We Can Choose Suffering or We Can Choose Joy

 Originally published on miki agrawal by January 11, 2021.

I’ve been reading The Book Of Joy by The Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

They said something profound but simple: “Sadly, many of the things that undermine our joy and happiness we create ourselves. Often it comes from negative tendencies of the mind, emotional reactivity, or from our inability to appreciate and utilize the resources that exist within us. The suffering from natural disaster we cannot control, but the suffering from our daily disasters we can. We create most of our suffering, so it should be logical that we have the ability to create more joy. It simply depends on the attitudes, the perspectives, and the reactions we bring to situations and to our relationships with other people. When it comes to personal happiness, there is a lot that we as individuals can do.”

We have ultimate agency over our lives, even though we forget that sometimes and we get to choose what enters our minds and how we respond to things and the meaning we place on things.
We can choose suffering or we can choose joy. These two men have withstood oppression, attempted murder, exile and everything in between and yet they choose joy over and over again.

I am now so inspired by the @dybrkr team who have launched D.O.S.E., a daily joy practice that helps us choose joy over and over again through movement, mindfulness and mischief. To accept what has happened to us in our lives and still move with joy is the ULTIMATE freedom. Check out dose.daybreaker.com and watch it transform your lives like it has mine.

Tushy is a bidet startup which aims to replace toilet paper, Tushy was founded by Miki Agrawal.