I Choose...

"Listen.
Can you hear it?
The music.
I can hear it everywhere. 
 In the wind... 
 ... in the air... 
 ... in the light. 
 It's all around us.
All you have to do is open yourself up.
All you have to do...

  ... is listen."
This is from the opening scene from my all time favorite movie August Rush. Haven't seen it? well you should. It makes my soul sing. Today i was thinking about my relationship with joy and i thought of this quote. 
Granted, my conversation with myself on joy is not about music (although music brings soooo much joy to my soul). What it is about, however, is that my experiment with joy is working. Meaning, I am starting to see little bits of joy all around me as i focus my attention on it. I think i realized it today while at work. You see, for the last two days i have simply decided that i would be stress-free. No sir Mr. Stress, you may not visit me. But 
thanks for asking anyway. For the past month i have been very very burned out at work. or at life. sometimes i can't tell the difference anymore. Anyway, out of mere survival the other day at work, i decided to not let it
 bother me. Sure, i was having a friday night-style rush on a tuesday with one insider and 4 drivers. I had 10 
deliveries that were waiting to go out the door all atleast 30 minutes old. 3 lines on hold. pizzas flying out of 
the oven. And about 15 pizzas on my screen that needed to be made. And you know what i did? I just chose to be stress free. and not only stress free, but peaceful...happy even. My poor insider was flying around like a crazy person and i told him to just focus on the ovens and the phones, and that i would make all the food and route the drivers. And i said it calmly, while nonchalantly making pizzas. He kind of looked at me as if to say 
"umm...aren't you going to go all "jill" on us?" nope. not interested. And i remained that way for the rest of the night. To be clear, we get rushes like this all the time so it was really no big deal. The difference? my 
attitude...or rather, the CHOOSING of my attitude. I wanted to be sure that it wasn't some fluke or freak 
accident, so today i went in to work and chose to be in a good mood and stress free. At one point i had 3
 drivers all talking to me about 3 different issues all at the same time. I stopped them and said "excuse me, but i'm having a stress-free day. If you can, i would appreciate you trying to handle this one on your own (often
 they are small things anyway). If you need my help, i'll be over there." I realize this may seem like a small
 thing to you, but those that have worked with me know...this is a big moment for me. I often try to take on all things (in fact, my counselor once called me "Atlas" because i try to carry the world on my back) and then 
allow myself to get all worked up in a tizzy. I guess what i'm trying to say is this...i'm starting to feel more
 balanced. I'm starting to feel lighter. And i'm re-learning that i get to choose my way of being. And that i 
actually can. It takes a little work, i had to remind myself several times throughout the nights that i was 
choosing stress-free, but i did it. And it felt good.