A JOYFUL LIFE

by: Miles Patrick Yohnke

Turn your weaknesses into your strengths.
Success is failure turned inside out.
We need to find a deeper meaning in life.
Our duty, as artists, is to tap into those notes that resonate in us all.
Not to sleep walk through life, like an outpatient program; but to strike a chord.
We can't catch kindness in a net or a gun.
When kindness is given to you, it's by choice.
One must adopt an attitude of gratitude.

We can become prisoners of self. One must dig tunnels; escape one's own mind.
We get just this one life. We have to stop doing time.
But live lives like we planned in our youth. No matter where we are, how old, we can always reach our dreams.
All your life you're going to be judged, what matters is keeping your soul intact and making work that matters. We have to stop telling people what we are going to do, what we have not yet accomplished, and tell them instead what we have accomplished.

Only in this way can we be accountable for our actions. I am not accountable for achievements I have not yet reached, but I am what I have accomplished.
It's when we stop forcing it ... trying to impress, that we really shine through; we start having strong people like us, just fall into our laps - and those that are weak are empowered by the tone of our voice.
Get off your knees and do. Words without action is death.
One has to stop sitting in the back, waiting. Come to the front. The front row of life. A joyful life.

My mother told me at a very young age, "Miles, we are placed on this planet to help others.
Go out and help others." So, it is by her words that I try to shape and reshape my life.
Yes, each day we will be challenged by indifferent people and for the most part it isn't their fault.
We are just so conditioned by life (media, society) to live like caveman or barbarians (non-contemplating spoon-fed society).

To live like the subjects in mindless beer commercials. Their ideals perhaps "you deserve better, more than another, you are the most important."
After a while we believe it. Brainwashed. Let's have "fun." Fun? Fun is a limiting word.
Why would one limit their existence to only this?
Is that all we appreciate for the life we've been given?

Life is a 24/7 celebration of the word itself (existence).
So maybe one needs to replace the word "fun" (a word created by media to keep you down, to bait you, to sell you things, tell you what you need) to the word "joyful."
Maybe we could be way happier if we lived a life that from each waking day till sleep time is joyful.
You get but one life. We are each only given one shot at getting it right in the long run.

Find a job you love and you'll start to bring joy to yourself and all others in your life.
Words are either negative or positive.
Could it be that all this time "fun" is really a negative word and "joy" a positive one?
Perhaps a little rethinking is in order.

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