Measuring Joy

I was going to say that I’m reverting to my childlike thoughts and images, but I suspected that could sound strange because I’m not 100% sure I’ve ever really graduated to the world of “adult” thoughts and images.

Anyway, I started this illustration before Christmas, to post at Christmas. I really liked where it was going… with playful children hanging out in letters of JOY, but I had too many things on my mind, so I put it to pasture.

I had a conversation with someone recently, and my thoughts about that conversation prompted me to bring the illustration back, with more children and a few alterations.

Long story short, he was feeling a little down in the dumps and was experiencing something that I’m all too familiar with – the sense that his life was a bit similar to Groundhog Day – doing the same things day after day (work, come home tired, eat, rinse and repeat), and he was not really feeling fulfilled.

I totally got it, as I have felt that way many times. But, I had a thought the next day, about how we measure our lives, or our level of satisfaction or fulfillment, or even our JOY. 

Do you measure your joy or life satisfaction by the amount of material objects you own? By the amount of money you make? By your accomplishments? By the number of Facebook friends you have? By the number of stamps on your passport? (I don’t know if they really stamp passports because I’ve never actually had one… but it looks pretty cool in the movies.) 

I think you get my drift. When I thought about it like that, I realized that looking at how we measure our JOY, or – more importantly – what we measure it with, can actually tell us a little about why we’re experiencing that humdrum, not-so-satisfied, my life is like the movie Groundhog Day kind of feeling. Maybe we’re not looking at what’s important.

So, it seemed like a good time to bring the JOY back out, and let the children measure it for us. They might do a better job!

I’ll be talking with my friend again soon, and I hope that – if we put our heads together properly – we may be able to fix his measuring tool!

That’s about all for now. I’ll update you on the status of my ‘other’ projects when I come up for air. Until then…

Thank you for reading or viewing! I hope you enjoyed something here!

---

“We need joy as we need air. We need love as we need water. We need each other as we need the earth we share.” –Maya Angelou.