Recognizing our joytivities!

Most of my early adulthood has gone into discovering what i want to 'do' in my life. Quotes like 'find out what you want to do", "what do you love to do?", "find your calling through your work"  did nothing to help the uproar inside of me. It only made it worse. Destiny, calling, etc. just seemed like buzz words that were incredulous. 

The growing awareness that one might be here to do something very specific can be utterly frustration, because it comes without a map or directions. But this awareness is special and it does not come to everyone. In many ways, the source of this frustration is the germination of spiritual journey, as it was for me. A by-product of this phenomenon is restlessness and a restlessness so severe that it would make me cry. This very feeling pushed me to dabble in multiple jobs. I was keenly aware when a job didn't line up with me. I was labeled a job hopper and was threatened that my resume would be a cluster and reflection of a fickle mind. I am glad i didn't listen. It was a not a reflection of a fickle mind, it was a reflection of an aware soul. 

But through this journey, I realized something very important that changed my life. We don't need to find the perfect job, we have to find our joytivities....activities that fill us up with great joy. Recognition of things that bring us joy is a huge step in our evolution, no matter how small they are. Smelling the soil after a rain, the sunrise, the sunset, the ocean, walking through the nature, reading, writing, listening to someone talk, listening about a particular subject, getting a tattoo, bungee jumping, animals,  sitting on the couch with your favorite candle lit....we need to acknowledge the things we like to do and that bring us immense joy. Because they are the guiding cornerstones of our own version of a happy life. Our ideal external job in this lifetime, if we can overcome the guilty pleasures of money, power and prestige, will be a combination of the things that we most enjoy doing. Most people ignore this and might still be very successful in their jobs. But if they ever made an honest confession about their professional lives, they would talk about the constant restlessness and a void. 

I never thought much of writing. I was a journal writer from pre-teens and never gave much thought much about the fact that i did go back to writing when i needed some peace and it genuinely made me happy. One day, someone just generally asked me "what is that one thing you would do, when there is no one at home and you are all by yourself, something that you completely lose yourself in"? It was writing. Whether it was journaling, poems or writing memoirs - nothing gave me as much peace. Activities that are therapeutic to us also  give us a glimpse of who we really are - we see a very pure form of us when we are engaged in our joytivities. It is not important that your joytivity becomes your job. As long as we are able to disengage ourselves from the rigmarole of daily lives and spend as much time as we can engaging in these activities, there is a shift within us. One will also experience the serenity and calm reflect in all other areas of their lives - such is the power of connecting to our joys. Go find your joytivities and experience the life changing affects of that recognition.