There will always be joy

There will always be setbacks. There will always be reasons for tears. There will always be joy.

There will be many times in life when you tire of the path you’re on, when you can’t see a happy end to it all. The path might be physical, or mental, or both. You might tire of your thoughts leading you down the same old avenues. Equally, seeing the same old places and faces could lose its lustre (this feeling is undoubtedly more widespread due to lockdown and its enforced halting of everyday life).

Yet there will also be ways through or around what is wearing you down. For every impasse, there is another path, always. It is just waiting for you to find it.

Musing on these topics the other day, I realised that my own thoughts were taking me down a familiar path. I recalled some words I wrote for my dear friend Kate Griffiths-Lambeth at the end of 2014. Kate had kindly invited me to participate in the #AdventBlogs series of daily pre-Christmas posts that she used to curate for her Leading Light blog (having taken the baton from the great Alison Chisnell, who originated the series). That year’s theme was Paths and perceptions. I had no idea what to write. In the end, I decided simply to put virtual pen to virtual paper, and discover where the words would take me.

I was going through a tough patch at that point. The friendship of Kate and some other dear souls helped me through in ways they can never know and for which I can never thank them sufficiently. The post I wrote was entitled There will always be joy. I present it again here in case it might bring anyone the tiniest measure of assistance in what is shaping up to be another tough year.

Thank you for inspiring me to write these words, Kate, and for your wonderful friendship over all these years.

Thank you, gentle reader, for sparing a moment of your time today to read this. I hope that this precise moment finds you in a good place on your path. But if not? Well, as the song says, “there’s still time to change the road you’re on”.

May today be nothing but kind to you and yours.

There will always be joy

You were there then. You are here now. You will be there then.

The path you perceive isn’t the only one that exists.

The path you are on isn’t the only one available to you. No matter how long you have been on that path, or how far it’s taken you.

You always have a choice. You are always free to decide if you can live with the consequences of making that choice.

You can’t be anybody else but yourself. You can’t have any other values than your own. Trust in them.

I think it’s time, as it always is, to let your values guide you through. Being you has got you this far. Being you has got you much further than you would ever have thought.

You can travel further than you think possible

Being you will take you to places of which you have just plain no inkling right now. That is nothing of which to be frightened. That is the most exciting adventure of all.

There will always be setbacks. There will always be reasons for tears. There will always be joy.

IMAGES

• Datura innoxia – immature flower via Wikimedia Commons.
• Path through the woods, April 2021, by MJCarty.
• Flowers of Sikkim via Wikimedia Commons.