30 Days of Joy: Day 3/30

Day 3’s Joy – A Finished Task and Memories Relived

Day 3 reinforced the realization that I had yesterday about joy and intention.  Anything can bring you fulfillment and joy if you set that as the intention.  I was struggling yesterday with a headache in the evening, so I wasn’t at my most cheerful and without a plan for what I would do to bring me joy it was hard to try and come up with something.  I needed something low key and easy, so I decided that finally finishing sorting the last of my Alaska photos would be a good thing and maybe with the right mindset it would bring me the joy I was hunting for the day.

I love travelling, taking photos and scrapbooking but I do not love sorting through thousands of photos to pick and choose the ones I need to print.  It is a tedious task that if I don’t do right after the vacation often gets put off, which is what happened with my Alaska trip.  I have been slowly sorting and printing over the last few weeks.  It has felt like a chore but last night, after deciding it would bring me joy, I jumped in to finish my last few days off.  I turned the television off and then took my time going through the photos.  I focused less on the actual sorting and more on remembering the vacation.  It helps that the photos I was sorting were from some of my favourite parts of the trip. 

Setting the intention of making a tedious task into my joy really helped.  Not only did it push me to get it done, knowing that if I crossed it off my to do list, it would at least make me happy but in setting the intention to make it joyful it gave me the permission to take my time and really reconnect with the photos and memories from the trip.  This is not something I usually get to do until I’m scrapbooking the photos and writing the stories.  Of course in actually finishing the sorting, there is a fair amount of excitement that floods my system know that it means I actually get to start working on creating that album.

I have to say that by the time I was done sorting my mood and energy had changed.  I still had the headache but I went to bed with a smile on my face.  I felt accomplished and excited.  I was also reminded of how much gratitude I have for having had the opportunity to share another amazing trip with my mom.  Sorting photos may not have been on my list of things I would expect to bring me joy but I found it anyway which at least in some part is what this challenge is about.

Happy first day of summer, may the new season bring much joy.

Yesterday's Blog
Challenge Introduction/Day 1