This reality should give us something more than ordinary optimism. It should give us a supernatural joy, in ALL circumstances. But that takes work. When I was a teenager my mother used to tell me, “joy is a choice.” She was right, and reflecting on those words throughout my life has helped me to become a joyful man. She didn’t say “feeling good is a choice.” I doubt very much that St. Paul was always feeling “tip-top” when he was in prison awaiting his beheading, but he was joyful. Much of what he wrote while in chains was brimming with joy. He wrote things like, “Rejoice in the Lord always!” “Have no anxiety at all!” “I may be struck down but I’m not destroyed.” and “In all these things we are more than conquerors!”