The Color of Joy: Living in the Light of Abiding Happiness

Lightposts for Living: The Art of Choosing a Joyful Life
by Thomas Kinkade

"In my paintings I try to create worlds of tranquillity, joy, and beauty. My prayer is that the principles in this book will help each of us lead lives that radiate these same qualities...." Thomas Kinkade's paintings have become visions of hope and comfort, a welcome haven from the pressures of modern life. Now Thomas Kinkade uses moving words, as well as his art, to bring the beauty, peace, joy, and love expressed in his paintings into your home.

Like a series of old-fashioned lightposts, Lightposts For Living illuminates primary, life-affirming values and shows you, with a combination of inspiration and practical advice, how to transform a hurried, stressful life into one filled with serenity, accomplishment, and wonder. Some of his suggestions are sweeping and dramatic, but none are difficult or impossible. And all lead to the path lit by Kinkade's images of how good life can be: a vista shimmering with sunlight breaking through clouds, the promise of romance, and wonderful adventures waiting just beyond an open gate.

Chapter 1

Joy is the sweet voice, joy the luminous cloud -
We in ourselves rejoice!
And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,
All melodies the echoes of that voice,
All colors a suffusion from that light.

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

What color is a yellow chair?

For me as a painter, the answer is not quite as simple as it sounds.

I learned long ago that the apparent color of an object (the way it looks) is a very different thing from its intrinsic color (the color it really is).

In the fiery light of sunset, the yellow chair may reflect an orange glow. As daylight continues to fade, the color will fade as well. In the cool shadows of a tree - shaded lawn, the chair may take on a greenish hue or appear almost violet when silhouetted against a distant sunlit meadow.

And yet, if you move the chair back to a neutral light, you see that the intrinsic color of the chair has never really changed. Regardless of the external circumstances, a yellow chair is still a yellow chair.

Artists refer to the yellowness of that chair - the color it is no matter what the light - as its local color. Local color is the color that belongs to the basic chemistry or biology of the thing, that is not dependent on tricks of light or external modification. Outside forces may change its appearance, but not its essence.

That analogy helps me a lot when I think about my happiness.

After all, each of us wants to be happy. Given the choice, we'd prefer to live our entire lives in the golden light of fortunate circumstances. And we all have a mental list of what such happiness entails. What's on your list? A great job, a happy family, a life of adventure?

The problem, of course, is that none of us gets everything we think we want all the time. Some of us don't even get close. Others get what we yearned for and then find we don't want it anymore. And although we can exercise considerable influence on what happens around us, we can no more dictate our changing circumstances than I can tell the sunset to hold still while I attempt to capture its color on canvas.

Basing my happiness on what happens to me, then, is a little like depending on the ambient light to color an unpainted chair yellow. It might work for a while, but sooner or later the light, and the chair, will change. If I really want a yellow chair, therefore, I'll do well to invest in some brushes and a can or two of yellow paint!

And if I really want to be happy, I'd better realize that joy, as poet Don Blanding once put it, is an inside job. I need to cultivate a fundamental attitude of satisfaction and celebration that can keep on shining golden no matter how the light shifts around me. I need to concentrate on making sure that joy is the local color in my heart.

Maintaining that kind of durable joy isn't quite as simple as slapping a coat of paint on a chair, but it's not all that mysterious, either. Over the years I have discovered a number of strategies that help me keep my heart - attitude sparkling and tinted with joy.

Choose Your Color

Before the strategies, however, comes the decision. At some deep level, consciously or unconsciously, you have to decide that you want to be joyful. You have to take a deep breath and trust that life, despite its ups and downs, is essentially wonderful, that the finished tapestry of your days will be a thing of beauty.

And yes, it is a leap of faith. Depending on your personality or your temperament or your philosophy or your current circumstances, it may feel like a big leap. If you are going through a time of pain or doubt, you may wonder if you can even make it. But you don't have to take that leap of faith like a trapeze artist swinging out over nothingness. It can feel, in fact, like taking a simple, small step in your chosen direction - the direction of happiness.

"And now you have joy?"
"I do indeed."
"And how did you get it?"
"I chose it, admitted it into my life, then I celebrated its arrival in my heart.
I made my celebration so loud and boisterous,
I prohibited all gloom from attending the celebration."

- Calvin Miller

You take a step. You choose your color - decide that joy is the hue you want your heart to be. And then you start making the little and large choices that over time will paint your heart happy.

It really is possible to color a dark canvas golden, even with the tiniest of brushes. You just keep on dabbing the paint, and sooner or later you transform the surface with brightness. In the same way, if you keep on making joy - choices, small and large, your heart will eventually display a joyful tint that is more durable than you ever imagined.

Give Yourself a Perk

How do you make joyful choices?

On the very simplest level, you condition yourself for joy by doing little things you love on a regular basis.

I have long been in the habit of building joy-breaks into the course of my days - allowing myself certain small pleasures for the express purpose of keeping my attitude bright. I like Luci Swindoll's term for these small indulgences: "perks."

One of my favorite perks during fair weather is to simply take a book out into the sunshine. After lunch I pull up a chair on my patio and spend ten minutes or so basking and browsing. The combination of the warm sun, the absorbing words, and the pure relaxation is almost guaranteed to lift my spirits and send me back to work with a higher joy-quotient.

Now, the thought of reading outdoors may do nothing for you. But how would you feel about a walk in the neighborhood park...or parking your car on a hilltop and enjoying the view...a chat with an old friend over coffee...lighting a candle and listening to fine music? Anything that builds a simple sense of pleasure or optimism can be effective in building up the base coat of happiness deep in your heart.

I should probably add at this point that I am not talking about selfish, self-destructive, or self-delusional behaviors. I'm not speaking of feeding your inner emptiness with a gallon of ice cream or bolstering your shaky self-esteem with an expensive afternoon at the mall, loading up debt on your credit cards. Such compulsive or addictive pursuits paint only a temporary wash of brass that tarnishes rapidly. Their end result is more pain, not more joy.

The good news, though, is that the world is absolutely brimming with simple forms of enjoyment that do no such harm. Even if you struggle with compulsive or addictive behavior in some areas of your life, you can still find countless ways to give yourself a perk without adding to your problems. I believe you'll find, in fact, that the very act of indulging yourself in simple, joy-building perks will make it easier for you to say no to the false joy of destructive pleasure.

Even if you haven't felt joyful in a long time, chances are you can think of at least one small pursuit that makes you smile, lightens your load, refreshes your spirit. If it is small and simple, why not do it today?

Don't let yourself be swayed by excuses. Don't let your hurried consciousness nag that you don't have time. Anyone can spare fifteen minutes a day for the practice of conscious joy. Above all, ignore the scolding inner voice that accuses you of being frivolous or selfish. Setting yourself up for joy is an investment, not an indulgence. Investing the necessary time and expense to build a joy-base in your heart will not only bless you; it will give you what you need to be a blessing to others who are themselves in need of a little joy.

I think most of us look at personal delights as somewhere between
minimally important and borderline immoral.
We like them, but we're not sure we ought to.
We seldom give them a high priority when other demands
are competing for our attention.
Nevertheless, the soul feeds on simple joys and withers without them.

- Victoria Moran

© 1999 by Thomas Kinkade

About the Author

Thomas Kinkade, the celebrated "Painter of Light"™ and subject of more than 45 books, is the most widely collected artist in America today. He lives in Northern California.