A Turtle, a Butterfly, and "Live with Joy"

Today I am grateful for a clean house and some time to write. I am also grateful for my friend Jill.

Jill gave me a gift last week that is not only cute, it is loaded with reminders that I need. It's a little turtle about an inch long. In the turtle's shell, small but visible, is a butterfly and the words "Live with joy."

The turtle reminds me to slow down. Slower and steadier is a better approach than "running around like a chicken with it's head cut off" or "spinning off the face of the earth." These last two quotes accurately describe me when I start to overthink and overdo. It's not a pretty sight. I need the turtle. I need to slow down, breathe, just breathe.

The butterfly symbolizes any number of things. To me it means transformation, change, renewal, rebirth. There are so many ways this has applied to my life in big and small ways. Over all 48 years of my life. There's a reason the butterfly is on the turtle though. Change and transformation take time. Our culture and excessive marketing would like us to buy into quick fixes, overnight transformations. It sounds so convincing. Buy this. Take this. Do this. This will happen, and soon. Really? Are we that easily hooked and suckered?

The transformations that have been most meaningful to me had nothing to do with buying something and everything to do with being honest with myself and others and painstakingly changing behavior and routines until better behavior comes more naturally. That takes patience and discipline. It doesn't take the stuff advertising is trying to sell us at every turn these days.

Okay. I'll get off my soapbox and wrap up with "Live with joy." Gratitude helps me live with joy because it helps me recognize that the sources of joy for me-family, friends, recovery, running, writing, nature to name a few-are always available to me. I just need to pay attention. To live with joy is simply to be awake to the world around me.

Thanks for all the reminders Jill!

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