Sometimes, people mistake happy and joyful as the same thing. I do it too, sometimes, where I will use the words interchangeably. For the record, the definitions I am using for the two words are:
Joy: The emotion of great delight or happiness. Happy: Delighted, pleased, or glad. Contented... favored by fortune. Using those definitions, then I'd say I have been, and will be happy, but I haven't been joyful in quite some time. Happy? Yes. Joyful? No. To be honest, I can't think of the last time I had a moment of great delight was when Sharon told me she was pregnant with Ashleigh. Prior to that, I can think of maybe four occasions where I was joyous. All of them revolved around the birth of my children... except for one in which I coached an 8 to 10 year old basketball team to an undefeated season and beat my Dad's team in the finals. Aside from those times, I have been happy, but not truly joyful. Funny, when I was growing up I would watch movies where there were so-called joyous occasions. (The end of "It's a Wonderful Life" comes to mind here), and I would see some idiot (picture Jimmy Stewart)with a huge grin on his face and running around all excited and I would wonder "what is that guy on. and where can I get some?" The looks on their faces were just so over the top, that I could never really picture anyone ever really being like that. In other words, I thought that they were gigantic phonies (which, of course, they were, They were actors, of course they were being phony!). I would see them, and I would think "I could never be like that." And I guess I was right. I never could be that way. When I have had my moments of joy, I have been serious and contemplative, not loud and dopey. And yet, the more I look around, the more I see people acting just the way Jimmy Stewart did in "It's A Wonderful Life." or like how Dorothy acted when she finally woke up at home in The Wizard of Oz. It makes me wonder "What is wrong with them?" or "Is there something wrong with me?". Of the two, I don't think there is anything wrong with me. I have fun. I am generally a happy person... or I try to be. I just can't pretend to be something I am not. Believe it or not, I believe these phony portrayals are actually bad for people's psyches. People see these actors acting dopey and overly kind, and then they wonder why they don't ever feel that way. They shoot for an ideal that is false. Yes, I have felt joy in my life. At no point did I ever run around like Jimmy Stewart smiling and making a horses ass out of myself. If I ever did, my sense of joy would end quickly as I would get very very embarrassed. In fact, when watching that movie, that is the emotion I feel most for Stewart's character... embarrassment. The character actors around him act like it is the happiest moment in the world to be approached by that madman. And they all smile and act like it is super. That's all it is folks. Acting! Don't ever act like that around me. Be happy? Yes, definitely! Be excited? Sure. But don't act all crazy and expect me to join in. Crazy doesn't live here... and never has.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
September 2021
Categories
All
|