Seek Joy, Not Happiness
The secret for me, at least, is not to pursue happiness, but to pursue joy. You can’t control happiness, but you can control joy. No one can infiltrate the things that bring you joy because joy springs from within, and happiness lives outside ourselves.
An invitation to a friend’s dinner party makes me happy. However, I might get sick and have to cancel, or I might stumble into a negative interaction with a party guest which leaves a taste in my mouth that tampers with the beautiful flavors of the event. It’s like too much fennel in a dish that didn’t need it anyway. We’ve all been there before, having a wonderful time doing something somewhere with someone, but the memory after the fact of a personal faux pas, an insult, or unintentional unkindness behaves like a dark cloud you’ll never be able to clear out of the sky.
But joy? I find joy in the instant photo I print of the party host all aglow with wine and friendship, caught in a moment of satisfied relaxation, that I affix by way of a clicking wheel of double-sided sticky tape I drag across a green index card. Joy fills me as I write a note on the backside of the card, slip it inside an envelope and finish it with a wax seal. Joy is selecting a stamp and taking it to the mailbox, and spending this private time on a friend I love out of view from the world.
My sources of joy are likely not yours. In fact, I’d venture to say that most of my friends would rather end the friendship to avoid sending a stack of thank you notes via snail mail. Their pain is my pleasure.
Happiness tends to be more universal. We find happiness in shared experiences—parties, vacations, shopping trips, lunches, raises, promotions, and recognitions. Joy is private, personal and often hidden from view. We share our happinesses with others, even posting the details publicly on social media for all to see, but we often hide our joys, protecting them like the treasures they are.
I have a friend that writes new year goals on small papers she tucks into glass tubes, sealed with a cork. She fills the tube with smoke before sealing. This ritual she has seems somehow ancient, and feels deeply reverent. She shared that she visits the tubes full of handwritten goals a couple times each year, just to check in, and see what came to be, and what hasn’t yet. The fact that she shared this private joy with me, and set a glass tube with blank paper already inside out on the table for me so I could have one of my own, meant more to me than any invitation to a party every could.
My father-in-law once shared a private source of joy with my husband. He said the best sound in the world is a dog eating a potato chip. My husband has now taken up the ritual of offering a single potato chip to our dogs on occasion, and the sound of the satisfied crunch fills him with joy. The goofy smile gives it away. This source of joy connects a father and son who live in different timezones. I imagine them sitting at home in some private moment, feeding a single salty chip to their dogs, and calling it happiness. It’s not. That’s joy.
The sources of our joys are something we reveal and offer only to those we can be safely vulnerable around; to those we can share some level of intimacy with. Joy connects the soul while happiness connects the heart.
I’ve learned through my work over the years with death, dying, grief and loss that the pursuit of joy will lead you to your legacy, your purpose, or your mission, while the pursuit of happiness alone might keep you from it.
And I’ve learned that you won’t get good at discovering your sources of joy until grief has moved in, taken up residence, and overstayed its welcome until you reach a point of accepting this uninvited roommate. Acceptance doesn’t come until you’ve learned to make peace with it, and have found a place for it to have its own space in your life. When you no longer care if it leaves, it’s no longer a problem when it stays.
I believe grief is the key to joy, and to a life that outsiders looking in would describe as happy. Sharing our sources of joy with others is made easier if you’ve first showed them your grief. Share your grief and joy will surely find you.
By choosing grief, you avoid madness. Madness is living life without a sense of purpose, a path, and joy. Madness is a life chasing happiness which may be successful some of the time, but not all of the time. You don’t need happiness to flourish, and thrive, but you do need joy. The good news is that joy will find you, if you would only stay still for a bit. Chasing happiness will only make you a moving target for joy—much harder to catch.
Chase happiness and find madness or choose grief and find joy.
Grief or madness, the choice is yours.