That is twenty-some years of worry carved into my forehead. [With probably a little sarcasm or skepticism thrown in there, I notice those expressions are similar, at least on my face.]
I have not spent twenty-some consecutive years constantly worrying, no, I would say my life has been relatively free from over-anxiety. It is amazing, then, how single occurrences of worry, segregated episodes of doubt can mark you so permanently.
But then again, so can joy.
A single moment of unmitigated joy can imprint itself on your heart and change your life forever.
“I call it Joy. 'Animal-Land' was not imaginative. But certain other experiences were... The first is itself the memory of a memory. As I stood beside a flowering currant bush on a summer day there suddenly arose in me without warning, and as if from a depth not of years but of centuries, the memory of that earlier morning at the Old House when my brother had brought his toy garden into the nursery.
It is difficult or find words strong enough for the sensation which came over me; Milton's 'enormous bliss' of Eden (giving the full, ancient meaning to 'enormous') comes somewhere near it. It was a sensation, of course, of desire; but desire for what?...Before I knew what I desired, the desire itself was gone, the whole glimpse... withdrawn, the world turned commonplace again, or only stirred by a longing for the longing that had just ceased... In a sense the central story of my life is about nothing else... The quality common to the three experiences... is that of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.
I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and Pleasure. Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again... I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power and Pleasure often is.” ― C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy
Joy can be insatiable. Worry may stain the forehead, but joy saturates the bones.
I want to breed joy in my life. I want to sleep more, criticize less, pray constantly. I want to eat good food, read great books, listen to music that lifts my soul. I want to take long walks and have surprising adventures.
I choose joy.
