Striving For Joy

Striving For Joy

I have never met anyone who didn’t want to be happy. If you’re like the average person, the pursuit of happiness must be a strong force behind most of your thoughts, actions and decisions. You seek out the company of your best friend, enjoy your favorite ice cream flavor or indulge in the pleasure of a vacation. All those things make you happy, very happy. Yet you find that when your best friend has to leave early or when they run out of vanilla, or when the vacation eventually ends, the happiness you were feeling sort of ends too.

The thing about happiness is that it’s dependent on external factors around you. People, things and events make you happy. Being outside you, the elements that make you happy are embedded in situations you have no control over like deadlines, inflation, even the weather. At the end of a rainy day, when you’re alone at the office with lots of work still undone, you wonder if happiness is all there is to it. Suddenly, it doesn’t seem to be enough.

What is more than happiness though? There is JOY. Joy comes from within you. It is an inner connection to your self that tells you everything is okay. Joy transcends foul weather and crazy traffic jams. Joy is not dependent on the presence or absence of company. Joy carries you through the transient problematic situations you find yourself in. While happiness may be absent during stressful and trying times, it’s still possible for joy to shine through if you let it. How, you might ask, for it sounds easier said than done.

Joy comes from knowing who you are and loving yourself as product of all that you’ve been through. No matter how pained or fragmented your past has been, joy springs forth to celebrate your resilience, and to embrace better days ahead.

You can nurture this joy by keeping a gratitude list. At the end of each day, list down three things you are grateful for. Make the first thing you’re thankful for about yourself. The other two can be in gratitude to people or events that transpired during your day. Just because joy comes from inside you doesn’t mean it’s not connected to the things that make you happy on the outside. What went on in your day becomes part of you, and whatever happens tomorrow cannot change the gratitude you feel today. Building this list and looking back on it from time to time renews the wellspring of joy within you.

Joy’s most treasured value is how it grounds you in unwavering strength. The world is filled with many things beyond your control, but how you engage each day despite these things is entirely up to you.

So aim for happiness, but strive for joy.