We Fucked UP! Hooray!

Thinky thoughts today about joy – about how we wait for it. About how elusive it sometimes seems. And about negativity. About the way our thoughts get mistaken for reality.

Nothing new here in these thoughts. But occasionally in life you have the moments when things coalesce for you a bit. When life seems to sing out a song of ‘you’re onto something’. 

Today is one of those days. Okay I admit – it helps that it’s a beautiful sunny day and there’s probably something in that which has affected the chemical mix in my brain and organised things internally so that some thoughts come more quickly to the surface than others.

I’ve never been one to dwell too much into the depths of the genetic and chemical makeup of the human being. That’s for others. For me, reducing everything to mere physics and biology doesn’t help to navigate the practicalities of the world. My ocean is one of emotions, thoughts, spirituality, essence.

So today I want to talk about joy.

I’m a big one for creating our own realities. I think that what we believe becomes thought and what we think dictates action and how we act pulls things in towards us or repels them away. So you can really want to be very rich but if you hold problematic beliefs about the nature of money, then you will probably find yourself unable to manifest it for yourself or hold onto it for very long.

Similarly for love and almost any human endeavour.

This isn’t about sugary positive affirmations to cover things up – this is more a genuine, conscious relationship with your own inner world to learn how your beliefs affect what you’re experiencing in the world. No number of positive affirmations in my opinion can disguise what you really think and feel.
But that way of being in the world relies on always driving the creation of things in your life. And sometimes driving them very hard.

And today I’ve been thinking about joy. Which seems to me to be less about driving and more about being. Less about actively creating our lives but of about enjoying them. And it seems to me that joy also comes with acceptance and an openness to something other than what you think you need in life at any given moment. 

If we’re driving really hard to Point A we may miss that Point B is infinitely more interesting. If we think what we really need is to be X, we may miss the joy that comes with being Y.

We’re a bundle of contradicting cultural and social pressures, us humans, mixed in with genetics and parenting styles. In amongst all that, joy can seem utterly elusive. Look outside of yourself for one moment and you’re bound to be assailed by countless different perspectives and many of them will tell you what’s completely and utterly wrong with you and the world we live in.
You’re bad because you’re single. You’re bad because you’re a woman. You’re bad because you don’t have a kid. You’re bad if you’re a man and you cry. You’re bad if you’re too thin. You’re bad if you’re too heavy. You’re bad if you buy this t-shirt. You’re bad if you don’t. You’re bad if you’re this sort of artist. You’re bad if you’re that sort. You’re just bad.

Don’t paint your toe-nails? Bad.
Paint them? How superficial are you.
Didn’t finish that bit of work you had to do? Lazy.
Work too hard? Work-a-holic loser. Life is about spontenaity.

Yes, it is pretty much guaranteed that in this emotionally and psychologically damaged cultural collective that you will find someone who can pinpoint twenty reasons in five minutes why you should be really down on yourself. They’ll also probably tell you how to fix it. Now do you have a bunch of stuff you could be doing better and more effectively? Probably. We all do.

I, for instance, am probably the single most disorganised person I know. I can’t organise my way out of a bucket. It’s problematic because I have so much I want to achieve but I’m just goddam lazy sometimes and other times I genuinely don’t think of things ahead of time. Things sneak up on me and suddenly, as much as I think I’ve got things sorted, there’s twenty things I need to do and I needed to do them yesterday. 

Fines collect up on my desk because I forget to pay them. I have a jacket in my cupboard which has needed to be taken to the dry-cleaner for about twelve months. I’ve got shoes I don’t wear because I haven’t gotten around to fixing them. Yup, I’m my parent’s most disorganised child and a cause of much exasperation.

And yes, there are emotional issues I should be well on top of at this point. Well on top of. I mean how old am I? Five? 
But you know what – I’m pretty freaking awesome anyway. 

So are you – whoever you are reading this right now, no matter what’s going on in your life, with all your ‘problems’ and challenges and fuck-ups and failures – you’re pretty freaking awesome. Hey – as we say in the impro world – we fucked up! Hooray!!! Maybe that’s joy.

You know what else is joy? Being easy on each other. Not telling ourselves or each other off for shortcomings. Allowing someone else to fuck up without making it important that they did. Letting someone be human. Letting someone be imperfect. Loving them anyway. Letting ourselves make mistakes and loving ourselves anyway. Doing the wrong thing and forgiving yourself. Allowing yourself to forgive someone else too. Yeh, that’s definitely joy.

And I reckon what we create from that space is infinitely better for us and our community. 

Lets free ourselves from this misery of having to be anything other than exactly who we are. Lets just be joy.

Just a thought.