Good evening. Today, I got on a bus. And I don’t know if it brings out the best or the worst in people.
Certainly people usually are very gracious when they’re on the bus. But if you look at their faces, a lot of people seem to be in some form of endless torment, like they’re living out a Van Gogh painting, if you will. Right?
And joy came to mind immediately, because as human beings, I suspect we don’t always live a lot of joyful lives. Right? And of course, the question is, why not?
Well, on this beautiful, beautiful evening, about 30 kilometers outside of Krakow, Poland, I just thought I would leave you with some thoughts on joy.
Now, the big question that has always come to me was a question that was posed to me many, many years ago by my friend Keith. I was very, very nervous. I had to give a big speech, a couple hundred people, something like this.
I was perspiring. My heart was palpitating. Right?
And he looked at me and he said, Leon, Leon, what’s wrong with you? And I said, oh, I have to give this speech. And he said, so?
I said, no, no, but it’s a very big speech to maybe 200 people. So? So I’m nervous.
I’m terrified. I’m afraid. And he said to me, Leon, who makes you afraid?
And it struck me, of course, that, of course, I do exactly the same thing when it comes to joy. Who gives me joy? Of course, I do.
Now, that sounds very foolish, doesn’t it? Because we all know we’re riddled with frustrations and emotions on a daily basis. And once we gain consciousness, boy, things just increase, don’t we?
We have these biological urges to fall in love, to meet a mate, to have friends, to be successful virtually, et cetera, et cetera, right? So we’re driven into a certain direction.
And this usually precludes joy, because joy is something, as we said earlier, that you could only give yourself. But you do need to grasp the moment to feel joyful, or joy-filled, if you will. So how do I do this?
Music Years ago, I taught an interesting man, a dermatologist, and he said to me, Leon, if you really want to capture the day, and he was very busy, he told me he did this 20 times a day.
20 times a day, he just stopped and caught the moment for 30 seconds or a minute, just to feel the great gratitude, the joy of being alive. Eckhart Tolle, right? You know, from Master Eckhart in the 14th century, right?
We’ll talk about him in a little bit. So he said to me, catch the moment. I didn’t really believe him, you know?
What’s this nonsense you’re talking about? He was successful and all those things, but he didn’t sleep very much, he was interesting, he had an interesting lifestyle.
So one day I was a little bit late, and I was on this scooter that they have in Taiwan, a kind of motorcycle without gears, and I’m really going very quickly down a highway, and it just struck me.
You know, I was stressed right out and gosh, it just struck me, stop for a moment.
So I pulled the scooter to the side, took my helmet off, and as soon as I took my helmet off, I could hear the birds, like perhaps you can hear this evening, the birds twittering.
I looked around, my gosh, there were butterflies in the far distance, there were children laughing, like really laugh from their bellies, laughter, joy-filled laughter. And there was a brook bubbling away in the far distance.
And it just took me back, and it took me back to perhaps an earlier time, right, that we weren’t so busy. So then I got on my scooter and I proceeded in the day.
So how am I going to get gain this joy? The first thing I’m going to do is just stop for a moment and look around. Look around at the beauty that surrounds me.
Now, of course, if I’m in prison, let’s say, or gosh, Victor Frankl in a death camp, or it just goes on, right? That’s a little bit harder to do, and that sounds very foolish at that point to stop. But mentally, you can still catch the moment.
You can, no matter how terrible it is, because the moment is your moment. Time is your time. The mind is your mind.
Of course. You can catch that moment and look around. And then, after you’ve caught the moment, the moment, I think, will probably lead you to a state of awe.
Wow! I’m alive. Me.
Me. I’m alive. So you’ll have a state of gratitude that comes upon you.
So these two things have happened. You’ve caught the time and you’ve practiced gratitude. And then you realize, I think, that you can build on this mental imagery as if you’re building a mental house of joy and peace.
And a lot of that is fueled with memories. Now, all of us, I think, unless we’re very desperate, all of us have some positive memories, some wellspring that wasn’t filled with pain and anxiety.
Someone was kind to us, someone gave us an ice cream, someone gave us perhaps a coin, whatever it was, I’m sure. And we can go back at that moment and grasp that memory, and that helps us build on this joy.
Because inevitably, this is a very, very, very, very long life, right?
Many people say it’s short, but that’s just not true. I know from experiences, I’ve said many times, right? It’s a long life, but it’s a miserable life if you make it miserable.
And all of us know people, somehow they seem to invite the demons. Anything positive happening, right? We spoke about this the other day.
Anything positive happening, they can turn it into the negative. Absolutely, right? You’re so lucky today, your children are so nice.
No, they’re not. They’re poorly disciplined. You’ve made a lot of money, it’s never enough, and it just goes on, right?
These kinds of people, if you can do anything at all, you can say to them, catch yourself. This is not real what you’re saying. And if they continue, leave them.
Keep away from toxic people when it comes to joy. They won’t help you, sadly. Could be family, could be friends.
God forbid it’s someone you’re married to or in a relationship with. These people are toxic, they’re poison. They won’t help you.
You can be an example of joy and happiness and all of those things. But if they’re really the type of individual who looks for pain, the victim, walk away at some point. Really, you’ll hurt yourself.
You really will, right? You really will.
And then I think then ultimately get out in nature, right? Get out in nature and just experience the wow, the wow of joy, which is in every tree, in every bug, on this beautiful farm, as we’ve talked about, right?
Just to reiterate, go back and catch that moment, then practice gratitude, then begin to build this house, this life of joy. So think about this. Give yourself joy.
We’ve all suffered in life, but at some point I have decided, and I think you’ve decided to go on and live a joy-filled life. And why not? The universe, God Gaia, has given me this consciousness.
Why not enjoy it? Like, why not? Why not?
Really, it seems like such a straightforward question, doesn’t it? And all of us will have different stations in life. All of us will have different beauties.
All of us will have less money or more money, but there will never be anyone experiencing my experience, experience in this reality, will there? And it’s true. It’s true.
It’s really true. So, look for joy. I’ll throw in something else.
Look for excellence, always excellence. Why not? And live out that joy-filled life.
And you can do it, I can do it. And you know what they say. You know what they say.
Critical thinking is everything, especially if you’re going to live out a joy-filled life. And critical thinking is great, truly great. You take care.
God bless. Bye-bye.