Here we mention a few killjoys. You’ll probably recognize them right away. We just don’t want to let them hide. When brought to the light of day, or the light of joy, their influence quickly begins to fade.
Attitude
Nothing brings down the party like a bad attitude. You know the kind. This attitude won’t rest until everyone in the room buys into it. It may be loud and angry, or subdued and depressed. Like a virus it infects everyone it touches. It wears at even the most joyful, challenging them again and again, looking for a weakness. It revels in spreading and multiplying itself.
Joy is an attitude too. It works the same way but to a different end. By now you know how to see joy, so you’ll recognize the opposite attitude right away. Label it. Call it what it is. Put up your deflector shield and load your joy rays. Then accept that bad attitude as it is and get to work choosing joy.
“Oh, it looks like you’re angry.” “You seem kinda sad today.” You may as well say “Drop your attitude,” because bad attitudes act surprised when they are called out. They’re disarmed.
If calling them by name doesn’t disarm them, try this one: “So, how come you decided to be angry this morning?” This causes a separation between the attitude virus and the host, who now has to step outside his attitude to answer the question. Accept the answer and fire another round of joy rays.
We just can’t afford to allow the bad attitude virus to succeed. It’s too big a threat to joy when that joy is in a fragile state.
By the way, these tactics work quite well on yourself if you’re the one with the bad attitude.
Stories
In the absence of information, people make stuff up. And we always exist in a state of the absence of information. Thus, practically everything we think and say is a story. Obviously our thoughts and words are not the thing or situation they describe. By using the word “story,” I mean to clarify that our thoughts and words do not describe the thing or situation completely or accurately. All we can tell is our version of the truth, colored by our beliefs and perceptions. Gandhi said that if we are to have the slightest hope of finding the truth about a situation, we must gather and understand at least seven versions of it. When was the last time you assembled seven stories to try to get to the bottom of a situation?
It’s bad enough that we’re always and only telling stories about what happened. It gets crazy when take action based on those stories. And we do it all the time.
Judgments are based on stories. Judgments always get us into trouble. Be aware of the distinction between judgment and observation: observation seeks only to describe what’s so; judgment puts a spin on it. Observation excludes language with values attached to it; judgment is soaking in value-laden words.
So, if we’re always in our stories, what do we do about that? On what do we base our actions?
First, call a spade a spade. When you call your thoughts a story, when you label your co-workers’ words a story, you’ll begin seeing them as only part of the truth. You’ll wonder “What is the rest of the story?” You’ll look again before you leap. That will give you a moment to choose joy. Joy, after all, is real. Find the joy. Base your action on that. Choose again.
Beliefs
Beliefs can kill. Here’s an interesting story: in some primitive societies where the word of the spiritual leader is deeply help to be absolute law, when your spiritual leader says you’re going to die, you die. No discernable physical cause of death. Just an absolute knowing that you must die, and that’s enough to end your life.
If I believe my boss will fire me if I don’t cheat our customers, and I believe I need this job to survive, I will cheat those customers. My beliefs don’t have to be true. I take action based on my beliefs.
You may find your joy getting you into trouble whenever such-and-such a situation occurs. You may notice your joy-o-meter dropping whenever so-and-so enters the room. You may believe Mondays are always bad days. You may believe that you’ll lose your power if you smile too much or are too nice.
Whenever you find yourself consistently running aground, check your beliefs. Use The Five Whys to help get to the bottom of hidden beliefs. Ask “Why do I think this keeps happening in this situation?” When you answer, ask again: “Why do I think that keeps happening?” Each time you get an answer, probe deeper by asking “What do I believe about that?” “What belief is leading to that?” Asking these questions five times gets you into interesting territory.
They say it’s difficult to change your beliefs. Many of our beliefs were formed when we were very young and we’ve been piling stories up for years to verify and strengthen them.
Again, bring your beliefs to the light of day. Maybe you can’t change them, but when you know what they are, you can begin cutting down on their effect on your joy. You can experiment with work-arounds in situations where you know your beliefs are blocking your desire to choose joy. In the short term, desire can trump beliefs. That’s my belief!
Interruptions
Sometimes it feels as though my whole life is an interruption. One after another until there’s no time between them. Nothing left of my intentions.
Of course some interruptions can by joyful. “Can Roger come out and play?” Mostly though, I’d rather choose what I’m doing and an interruption takes away my choice.
Or does it? I’ve been writing all along that nothing takes away my choice. I may have to deal with the interruption when it appears without warning. My next move is my choice.
I choose a next move that preserves my joy. I accept the fact that the interruption happened, rather than letting it divert me from joy. And then I choose joy again.
Ignore the interruption, deal with it quickly and efficiently, or ride it to joy.
In the meantime, I’m noticing the kinds of interruptions which tend to most negatively impact my joy. And I’m designing them out of my life.
Control
When someone is controlling you, they’re taking away your choice. Fortunately, control is a myth.
In a famous self-dialog, the ancient Greek sophist Epictetus asked himself what he could control. He started with the very large, the heavens, and worked his way smaller from there. He realized he couldn’t control the stars, the weather, or things in nature. He decided he couldn’t control other people or his own health. The only thing in the universe he could possibly control, with a lot of work, was his mind.
By the way, your mind is where choice lives.
Sometimes neither option in the choice looks very joyful. They both carry consequences we’d rather avoid. What then?
Look again. Look for the joy. Look for the third option. Keep looking. Postpone the lousy choice until you can frame a better one.
Never give up your choice. Never buy into the myth of control. Never.
Victims
Because if you give up your choice, you’ve chosen to be a victim. That’s when you feel that the world is doing unto you. It may seem like a sweet place because you’re not responsible for anything going down. After all, you didn’t get us into this mess – someone else did. That would be the person to blame. The one in control. The boss. The one who did have a choice.
Blaming sometimes seems joyful, but what you’re feeling when you point that finger is not joy. It’s righteous indignation. A very powerful emotion. One we love to feel. That’s because it’s really thinly disguised anger. Anger with justification.
Your heart speeds up, your fist clenches, you want to shout at that SOB who made that stupid decision you’re paying for. May bolts of lightning rain down on him!
Doesn’t sound very joyful to me.
Knock it off. Acting like someone took your power isn’t very attractive. We all know control is a myth. You own your life, and it looks an awful lot like the decisions you’ve made.
It’s not fun being a victim. There’s no joy in it. Choose again.
Scoreboard
If you insist on being a victim, a tool you must develop is your scoreboard. This is where you track every wonderful thing you’ve done for others, and a few not-so-wonderful things perhaps, and assign points to each. You also track every miserable thing others have done to you, and a few wonderful things they could have done but didn’t, and assign points to those. You keep a running tally of the scores for everyone in your life. Then you can use those scores whenever you want to prove the world is getting over on you. You’ve got the data to prove life is not fair. You can demonstrate clearly to anyone that they owe you one. Pretty handy.
It sounds silly, but we do this ALL THE TIME. Life is a game, right? Somebody has to keep score. May as well be me.
I don’t want to play this game. I never know what your rules are because you keep changing them and you hardly ever write them down. When I play, I always lose. You rarely come to me and say “I owe you one – I’m way behind in points.” You never pull out your scoreboard unless you want to prove I’m not good enough. And then it’s a trial and I’m the defendant. You keep dragging me out of the now and into the past, running a replay of the situation that always seems different than how I remember it.
Stop. There’s no joy here. Whenever scoreboard appears in the conversation, take immediate notice. Change the conversation. Focus on now. Aim for the joy. Choose again.
FEAR
There’s a lot of goofy behavior going on in this section, and it all leads away from joy. Whenever I see goofy behavior I don’t understand, I ask this question: “Where’s the fear?” There’s really only one thing in this world strong enough to bump us away from our natural state of joy, and that’s fear. That’s why FEAR earned capital letters in the title and caboose position in this section.
Your life is a moment-to-moment choice between joy and fear. That’s the bottom line. Both joy and fear wear a lot of costumes, but under all of life’s emotions, decisions, and games, there they are, just the two of them, staring at you, presenting their case to win your choice.
Whenever something feels strange or wrong, ask yourself “What am I afraid of?” “What story am I telling myself about this situation and where’s the fear in there?” Get a little leverage on your fear by stepping back for a moment, looking at that fear for a moment, and calling it by name. Know in that instant that you have a choice. And then choose again.
