Choose Joy and Give ZERO Trash Trucks About It

Declan‘s “trucks” really sounds it’s rhyming f-bomb. Thing is, trash trucks are currently his favorite thing on the planet. Every morning at our place in the Gold Coast we have at least three to six pass-and-collects by our giant floor to ceiling windows...beginning at 6:14 AM. And while the windows provide a world-class surround-sound experience earlier than I would like at that moment (I’m still in my quiet-hours of morning routine + getting stuff done), Declan is ecstatic, enraptured in over-the-moon jubilation over these waste vehicles.

I mean, picture Mick Jagger or Tony Robbins or Lady Gaga style fandom, and that is my son - a garbage truck groupie. 

Unapologetic for his unabashed love of waste receptacle vehicles. 

And the joy he experiences...EVERY. SINGLE. MORNING....is the BEST cup of Decky you could ever have. 

His joy got me thinking…

When did we start corralling our excitement for the little things? When did you decide to “tone it down?” 

Because - god forbid - you fully express joy.

Suffering, jadedness, complaining, most of society can relate to that. 

But joy...Real...unadulterated...no-asking-for-forgiveness-or-permission...joy, somehow people can’t relate to that. 

They want to.

They wonder about you.

And secretly they want to be you.

But your confidence...

Your joy...

Your zest for life scares the crap out of them.

It’s like looking in a mirror at your potential and NOT seeing your own face, like some sort of potential vampire.

AND THAT VAMPIRE, BECAUSE THEY CAN’T SEE THEMSELVES IN YOUR JOY, IMMEDIATELY JUDGES THAT. 

To which I say, it’s time for you to give ZERO trash trucks as to what they think, or what they can or cannot see.

Who says you can’t have unabashed joy because you’re getting divorced?

Who says you can’t have uninhibited joy that finally, that business that was draining the life out of you closed because of COVID?

Who says that you can’t have Declan-style trash truck elation over the fact that you just woke up breathing and able to live your purpose again?

The time is NOW to stop throwing trashy judgments around at other people’s happiness and instead RISE into discovering your own.

NO. 1 - MAKE THE CONSCIOUS CHOICE

Joy is like Yoga. It’s a choice to get your butt up and hit that mat. I know, a lot of the times, I don’t want to, initially. It’s a lot more comfortable to stay in the construct of suffering and fear that a lot of the world is serving up. It’s a lot easier to defer blame on WHY you’re not feeling like it. And those reasons will most likely be accepted by a lot of people, with “Oh, honey, let me coddle and commiserate in all these other reasons why it’s okay not to be feeling joy right now.”

You can either have your excuses and your reasons and your stories, or you can have your CHOICE. For that is where your freedom lies. 

If you’re a little stiff and rusty in moving into that joy, start with the simple choice to show up to the mat with the choice to be there.

No need to do anything. Heck, you can even rest your mind in the child’s pose of “I don’t know how” to feel joy in times of crisis, but by being THERE, you’re showing your willingness. By being on the mat, even questioning the HOW, you’re demonstrating your choice.

For as I was telling a client this week…

WILLINGNESS IS ALL THAT IS NEEDED TO INSIGHT CHANGE. 

Just by showing up  (aka making a clear decision to do the work and CHOOSE JOY) and being willing to give it a go you’re already 80% of the way.

NO.2 - IT’S A PRACTICE, NOT A PILL.

Pills for joy are temporary solutions and never solve the REAL underlying emotional walls preventing you From experiencing it. They are a mask 😷 for the symptoms, but they don’t affect the cause. 

Joy is a practice. Practice takes, one, conscious choice, and two, five, ten, twenty, fifty, a thousand times of repetition.

In our culture of instantaneous everything, the discipline of practice, which is ONLY achieved with time. 

“I can’t have it now!” No, sorry, cupcake. Sit self-entitlement to the side to be the ALL-BEING now, and honor the process of the practice.

It’s a practice of BEING. 

And in that practice of being there are stages of learning that you MUST go through...notice I didn’t say might.

These two stages are how you have learned and re-learned, coded, and uncoded every single part of you. 

For learning anything there are two stages that are essential that you go through day in and day out, over, and over, and over again until joy evolves into your new identity.

NO. 3 - PATIENCE FOR THE PROCESS

You’re going to go through 2 learning stages, over and over, and over again until joy becomes your new normal.

ONE, IS CONSCIOUS INCOMPETENCE. 

In this stage, you will catch yourself AFTER.

It will be AFTER you commiserate, or AFTER you spiral into shame and anger beating yourself up, or AFTER you blame, or AFTER you complain about the thing, or yourself or whatever, and AFTER that you will remember that old choice you made right here, right now, “Oh yeah, I can choose joy.” 

It will be after the fact. It will be frustrating AF. And this is where most people give up because they’re not getting it right away (See point number 2)

But not you, because with vigilance and your resilience, you will move into the next stage of learning a skill. 

The second stage is much more fun...Conscious Competence. 

This is the beautiful part of the learning curve where it’s not yet fully engrained as innate behavior, but you will start catching yourself BEFORE you are triggered to spiral to the negative, to the complaining, or blaming, or beating yourself up.

You will remember to choose joy BEFORE and it will feel freeing AF because it is in this stage that you will actually feel like, “Oh my god! I’m getting it!”

Just like a toddler stumbles around constantly falling on their butt, when you get to the point of Conscious Competence, they are walking at lease somewhat fumbly but without falling. 

The GREATEST gift you can give yourself is stripping away the conditioned bullshit that says that by your age, whatever that age is, that you should be bitter, jaded, complaining, or whatever.

What if you allowed yourself to experience uninhibited toddler-esque, giving ZERO track strucks joy again NOW? 

Because, after all...

Your reign is now.