Don't Wish For Joy, Embrace it

​I traveled a couple hours south yesterday to watch the club volleyball team my good buddy Joe coaches. The Barracudas.

(Anyone hearing the 70's song by Heart right now 🎶?)

I digress. And age myself. 🙄

The Barracudas have won several big tournaments across the south the past few months. Them being reasonably close, it felt like the perfect time to check them out.

As I watched these young women play, several thoughts came to mind:

ATHLETIC; good Lord can they jump. STRONG; warning, duck if you are in the path of their spikes or serves. COMPETITIVE; down 8 points in their first game, they willed themselves back and won the game - and didn't come close to losing a game the rest of the day.

And maybe most powerfully, I saw JOY.

For a moment, I confess, in their joy I became very reminiscent of my own middle and high school sports days. Sports were certainly the source of some of my most intense moments of childhood joy.

In the reminiscing, it was tempting to wish my way back there. Oh, if only this aging and aching and slowly deteriorating body could just go back THERE.

That was only for a moment, though, because I quickly shifted to being so very grateful I was EVER there. So very grateful to KNOW the joy those young women were experiencing out there on the court.

I didn't have to imagine it; I had been there.

I am here to tell you that there is joy to be found right here in now tapping into the joy that was once back there. Joy only dies when we let it. When we forget it.

The memory can be a nightmare, for sure. I know that. But the memory can also be a source of sweet reminder. A reminder that we have joy stored inside us. It is there.

A joyful gift born from our own experiences, and sometimes unexpectedly re-gifted to us by young women playing volleyball. Re-gifted if we'll let it.

If you look into the eyes of another's joy, and find yourself beginning to wish, don't go there. Do not waste joy on wishing.

Dedicate it to gratitude.

Dedicate it to the beautiful gift of deeply knowing the joy you are witnessing, and let it become your own joy.

Rock on Barracudas.

With joy.😊