The Art of Living Joyfully
Written by SurfWriter Girls Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel
Remember when you were little and your parents said at dinner, “Don’t play with your food”? Children have a natural sense of fun whatever they’re doing. Good manners are important, but so is having fun and celebrating life’s moments.
Life is serious stuff. But finding the funny side can make us happier, especially when dealing with difficult situations.
Award-winning science journalist Catherine Price, author of the recent book The Power of Fun, says we need to “prioritize having fun.” Fun not only makes us feel better, but “brings people together. You’re embracing your shared humanity.”
She hopes that people will stage “funterventions” where we look for opportunities to have fun. Even work, family responsibilities, health matters, and other concerns can be made less stressful.
SurfWriter Girls Sunny and Patti agree that adding fun into our daily activities energizes us and keeps us in a good mood. Singing along to our favorite songs, doing yoga, taking selfies, cooking new recipes, wearing fun T-shirts, watching rom-com movies, turning a cup of tea into a tea party!
Recently we came across Barbara Ann Kipfer’s book The Happiness Diary: Practice Living Joyfully, a bestseller that explains that happiness doesn’t come from obtaining stuff or being perfect. It comes from “savoring and ingraining the good things you experience.”
The book provides exercises, reflections and journal prompts that help you to grow an emotional garden of flowers to pick when you have challenges to get through.
To increase your level of happiness, Kipfer says spend time in nature, do something positive, feed your mind through reading, learning and being creative, try something new, travel.
Even lounging – doing nothing (without feeling guilty) – is a skill we all need to learn. Just look at cats lying contentedly in the sun.
Yes, life can be demanding, and these past years have been difficult times, but adding in a measure of fun and learning to live joyfully can help to make things better.
Let’s keep the Ho, Ho, Hos happening in the New Year. Happy New Year to all.
Sunny Magdaug and Patti Kishel hold the exclusive rights to this copyrighted material. Publications wishing to reprint it may contact them at surfwriter.girls@gmail.com Individuals and non-profit groups are welcome to post it on social media sites as long as credit is given.