Living a joy-filled life

You might be forgiven for thinking that our household is without it’s miserable moments. That, dear friends, would be unrealistic. Any household with humans in it is likely to experience moments of discord, either experienced individually or corporately. However, they are moments and how we respond to them effects the general atmosphere and our relationships.

This week we have been enjoying den making. Our 12 year old collected 10 foot high branches from the woods and brought them back home with the intention of building a teepee. He has spent sunny afternoons lying in it, mostly playing on his phone, and snuggled up with one of our cats.

We helped our youngest two make a den in their bedroom and we have slept together in it every night for almost a week. There have been tickets issued for a Slumber Party this evening and a schedule of events circulated.

We have all been playing minecraft together both on tablets and pc. If you have never played, I highly recommend it, especially if you want to understand why your children require long stretches of uninterrupted time at online games.

Our youngest has been keen to go out on a daily walk or bike ride or scoot. I don’t know if it is the act of leaving the house or designated daddy time or the actual bike ride but it definitely brings her joy.

We began our first family Dungeons and Dragons quest a few weeks ago and we spend time on it most evenings. There are four of us playing, three of us have cried at one point or another (see, I told you it wasn’t all cupcakes and rainbows) but we have persevered and regrouped and it continues to be popular.

We have moments of fun in our days. Someone can call out “the floor is lava” and we all head for high ground or “freeze” and we all stand motionless until we hear the command to “unfreeze.” Today we went outside in the lashing rain to try out our new raincoats and collected hail stones in cups and put them in the freezer.

It can become easy to forget how joy fills our lives. We have become practised at it and it is part of our natural flow of life. If something will make our day better or a moment happier then we put our energy into doing those things. I no longer feel the need to arbitrarily restrict my children’s activities based on an uneasy feeling that they might be having too much fun or, more likely, that they should be pursuing something serious. It is becoming evident in my eldest’s choice of activities that the ‘serious’ things do come in their own time but to him it is still play, it is still fun, because he continues to follow his passions and enjoys what he is doing.

Living a joy filled present will lead to a joy filled future and will create a joy filled life.