Sharing Joy...

"We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure,  joy follows like a shadow that never leaves." ~ Buddha


The other day I stumbled across a video.  It was actually embedded in another article.  The video was of a train - a heritage train to be exact.  Now, I must say I am not a train buff.  I love trains and was super excited to get to travel Germany and Holland last year by train, but that's about the extent of it.  Oh, and I have a dream of going across Canada on a train.  Okay, so maybe I do really like trains.  But I don't know anything about them and I don't seek them out or anything.

I would be safe to say my joy of trains is not 1 millionth the joy that the fellow filming this particular video has for trains!  First, I would ask you to enjoy the short video...

When I watched it I was a little blown away by his excitement and thought 'uhm, it's just a train...'.   Then this morning I was driving into work and it was nice and quiet, which it usually is at 5:30am...but I digress.   I was driving in and it was nice and quiet when suddenly I thought of train guy and I felt this surge of joy wash over me!

I felt this joy because even though I don't get that excited about trains, I was so happy that HE felt that joy!  I can only assume that this is what parents feel when they see their little one get great joy out of the simplest of things.  Kids are great for that.  They will look at a dandelion and feel pure joy over the sunshiny yellow colour or how fluffy it is!

It got me thinking, as I like to do.  We all have days when things just aren't going our way and maybe we aren't feeling a heck of a lot of joy.  But what if on those days we tap into something like this guys joy?  Kind of like borrowing his joy!  It doesn't matter if whatever is giving them joy would give us joy.  We aren't looking at that, we are looking at the person and sharing what they feel.

If we focus on someone how someone else is feeling a ton of joy and we celebrate their joy, well then wouldn't that be like feeling joy?  And wouldn't that be enough to bring us out of our slump.  Or maybe at the very least it will put off how cruddy we happen to feel for just a moment.

Something to ponder perhaps...

Peace out my smiling happy friends!!