When you need inspiration in life, a few great, famous sayings from some of the most creative and brilliant minds is sure to do the trick. Jot down one or two of these quotes about joy and keep them up at your computer.
Better yet, commit one to memory, and you can reach for it anytime.
Kahlil Gibran
“Joy and sorrow are inseparable. . . together they come and when one sits alone with you . . remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.”
Too often we think life should be only about “happy” moments, when really happiness and pain go hand in hand. Pain helps you appreciate the joyful times, and joy helps you learn from the more difficult times.
Marianne Williamson
“Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.”
You can choose happiness. That’s the secret that midlifers know better than anyone else. Once you choose it, it’s always there. All you have to do is recognize it.
Gloria Vanderbilt
“To be happy–one must find one’s bliss.”
There’s no doubt that finding what you’re passionate about and what you were meant to do can change your life in amazing ways. That’s why so many people take up a second career in midlife, or finally find the courage to act, paint, and be creative, when they didn’t before.
Pearl S. Buck
“To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy and a whole heart and a free mind.”
So many people volunteer because they need something to do or want to meet new people, and that’s okay for a start. But when you volunteer to serve someone else because you have something to give them, you’ll learn that they had something to give you as well. Lessons about joy often comes from unexpected places.
Emily Dickinson
“Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.”
It might surprise you that a virtual recluse such as Emily Dickinson could find joy in the everyday corners of life, but then again, joy isn’t about money or travel or fame. It’s about looking at the joy in making a sandwich for your child, in cleaning a window, listening to the birds outside, and all the small but significant parts of life.
Albert Einstein
“Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift.”
What do you know now that you didn’t when you were 20 years old? That comprehension gives you the ability to be more joyful now than at any time before.
Mother Teresa
“Joy is strength.”
Have you ever noticed someone who seems to fall apart over the smallest of things? In midlife, we have the benefit of knowing how strong we are, and this thought and the actions that go with it, will bring us joy.
