Our lives are filled with many short lived moments. Moments that bring us joy & happiness. Finishing up a dream vacation. Leaving an old job to take a new one. The day we hit our weight loss goal. Closing on our dream house. How great we felt just after attending an incredible party. And so on.
The next day arrives much too quickly. Giving us no time to savor our joy. New things to attend to. Responsibilities and commitments now fill up our next day. Leaving our short lived moments of joy to become stacked in our memory. Most likely to be forgotten over time as more recent ones take their place.
We feel joy. Never stopping to explain it.
Where does gratitude fit into joy? It’s definition is “a feeling of appreciation or thanks”. Being grateful forces us to try to transform our feelings into meaningful words. Reflecting on the why something brought joy into our heart. Why did the impact of an experience bring us this uncontrollable feeling of joy?
Being grateful for the joy we find, now brings context to an experience through reflection. Bringing depth to our moment of joy through meaning. Using words to help deepen our experience around the joy we felt. Extending our feeling of joy by helping us understand why this uncontrollable joy consumed our fragile heart.
While helping us to develop this habit of appreciating more of the experiences we encounter to find meaning and gratitude in everyone we meet and everything we either face or do during each day of our lives.