I am grateful for joy.

This is a practice I call Diligent Joy. As I focus on Diligent Joy, I also keep remembering a simple idea my friend told me once - that all the sorrow and trouble of this world is caused by unhappy people. Not only in the big global Hitler-n-Stalin picture, but also on the smallest personal level. Even in my own life, I can see exactly where my episodes of unhappiness have brought suffering or distress or (at the very least) inconvenience to those around me.

The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving and self-benefitting act, but also a generous gift to the world. . . . You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to everyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people.

~ Elizabeth Gilbert, from eat, pray, love

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. 

~ George Bernard Shaw