The Joy of It

We recently had some vacation time where we spent a week in Central Florida with my wife’s parents.  This is ALWAYS a great time, because her Mom and Dad not only live in the Sunshine State, but they also have a pool that is heated, and screened in.

We usually visit Disneyworld at least twice a year during our visits (we go there a lot!), but this time we instead went to a medium sized amusement park called “Fun Spot” and bought all day all access passes.

This is where it got joyful.

My 9-year-old son loves to ride go-carts, and they had five different tracks that you could ride on.

My 7-year-old daughter loves roller coasters (gulp) and they had five different ones that we could ride on.

And all these rides were designed to make 12 year olds and younger in mind.

As I was watching them (and riding with them!), I got to experience some of the joys of being a parent – getting to see their eyes light up and hearing their laughter and joy as they were riding these rides over and over again.

Do you ever see this kind of joy at work?

Do you remember the eyes of the new employee that started in your department recently? How excited they were to be working for the organization, the effort that they put forth to ensure all is done well and in a manner that is the best that they can do?

They are as excited about what they are doing as much as my children are excited about riding the roller coasters and go-carts at Fun Zone!

As a Real Christian Businessman, the reminders are there for us all if we just look around us.  Seeing the joy in others do what they love to do, forces us to do OUR job even better than we normally do sometimes. Our jobs can get hard sometimes, I know.  But if we can see the joy that others have at our workplace and remember why we are doing what we are doing we will cultivate a sense of gratitude and joy that will spread throughout our organization.

“A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”  Prov 17:22 (ESV)