Experiencing more joy in your day-to-day life can be a complicated quest, requiring intense commitment and focus on the simple internal statement, “I want to be happy”. A significant barrier to our living a joy-filled life can be the self-defeating, subconscious work of our individual egos. The most enlightened and spiritual mortals on this earth never really become ego-free, but they learn to manage it and lovingly ask it to take a back seat more often than those who are driven by it. True happiness is found in the internal, spiritual world, not in the ego-based, external material world. An egocentric life can produce tremendous levels of stress and pressure. It’s an illusory world where your ego makes you think you control everything and, therefore, makes you responsible for everything. A simple illustration of this is in your insistence or expectation that anything is done “your way”. The way people dress, act, speak, think eat, etc., can all be sources of frustration or even anger if they don’t conform to your ego’s definition of what is “right”. I have seen a person’s whole day be ruined by their judgment about how a person drove that morning. Do you want more joy in your life? Learn to let it go!
The fact of the matter is, that you actually control very little in your or anyone else’s life. Although ego would have you believe otherwise, letting go and not always insisting on being in control actually results in more power and joy in your life. I’m sure you’ve noticed that the people in your life who try to control everything are usually the most insecure, while those who seem to be at peace with whatever happens have a compelling air of confidence and contentment about them. You can start out by taking baby steps, and begin to notice when you get that feeling of discomfort inside when something doesn’t go “your way”. If you feel yourself reacting negatively to what someone is wearing, for example, try to appreciate the absurdity in your judgment, recognize that it is not bringing you joy, and then let it go. Alternatively, you could let it eat at you, negatively affect your immune system and health, and perhaps lead you to say something to the offender that will now affect them negatively too. Try using your internal physical sensations as alerts to recognize these useless, egocentric judgments. Then, invest the work into just letting them go.
If you want to take this exercise to an even higher level, where you really start to make progress toward abundant joy in leaps and bounds, consider then adding the second part to the famous tenet, “Let go and let God”. Once you appreciate the power of this concept and surrender yourself to the trust and faith required by it, your life will be transformed. Rick Warren, an accomplished evangelical Christian pastor and bestselling author, puts it this way; “You know you’re surrendered to God when you rely on God to work things out instead of trying to manipulate others, force your agenda, and control the situation. You let go and let God work. You don’t have to always be in charge. Instead of trying harder, you trust more.”
