Even if your world is not picture perfect, you can still carve out moments of small joys each day and take a few moments to honor their beauty. 

En-joy:  The prefix en- (often em- before is a word-forming element originating from Latin in- and Greek en-, meaning “in,” “into,” “within,” or “to cause to be/make into”. It transforms nouns and adjectives into transitive verbs, indicating covering, enclosing, or placing something into a state.

Being in a state of joy 24/7 is not sustainable. When complete joy is never ending, it morphs into the mundane and we either must find greater; bigger and bigger moments of that new high, or we must surrender to “less” and possibly suffer depression from the loss of the high. 

In a world of sound bites and ads and teasers and memes, we are bombarded with things that marketing and PR have chosen in hopes of getting a reaction from us. Things that should shock or thrill, disgust or inspire us flash past our view a hundred times a day. So often that the visuals normalize and fade into the brain file labeled *mundane data*. 

It takes something new, unusual and memorable to grab our attention now. And the link between the new and our attention is emotion. Marie Kondo got one thing right; it must spark joy. 

Instead of attempting to make joy perpetual, try moving through many daily moments of small joys. We are then able to experience and collect snapshots, memory photos of them all and they fill our story in a very satisfying way. 

Having personal time with those we love when we have their full attention and eye contact are small joy moments. It’s then that we know we are fully loved and seen and heard. 

Our loved ones cannot be with us that way all the time as they need to fully live their own lives, as well, but they can be there fully present in small doses daily, weekly etc, fully satisfying our needs while we do the same for them. 

These moments are what leads to true intimacy in relationships and allow the stage to be set for physical intimacy in romantic relationships. . 

Things of beauty, like art, are small ways that we honor joyful spaces. A carefully chosen painting or a piece of pottery causes us to pause and give a moment of reverence honoring the creator of the piece. Even holding still in the wonder of the creative process that inspired a person to have made this in the first place. Brought forth from the void, we can see their vision with our own eyes. 

The human form has its own beauty without any adornment at all. It does not stop a loved one from gifting us a pair of beautiful earrings that the giver can see, knowing that they have left their mark on us in this small way. A claiming and a celebration of their affection. The jewelry stands as a placeholder or symbol of love and when our fingers stray to trace the metal or when our laughter causes the bauble to swing and tap our neck, it’s a brief connection, a whispered  reminder that we are loved. A collected moment of joy. 

Rather than chasing the improbability of being happy “once and for all”, we can view these small moments of joy as scenic overlooks on the road of life. 

The road will be long and sometimes difficult or even boring, but when the sign says “picture stop ahead”, we are gifted with an inhale of hope mixed with the opening notes of joy that this picture stop will make our day. 

Go. Find something beautiful today and take a mental picture of it for your joy collection.