The Joyful You

I realize that I put too much emphasis on other people to create joy in my life. The result of this is mostly disappointment; not in others, but in myself. I create high expectations of how I think things should be. I attribute this to the fact that I am a control freak, and I envision scenarios of perfection in my little mind, and like a movie, I wish for them to play out perfectly on the first take.

Since this rarely happens – and let’s be honest – it never happens, because who can actually read my mind? So let me rephrase – since this never happens, I have made a point to redirect these expectations toward myself because then if I let myself down, then I only have myself to blame.

Living inside my own head can be exhausting. I have debates with myself about whether or not I am being fair in my disappointments in others, and whether or not I am in fact being reasonable, it’s moot because I can’t rely on someone else the way that I can create for myself what I need in life.

Sometimes when I get upset in a situation, I will scratch any plans I had for the remainder of that day, rent a tear-jerking chick flick, veg out on the couch and cry until my face hurts. While sometimes that is very cathartic, it’s not fair to myself. Why allow that outside factor to affect what I have going on inside me? Instead, I am learning to do things just to spite those negative situations. Something bad happens to me one day? So I’ll go to the gym and work out extra hard, because I know I’ll feel better. Instead of eating a pizza for dinner, I’ll go ahead with the fresh salad I had planned, because food won’t make me feel better – I will make myself feel better. Mind over matter. Only I can bring the joy to myself that I need and deserve.

Eventually I will fully be able to practice what I preach and only look to myself for my daily doses of joy. And when I do find it in outside sources, that will be an added bonus to what I’ve already got going.