FINDING DEEP JOY

A radical choice we can make in our lives also involves confronting those demons that incessantly afflict us with haunting memories of past events and deep regret. A sense of deep joy, van Zeller goes on to explain, as opposed to being jolly, can only surface from virtues diligently and patiently developed in silence and humility, far away from the endless noise and rattles of the world.

Humankind starves for the simplicity of silence and that tranquil world still visible and accessible in nature. This is where we should begin our journey of seeking joy. We need to leave behind the laptops, cells, Iphones, and Ipads and escape into tranquility with our spouses and children. It is time to begin searching for our purpose so that we may know it, embrace it, and be ready to die for it. Van Zeller writes that if we are not prepared to die for our beliefs, we can neither live fully and completely for what we hold to be true. Failing this, we become tepid or lukewarm souls who stand for nothing, believe in nothing, and yet fall for everything.