The joy of life

Life is meant to be enjoyed. This may be hard to believe, but if you have trouble with the concept, ask yourself "Why?". Your first answer may be, that you can see from your experience that enjoyment is hard to come by, and often comes at the expense of other things. Dig deeper... and now you come upon the layer of expectations - those placed upon you by others, and by yourself, which are in direct conflict with your natural desire and direction. Can you see these things, and how they affect you? Are you still following the programming which you have received? Ask yourself now, "Why?". Your answer may be, that you never thought to do otherwise. It may be that you thought about it, but your inbuilt feelings of duty and obligation and guilt rose to the surface, and quickly herded you back to where you "belong". Is any of this sounding familiar? Now you can see the mechanisms in your mind which have kept joy to a minimum in your life. Do you want to do something about it? And most of all, do you have fear which stops you? Now we are getting to the real heart of the issue, and it is this: you want to be loved, approved of and accepted by others, and you will give away huge parts of yourself and your potential in order to receive this love, approval or acceptance, however fleetingly. Now we come to the point of choice and the point of balance in all this, which is self-love. Can you even read the words "self love" without wanting to withdraw, to distance yourself from the concept, to make sure that no one thinks you are even comtemplating such a thing? You can run back to the security of your duties and obligations right now, or you can choose to begin the journey towards self-love and wholeness, which will bring you increasing amounts of joy. Which do you choose?