The joy factor is a method for use within human interactions, especially in the modern world where the rat race can prove to be a back-stabbing fest and materialism and envy can cause friends and even families to be superficially wonderful but undercover ‘haters’.
Despite our best intentions, there will be a time in our lives where people’s words or actions may get to us and we’d like to retaliate, hoping to gain some sort of satisfaction for our justified revenge. Many times we do feel instantly satisfied and empowered, but the long term consequences are never thought through and it’s very likely that a friendship may never quite be the same again, or an enemy would have been made for life.
So, is it worth getting annoyed or stressed over such behaviour? Or is it better to see it as the trivial thing that it is and rise above, ignoring it entirely?
In such situations you should ask yourself two questions:
1) do that person’s words or actions affect my life in any way? (99% of the time the answers no)
2) would my retaliation make my life better ? (99% no)
So, the next time someone does something horrible or annoying towards you, take a deep breath, ask yourself these two questions, smile at your brilliant and effortless self-restraint, rise above and move on. Within the next 30seconds you would have forgotten that you had been angry at all.
And that, is the joy factor :).
Aya Khan 