Question-Week ending Sunday 06/20/04:
What joyful event from our list, did you personally invest the most time, energy, and resources on - to achieve memorable moments of joy? Please read our Pre-Poll Commentary before taking this poll.
Pre-Poll Commentary:
Our 21st keyword in our poll series on moods and emotions is JOY. For the purpose of this poll we will describe the meaning of JOY as "The passion or emotion excited by the acquisition or expectation of good; pleasurable feelings or emotions caused by success, good fortune, and the like, or by a rational prospect of possessing what we love or desire; gladness; exhilaration of spirits; delight."
Doesn't our definition of JOY above, just make you want to go and find some right now? It's a description of all the GOOD PASSIONS wrapped together in one neat package. Joy is neatly wrapped in the word ENJOY or in the phrase PRIDE AND JOY. It's the ultimate expression of happiness. Joy is definitely an emotion that we would all like to experience more often in our lives.
So what can we do to add more joy in our lives? The first step would be to figure out what brings joy into our lives. What people, actions, events or circumstances can lead us to a joyful moment? You need to figure this stuff out first, before you can plan to bring more into your life. Then you have to plan and work to achieve joy!
Like happiness, the emotion of joy does not just pop into our daily routines of life. I believe it is harvested and enters our life because we have planted many worthy seeds in the form of actions - weeks, months or years in advance to its appearance. For example, consider the feeling of joy that parent's experience, when they watch their child win an award for being a top student or athlete. It took years of devotion on a parent's part, before they were able to experience that moment of joy. This emotion did not happen by accident or chance.
Thus the emotion of joy, like many of the others we discussed in this poll series, can trace its roots to a plan - followed by the execution of many positive actions. Then invest lots of patience and perseverance – en-route to the final passionate, emotional experience. How sweet it is! But only because we yearned it and then earned it!
Let us know in this week's poll, what joyful event from our list, you personally invested the most time, energy, and resources on - to achieve a memorable emotion of joy? This poll will end on Sunday 06/20/04, when the results will be displayed.
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Results:
- 44% of voters chose "A Child's High School or College Graduation" as the joyful event from our list, that they personally invested the most time, energy, and resources on - to achieve memorable moments of joy.
- 22% of voters chose "A Child's Athletic Achievement" as the joyful event from our list, that they personally invested the most time, energy, and resources on - to achieve memorable moments of joy.
- 14% of voters chose "A Child's Musical or Arts Achievement" as the joyful event from our list, that they personally invested the most time, energy, and resources on - to achieve memorable moments of joy.
- 10% of voters chose "Their own Wedding Event" as the joyful event from our list, that they personally invested the most time, energy, and resources on - to achieve memorable moments of joy.
- 08% of voters chose "A Child's Wedding Event" as the joyful event from our list, that they personally invested the most time, energy, and resources on - to achieve memorable moments of joy.
* 02% of voters chose "A Parent's Special Birthday or Anniversary Event" as the joyful event from our list, that they personally invested the most time, energy, and resources on - to achieve memorable moments of joy.
Post-Poll Commentary:
Wow! By the response in this poll, we can surely conclude that being a proud parent can bring memorable moments of joy into our lives. Our children's graduations and athletic achievements combined grabbed two thirds of the votes in this poll. That is quite substantial. At the opposite end of the results, "A Parent's Special Birthday or Anniversary Event" only clocked 2% of the votes.
With kids becoming scarce in GenX and GenY families, where will those memorable moments of joy come from in the future? Surely not from material objects that loose their luster shortly after you acquire them! However, time will only tell.
In the meantime, always remember to plant the seeds today, which will sprout into the flowers of joy in your future. The more you plant the better. Because you can never get enough of the combination of emotions and passions as we described above, in our definition of joy.