4 Jul 2022
Welcome to the first newsletter of this month-long series titled 'FINDING JOY'
If you aren’t aware of what this is about, let me introduce it to you. This whole month, we will be focusing on two things:
Practising gratitude
Giving your happiness (that is completely unique to you) centre-stage in your life to experience a calmer state of mind.
In the next three weeks, starting today, we will be focusing on 3 activities (one for each week) intending to find joy in our lives.
Before jumping into the task for the first week, I would like to sincerely thank each and every one of you for taking out time to check this email and for joining me on this journey.
Without wasting much time, let me introduce the task for this week.
IDENTIFY
I believe that the idea of happiness is different to every individual. I cannot provide you all the same list of things that give you happiness in life because human beings don’t function that way. You have your own set of experiences in life. So naturally, the idea of happiness is unique to you.
Therefore, this week I encourage you to focus on identifying everything that makes you happy. Because only you have an answer for yourself better than anyone else on this planet.
How To Do It
Spare 15 minutes from your day for yourself in a quiet environment, away from all the distractions like phone calls and messages. On a piece of paper, note your “Reasons To Live”.
Remember that only you have access to this list, so be true to yourself and mention even the smallest things, even the ones that you might think are silly. Now, as you continue with the week, keep this list in mind. Keep on adding to this list as and when you experience a “Reason To Live”.
Although you may find it convenient to maintain this list on your phone, I would still encourage you to write it down on a piece of paper.
Why This Activity?
By the end of this month, our aim is to take a step towards a calmer state of mind. We need to find ways for calmness to enter into our daily routine by building consistent practices that bring us joy. And awareness is the first step towards that.
Most of us spend at least 50% of our day on auto-mode, meaning that we don’t fully understand why or what we are doing for most part of our day. Your mind needs to be aware of how harmful it can be for you to live a life that seeks only materialistic pleasures, that glorifies or falls prey to the grind culture. You need to be aware that some effort needs to be made from your end for the things that may not directly contribute to generating wealth or leaving everyone behind in the “race”. And this activity will help you identify what exactly these things are in your life.
Next week, you will be focusing on building a plan to incorporate at least a few things mentioned in your list that you have been postponing to incorporate into your daily life forever because of a single excuse: lack of time.
See ya soon!