It's A Choice

I want to let you all in on a secret. It’ll improve the quality of your existence, help you make better choices and go farther in life...be it professionally or your personal relationships.

If you’ve been reading Buckaroo Barbie for very long, you’ll have heard me talking about joy at some point. There is a big difference between joy and happiness. Joy is a choice. Happiness is a feeling that floats in and out of your life at will. Happiness is something that happens TO YOU. Joy is something YOU CREATE.

Everything that happens in life presents you with a choice: to be knocked down and allow negativity to set in at the things that happen TO you, or deciding to not allow life to affect your joy no matter what occurs. You don’t get to choose what comes into your life and the experiences you go through, you only get to choose how you will react to them. That right there is power, my friends.

I’ve tried going through life both ways; allowing things to happen to me, or making a conscious decision to chose joy every day and learn from what I’m going through at that particular moment.

Life is a heck of a lot better when you chose joy. It’s not easy, I don’t think most things in life are, but it is totally worth it.

Happiness is a bubbly feeling, a surface emotion. We experience happiness when life goes our way, and we lose our happiness when the world raises its ugly head and life happens. I have been forced, because of my health, to not participate in MOST of the outdoor activities that I love the last 5 years, but I have to say that these past 5 years have been some of the most joyful of my entire life.

Why? Surely not because I love lying in bed all day. No, I hate it actually.

I’m not a masochist, I really don’t like being in pain all the time either.

It makes me all kinds of uncomfortable to have to ask other people to help me, I think my first words as a child were, “I can do it MYSELF!”

It’s quite simple really.

Every day when I wake up I decide to have joy in my life. And then I do.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel sadness, emptiness, loneliness, hurt and betrayal just like everyone else.

But through those times, most of the time, I still have that joy because it’s a choice I’m making, not a feeling.

Life is beautiful, exciting and an adventure.

It’s also painful, difficult and overwhelming.

Make a change in your life and decide to chose joy; your whole life will change.

xo xo Liz