It’s all about joy!

I heard about Jack Davis on the Ellen DeGeneres Show. Frequently, she features extraordinary people, and a couple of weeks ago, she featured eleven-year-old Jack Davis.Jack had an idea to help feed the homeless in Florida where he lives. He recognized that thousands of pounds of food are going to waste when all of it could be donated to local shelters to feed those in need. However, living in the litigious society that we do, hotels wouldn’t even consider taking on that kind of liability…so they don’t. Jack thought that was wrong, and has since been working with the lawmakers in Florida to change the law.

That’s right: CHANGE THE LAW!

Jack said, “If you think there’s a problem in the world, you don’t wait for other people to fix it. You have to try to fix it yourself.”

The kid has a point!

Be the Change. Ghandi said, “We must be the change we wish to see.” That is, we must choose in the direction of what it is we want to accomplish. No “next time’s” and no “it’s too big for me.”

For awhile, I lamented the state of our environment and would especially recoil at the sight of litter on the ground. However, a fear of germs precluded me from picking up what I came across. Since I, myself, don’t litter, I always thought it was “their problem” or “because of them” that the environment was the way it was. Now I know that I play just as important a role, and any time I refuse to pick something up, I add to the problem. My new rule is that if I see it, it’s my job to clean it.

Going a Step or Two Further. Beyond picking up litter, in the past six or eight months I’ve realized I can do more. I can begin to live in such a way that I leave a smaller carbon footprint. Small steps are better than no steps, so I’ve done things like:

• Purchased a reusable shopping bag to hold groceries instead of using plastic
• Refused bags at stores when the things I’m buying can fit in my hands or purse
• Brought my own coffee cup to Starbucks instead of using their disposable cups
• Purchased garbage bags that are made from re-engineered biodegradable waste products
• Replaced half of my incandescent light bulbs with energy-saving compact fluorescents (CFs)
• Turned off the water when I’m soaping up in the shower to conserve precious H20
• Flirted with the (personal bathroom) idea of “if it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down” (egads, it’s hard to type that…!)
• Stopped using cleaning products that contain harsh chemicals (vinegar & baking soda are two natural cleaners that work wonders)

The list goes on.

A step beyond that might be to start supporting environmental causes and companies on a state and national level. Whatever I decide to do, I need to keep in mind that like Jack Welsh, I can affect as big of a change in this world as I want to - we all can. I think it’s a matter of perseverance and passion.

Besides that, the rewards are tremendous; when we make a positive impact on the world, everyone wins. How joyful is that?!

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction….The chain reaction of evil–hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars–must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.” Martin Luther King, Jr., “Strength to Love,” 1963

I was watching The Ellen DeGeneres show, and she had on the five-year old golf prodigy, Kyle Lograsso.

This boy is simply amazing. As a toddler in diapers, he’d been fascinated by golf, despite the fact that no one else in his family played. From watching him, it’s clear that the boy was born with a gift for golf, and watching him swing is like watching miniature pro golfers.

Even more spectacular, though, is the fact that Kyle was diagnosed with cancer in both eyes when he was two. Since then, he’s undergone surgery to remove his left eye, and has been treated for tumors in his right.

That fact right there was enough to give me pause. Suddenly, whatever little crises were toiling around in my mind disappeared. I was fixated on this five-year old who couldn’t stop smiling the entire time he was on the show. The best part - for me - was when Ellen looked at him after hearing his parents tell the cancer story and said something like, “So you’ve had a rough time with that.” Kyle just kept smiling and then started laughing a little, to which Ellen quipped, “Well maybe it hasn’t been so rough!”

This won’t be the first time I write about joy and children. Quite honestly, kids know where it’s at. Happiness studies show that prepubescent kids generally suffer fewer bouts of depression than older kids, and certainly far fewer than adults.

I wonder if part of the reason has to do with a child’s ability to live in the moment?

Think about it - kids, for the most part, do what feels good to them. And when something feels really good, they want to do it forever (or at least, being an adult, it can sometimes feel that way!). On the other hand, when something doesn’t feel good, kids don’t seem to get stuck on it like adults do. They’re unhappy for about as long as the stimulus that caused them to feel that way is present. Remove the stimulus, and the bad feelings tend to disappear pretty quickly, too.

Adults, on the other hand, tend to get stuck on bad feelings. We associate with them, and wrap ourselves up in them. They become all we can think about. We are that bad or unhappy feeling - we own it. It’s who we are, and we wear it around like a blue ribbon.

What if we could adopt a child’s perspective on life and go back to living more in the moment? Stuff happens - good stuff, bad stuff, neutral stuff. What if we didn’t wrap ourselves up in it so much, and just experienced it in the moment, but let it stay there? What if we could re-learn how to do what makes us happy, and really linger in that space and in that frame-of-mind, as opposed to putting so much emphasis on the stuff that makes us unhappy?

I have a sneaking suspicion we’d all experience a lot more joy in our lives.

It’s certainly a goal I’m shooting for.

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For more information on Kyle, visit his website.