I have frequently written about doing what is satisfying. It is part of my new and improved, Abraham-Hicks infused attitude about life, which could be summarized by these three words:
live for joy.
The funny thing about this philosophy is that it is eminently practical. Not only is it a nice motto, but it is a tool, a yardstick or north star of sorts by which one can measure the desireability of one’s actions. Is this joyful? you can ask. If the answer is yes, then you are on the right track!
To me, a joyful action is one that inspires and satisfies a person. Because of this, everyone else inherently benefits from it, whether they realize it or not. If a person follows their bliss, and lives a live they love, they will tend to be a happier person overall. They will tend to smile more, and desire to give more to others. People around them will receive the benefit of their joy.
The key here is that one must find what is satisfying for themselves. It doesn’t work to do what satisfies another—unless that also satisfies you. In that case, you really are doing something to satisfy yourself, though it may seem that it is for someone else. I hear Mother Theresa derived great satisfaction from the acts of generosity and love that she gave others. She was divinely selfish.
I derive satisfaction from a good many things. These things are personal to me. They may not satisfy you, or they may not in the same way satisfy you. The bottom line is that joy is deeply personal. To insist that your way of getting joy is the way is misguided, since joy is such a personal thing. In fact, if you insist that others must do what you do so that you may feel good about it, one wonders if indeed that is true joy at all (for either you or them)!
So I guess the theme here is that in order to live for joy, you must choose authentically what is best for you. You can’t settle or choose to please another if it doesn’t please you. I’ve certainly written about this theme before. Yet the reason that is so is that, unless it truly is joyful for you, it will not produce a joyful outcome! You can’t create and experience joy unless you are doing what is truly joyful to you!
I have had to learn this the hard way. Many is the time I tried things that I hoped would bring me joy, yet realized through experience that I was not motivated by true joy to do those things. I was motivated by pleasing others, or by hoping that what I found would work. I had not learned to go within myself, to get to the core of how I felt about something.
Now that I get this, I think it shall be easier to discern the real deal from something else.
Live for Joy. As you define it.