What gives me Joy?

After I watched “The Last Lecture” by Fr. Michael Himes I realized that giving myself
away, something he talks a lot about in that lecture, is what gives me joy. To be more
specific I like giving my time to other people, this can mean simply talking to or serving
them in a specific way. Ironically, I’m also a religious teacher so something else I likes
giving away about myself is my knowledge as I teach my students. I think the reason this
gives me joy is that I get to make other people feel happier. I think I’m happiest when I
see that I’ve made someone else happy.

Some other things that give me joy are traveling, hiking, and reading. I like to try to have
as much adventure as my wife lets me, which might mean a last-minute trip or trying
exotic food. I think what gives me joy is experiencing life to the fullest I can. So if I want
to and I’m trying to learn something I want to know and comprehend as much as my
brain will let me. If I’m exercising I want to see how far I can push my body and how
much I’ve improved. Experiencing powerful and memorable experiences is what gives
me joy

What am I good at?

I’ve always been an extroverted person so something that I’ve always been good at is
interacting and talking to people. I don’t usually get scared to talk to strangers and I
rarely run out of words whenever I’m talking to an individual or a group of people. I’ve
seen this help whenever I’m trying to communicate how I feel or how other people feel.
Something I enjoy doing is trying to take an idea that’s complicated or someone isn’t
brave enough to say and try to tell it to other people.

Another thing I’ve been good at is encouraging people. I’ve never been a professional
trainer, but I’ve helped train people and encouraged them to get a good workout in. This
doesn’t mean to be overly pushy but instead, tell them how great of a job they're doing
and that I believe they can do even more. I haven’t always been good with customer
service but recently I’ve slowly integrated these other skills to help me be able to interact
with people professionally. I’m not a professional communicator by any means but
looking at what I’m best at, it would probably be my ability to effectively communicate
with others.

What does the world need me to do?

A previous class challenged us to think “How can I be the best for the world?” instead of
“How can I be the best in the world?”. Looking at the world in general I think any one of
us could list a thousand things we see that are wrong with the world right now. But these
questions “what does the world need me to do?” and “how can I be the best for the
world?” make me narrow down my focus to the few problems in the world that I can
personally do something about. Thinking about my skills and what I enjoy doing I can
think of two things that the world needs me to do. One is to help people feel genuinely
heard and connected to other people. Another is, to help people understand important
ideas that will help them be happier people.

I have an awesome opportunity to teach five classes at my full-time job being a seminary
teacher at a nearby high school. This means I have around 150 students that walk into my
classroom every day. Something that I value doing in my classes is hopefully getting my
students to connect with me and mostly the stories and people with have in scripture, and
just as importantly with the students around them. I joked with a student recently while
we were doing a partner activity that the person in front of them was a human, and that
you need to talk to humans to interact with them and not stare down at your phone.
Looking back now I don’t think that is so much a joke. I believe people, especially
younger people, are forgetting how to interact and communicate with other people. I
think that in a small way, I can help other people prioritize and do that.