Joy is Essential, Especially During Hard Times
Finding it, holding on to it, and sharing it are life-changers.
Joy gets confused with happiness. The words are often used interchangeably. In fact, other than being positive feelings, they are quite different. Happiness is something we achieve. As columnist Arthur Brooks wrote in the New York Times (May 7, 2019), “Happiness usually involves a victory for the self. Joy tends to involve the transcendence of self.” Happiness focuses on the long term. Joy lives in the moment. Happiness is something we aspire to. Joy doesn’t care about our goals.
In the words of the monk and scholar Brother Steindlhl-Rask from The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World, “Joy is the happiness that does not depend on what happens.”
Joy is an in-your-face, in-the-moment experience that zaps you, for at least a moment, into a feeling of excitement, pleasure, or surprise. Or it can be a longer “glow” that creates conditions within ourselves that allow for continued openness to it. It is not necessarily anything we’ve worked hard towards or made to happen.
Sometimes, we become so layered over with the, often necessary, protective insulation we live with that we can’t process it. Joy is a jolt, a delight. It is something that brings us to the essential “us.”
