What’s Your Percentage?

We’re a little more thaone week into 2019. How’s the year going for you?

Have you found your focal word for the year? Made your resolutions and succeeded at keeping them so far? Returned to work?

Gotten the kids back to school?

We are, and my son’s Algebra 2 homework has been about percentages — things like what percent of the total cost for a meal is the tax? or the tip? What percent of the retail price is the wholesale price? 

To find the solution, my son always ends up with a fraction, and then he divides the numerator by the denominator to find the percentage answer.

He’s seeing that in order to increase the percentages, he either has to one of three things: 1) increase the numerator and keep the denominator the same, 2) keep the numerator the same but decrease the denominator, or 3) increase the numerator and decrease the denominator.

That’s gotten me to thinking about some of my own percentages, #ThisDaysJoy, and why I make such a point of being intentional about focusing on good things.

One of my priorities is making sure I’ve got a really high percentage of joyful days.

But the problem there is, in life, we don’t know how many days we’ve got here on earth with the people we love above all others.

Simply put, when it comes to life, we don’t know what our denominator is. It is the great unknown.

One of my favorite people in the whole world is an old guy named Albin who recently celebrated his 101st birthday. So far the denominator of his life is more than 36,890…and he’s still going.

Then there are people like my husband’s mother who died young at only 42. Her denominator was scarcely more than 15,000. My cousin who died when she was 32 had a denominator of around 11,700, and the college friend who was killed in a car accident didn’t even make it over 8,000.

We don’t know — none of us — what our denominator will be, but I know I don’t want mine to decrease.

But since I can’t know for sure what my grand total of days is, if I want to make sure my life’s “Joyful Percentage” is high, then I need to be busy and intentional about looking for joy every single day.

If I want to find joy I need to look for it. And looking for joy makes a difference because we find what we look for!

So this year — regardless of what your focal word or resolution is — make this a year to work on upping your percentage of joy.

• Be ruthless and relentless — joy is a prize worth finding.
• Chase it down — joy is worth running after.
• Look in hidden places — joy is worth searching for.

And don’t get caught up in making this more difficult than it is. Please!

Joy doesn’t have to be a big thing — maybe it’s the play of sunlight through the trees or your kitten purring contentedly in your arms.

Joy doesn’t have to expensive — maybe it’s someone who holds the door for you when your hands are full or the driver who stops to give your pedestrian self the right of way.

Joy doesn’t have to be complicated — maybe it’s someone who remembers how you take your tea or coffee or the great smell of orange as you’re peeling a fruit.

But joy does need to be acknowledged.

So when you’re finding this day’s joy, bring it out and shine a light on it. Celebrate it. Write it down. Remind yourself “On this day I found joy!”

And remember, every single day you find #ThisDaysJoy — you’re doing your part to increase your percentage.

I hope this year you’re batting a thousand.