Joy {Guest Post}

I asked my friend Mira to write a guest post and she said yes. So here it be.

 “Joy isn’t something that just happens. It doesn’t appear out of nowhere. It isn’t a fuzzy, warm feeling that comes around occasionally when everything is going our way. Joy – real, actual Joy – is a choice. It is a decision we make every morning when we climb out of bed. It is when we choose to be happy in the hardest moments of our life, when most people would crawl under their covers and give up.

            “You can’t be happy without courage – the courage to fight for it, to push through every dark cloud that tries to darken your world and refuse to take things lying down. Joy is when, despite every thunderstorm, despite every problem, despite every pain you face, you get up again and you DEFY the desire to give up.

            “Yes, Joy is defiance – it is to defy what every part of you is telling you to do and resist the urge to fall into self-pity. It’s looking at your circumstances, with all their pains, and laughing in the face of it – really, honestly laughing. The moment you lose the will to defy depression is the moment you lose the war.”