Choosing Joy

“I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.”
― Anne Frank

Recently I have been suffering with what appears to be Sinusitis and Labyrinthitis, which has caused sinus pain, painful ears, dizziness and Tinnitus for the past four months. I have been through several stages of dealing with this seemingly unending suffering. First I thought that it cannot last that long. Then it did and I became somewhat unhappy and a little depressed about it. Then I remembered the words from Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor E Frankl, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

I began to seek out reasons to be joyful. I work in telephone customer services, so I speak to a lot of people. Some of which, as is normal in customer service, are unhappy and take it out on you. I began asking customers how their day was going and having really lovely conversations about the ups and downs of life living through a pandemic. I focused on how lucky I am to have a Wife and Daughter, to still have my parents, to wake up each morning. The pain, dizziness and noise in my ears remained constant, though subdued through medication periodically throughout the day, but my attitude to how I was physically feeling changed. I decided not to let how I was physically feeling determine how I was mentally feeling. This helped a lot, I began to feel that there is a way to master how we choose to feel each day, joy being the best feeling to aim for.

I then moved into a phase that was reflective. I reflected on how I miss silence and being pain free. I realised that the simple things in life are really important. The ability to sit and meditate without the constant buzzing of Tinnitus will be something that I will savoir once I recover from whatever is going on in my sinuses and ears. It is important to be grateful for everything that we have, as well as the tough experiences we have. The valleys we go through serve to highlight the euphoria of the mountains we climb. We all have, to varying degrees, the ability to choose how we want to feel, by choosing what we focus on. If we are unwell do we focus on how that is making us feel or do we focus on still having the ability to do the things we enjoy, even if the illness reduces these options. We all have the ability “…to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”