Joy is greater than happiness.
Simply understanding is not compassion. Compassion is bigger.
Mistakes are how we grow…so are they even mistakes?
You know that saying that goes something like “the lessons you need to learn will keep showing up in your life until you learn them”? It hasn’t been more true than these three (can I get an Amen?)
Joy is greater than happiness
I have heard it from Danielle LaPorte, Stephen Colbert, Sharath Jois, and everywhere I look. Choose JOY. Not just happiness – that’s fleeting. Happiness is something you have. Joy is something you are. Get it?
Compassion is bigger than understanding
Simply understanding leaves space for judgement. How many times have you said “I understand” and follow it in your head with a “but I think you’re an idiot”? Understanding implies a disconnection.
Compassion is seeing yourself in the shoes of another. It is feeling their pain, knowing what they know, loving them all the way. Compassion is considering each moment that went into making that person, that thing, that meal. Considering it and loving it, no judgement.
Mistakes are the catalyst for change
The Amish have a way of making things in which they incorporate a flaw in every quilt/table/pie/tool they make. They know that the only thing perfect is God, and no one should try to out-do that.
According to Stefon Harris, in jazz music a “mistake” is simply a chance to take the song in a different direction, to riff with your friends in another key until you collectively decide to move on. That’s jazz.
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What would happen if we removed the word “mistake” from our vocabulary?
What if we called each other out on basic happiness and gave mad props to real joy?
What if we considered each other with compassion and not simply understanding?
This is my gift to you: pick a question…answer it…change your life. All of the other stuff (bills to pay, clients to call, friends to write, family to forgive) will be there to tend to when you get back. And they might even solve themselves along the way.
xo
