Taking Delight in Life: La Joie de Vie, the Joy of Life

Taking a delight in life is something that the youngest child or the oldest adult can do. It does not involve effort of any kind or even participation on any level; does it? It does require a degree of awareness. However it is expressed can vary, but the French would say "la joie de vie", or the joy of life.

Unfortunately, there are millions of people, who never appear to be taking any delight in their lives, even while others do. If they experience the joy of life, no one would ever know it. If anything, they wear a mask of displeasure, while those who delight in life manifest their pleasure in their eyes and by the expressions on their faces. They show a high level of gratification and satisfaction in what they see, hear or do.

Everyone has the power to bring delight to someone else, but few know that they can exercise that ability. A young child quickly learns that he or she can delight his or her parents by reacting in a positive way to something. If that delight is re-enforced by acknowledgement from the parents, the child moves on to delight them further at every opportunity. In fact, delighting them increases his or her delight.

An older child finds that by playing in some way with an adult, the adult realizes a degree of delight also. It increases his or her delight and the play continues further. A young girl or boy finds that he or she can delight another sibling, or a friend and finds delight in doing that. Both of them enjoy life.

The delight phenomenon continues into the time when a child is older. Perhaps a child in school delights his or her teacher by achieving high grades, or doing something extraordinary in a competition. Because the teacher responds with delight, it re-enforces that pattern of delight and be delighted.

A young groom does his best to delight his bride and vice versa, but it does not stop there, once the phenomenon has been awakened. It will continue throughout the lives of the couple, their children and their children's children. Every life that they touch will know a degree of delight.

What happens when no one discovers that taking a delight in life is fun?

I can reflect back and see many times in my life, where I was personally taking a delight in life, but those around me were not taking delight in theirs for whatever reason. I have to ask myself, could I have brought more delight into their lives? I probably could have and should have, but I did not realize at that time, that I had the power to do so.

I do know that growing up in a large family, as one of the older siblings I learned how to bring delight into the lives of children. They also brought a lot of joy and delight into my life. 

Like everyone else, there were times that were not joyful, too. Children have a way of catching measles, mumps and whooping cough. Life is not always a bowl of cherries for everyone, particularly when there are large families involved.

I recall the twinkle in my father's eye. Somehow, he always managed to smooth things over even when times were rough. He knew how to bring delight into his children's lives and so did my mother. As a result, we learned how to bring delight to them, as well as to one another and to the lives of others.

Life can be delightful, but one has to be prepared to delight others and to be delighted in return, or vice versa. Just a brief reflection on la joie de vie.

By the way, have you delighted someone today? The day is not over yet!