I love today’s Bloganuary prompt for the simple reason that it sparks joy in me. 🙂 The prompt comes at an opportune time in my life, when I’m trying to find the beauty in the simple things around me. This year, I’m trying to discover myself and to do so, I’m trying to really appreciate anything and everything. It’s an attempt to be “radically grateful”, so to speak.

I am of the opinion that the fight or flight systems in our mind have really distorted our perception of our world. We live in constant fear, in our bid for self-preservation. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, it’s an evolutionary wiring in our mind’s framework, and a lot of the time, it is a useful tool in navigating this big bad world around us.

With that said, while going through a gamut of negative emotions while trying to keep ourselves alive (and sane), sometimes, we forget the good things in our life. There’s so much good around us, there are so many good things happening to us.

For instance – If you are reading this blog post on a computer or on a phone or tablet, I’ll call you privileged. There’s a good chance that your eyes are working fine, allowing you to grasp every word I have written in this post. If you used a screen reader to “hear” this post, then your hearing is 10/10, most likely. And the fact that you have a smart device connected to the internet that offers a gateway to the world, is the ultimate privilege, isn’t it?

Now, what does this have to do with joy? I’ll explain.

What I’m trying to say is – there is joy around us. 🙂

• You can be joyous because your body is likely to be functioning perfectly fine
• You can find joy in being able to not feel any pain in your body
• You can find joy in enjoying some of the modern comforts of life
• You can find joy in looking at another human being and just smiling at them (then you’re spreading joy too)
• You can find joy by the virtue of just existing.

While acknowledging that part of us that keeps us protected by empowering our instincts, we can still find joy by being thankful for even the smallest things that bring us joy.

In other words, I’m trying to practice finding joy in the everyday happenings of life, to find joy by just existing.

And I think it is beautiful.