“We tend to measure success in things, “grind,” or status, among other ideas. Measure success in joy instead; it’s a much better gauge.” – John Cena, Be a Work in Progress. (This post contains affiliate links. If you get to Amazon after clicking a link and buy something, we will get a commission and it won’t cost you anything extra.)

Cena is an actor and retired professional wrestler. He’s best known for his roles in Peacemaker, as the voice of Honda commercials, and for his catch phrase: “You can’t see me.” He has appeared in over 35 films.

During Cena’s retirement tour for the WWE, he made a hilariously cartoonish heel turn. He laughs and hugs Cody Rhodes. His chin comes over Rhodes’ shoulder and Cena looks at the Rock in the corner of the ring. His grin turns upside down as the Rock makes a knife across the throat motion with his hand. Cena glares at life, mean-mugging for the camera, steps back with a smile, and kicks Rhodes in the privates. During the run, Cena insulted the fans and removed the joy from his last time wrestling in many places.

The heel turn didn’t work for me. We all knew Cena wouldn’t go out a heel, so there was no real tension. There wasn’t enough time to set it up, and every site out there talked about how Cena wanted to be a heel for a little bit. Cena’s turn also affected Ron “The Truth” Killings wrestling arc.

Truth became angry with Cena, like a sibling would. He said he would knock Cena back to the right side of the ring. Truth brought joy, tinged with care and concern, to the ring.

I’ll admit that I’m less than a casual fan of wrestling. I loved it in the ‘80s when it was still “real.” Somewhen along the way I stopped watching it, probably when I got to college. Still there were some things that I caught, that WWE did exceptionally well. They were great at parodying the NFL’s commercials and the NBA, at least once. They’ve had good characters and good storytelling. More importantly, the WWE is still laden with good guys and bad guys. The good guys bring joy to the world. The bad guys are the foils.

There are far too few people and things that bring joy to the world and to life. You can choose whether you want to bring people joy and make this world a happier place to live. Or you can choose to turn heel. I hope that we choose to bring joy more often than we choose to sabotage it.

What brings you joy?