’s sleep are between 6-8 hours daily. Many people feel guilty when they sleep this long, because they have this belief ingrained in them that sleep is for the lazy and never do well. However, to maintain a sound mind and good health you need to sleep more. Apart from your mental well-being, your efficiency increases at work when you are properly rested. Therefore, a well-rested man can boast of the joy of living.

USING THE POWER OF PRAYER, MEDITATION OR COMTEMPLATION

There is power in prayer, and you can use it to address your concerns. Prayer is a means to communicate to a higher power, God, infinite Intelligence, or the Universe, depending on which term appeals to you. For emphasis I am going to be using God here. When you pray to God you can get relieve to the ills that bedevil you. And when you are relieved from a troubling situation happiness replaces it. People who have learn to use prayer in their lives are always on top of their game as they are confident, courageous, and are always in tune with their intuitive powers.

Meditation is also a means to communicate with the creator of life. In meditation you try to quieten your physical organs so that you can be open to receive messages and images from the inner world. Meditation can be use to bring peace and calm into your being as well as find solutions to problems. Yet, for others it brings a deeper awareness of the divine.

Contemplation is an active for of meditation. In contemplation you make use of your imaginative faculty to visualize or create a solution to the issues that plague you. You can use this faculty to visit the inner worlds of God, recreate a situation the way you want it. Another form of contemplation is appreciation of life. Here you consciously appreciate the things around you, like the flowers, rivers, your spouse and doing anything that would help you find the love of God. This love can lift you up to a state of sublime joy. Contemplation work on the principle that you are Soul a creative spark of God and as Soul you share certain qualities like creativity, wisdom and power with God.

Meditation and Contemplation practitioners uses deep breathing to help them relax. Deep breathing is also a technique which anyone can use to free themselves form the tension of living. When you feel tension, fear, lack of confidence in the course of your day, you can employ the technique of deep breathing to restore balance and harmony.

BE ORIGINAL

By this I mean be the original version of yourself. Do not try to live life to impress your peers, parents, pastors or even your wife. You are a perfect creation of God therefore; you have all the attribute and qualities of God in you. All you need is to live your life to reflect the love of God in you. This also means you are here to live and fulfill your purpose and mission. Living a lie will not help you achieve that mission this life time. If you also live for fear of what people would say if you fail or dare to go out and do great things, your life would be drab and filled with sadness. Originality is one of the keys to experiencing the joyous life.

KEEP MOVING FORWARD AND LEARN NEW THINGS

As you can see in everything around you, life is continuously evolving, making progress toward something. The world itself is evolving including the atoms and matter that sustains the material life. You can not afford not to grow, except you want to live a stale existence why waiting for physical death to come when you get to 85 or 90 years old. While would anyone wish this for themselves, when the simple clear alternative is to enjoy a life of adventure that awaits all who dare to keep moving and learning new things. The world has a vast array of opportunities to help you become whatever you want to become. You only need to have the zeal and curiosity to learn and when you do the universe will bring you the right opportunities to help you live your best life.

LEARN TO INVEST FOR THE FUTURE

Nothing give you peace and assurance than knowing your future is secured. That’s why the goal of those who know how to invest their money is to achieve financial security and subsequently financial freedom. How do you achieve this? The simple answer is by investing your money in your active years. There are different vehicles you can use to travel this path, such as Stocks, (401k) which is offered through your employer, IRA ROTH, Real estate, Mutual funds, Index funds, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), REITs which are like mutual funds for real estate or investing platforms which pool investors money to invest in real estate- sometimes done online, and Bond, which is regarded as a fixed-income investment and make regular interest payment to investors. The principle is then returned on a set maturity date. 

 The frame of reference of this article is to help you live a happy life, and one way of achieving this is to have a reservoir of money to give you the lifestyle you deserve. I can only state here the means to invest your money, since I am not a financial advisor or a CPA, I can not advise you on the best investment for you. If you are interested to learn about investing visit a financial advisor. If you are savvy enough to make a good choice about your investment, the dividend received can last for a life time. Be aware though of your risk-tolerance level when you invest.

I hope you stayed with me to this point. Although we are living in a world out of balance, I believe you have learned something about experiencing the joy of living.