Joy: Happiness From The Inside Out

It seems like most of our lives we’re chasing happiness.

For nearly every single action – why did we start or stop that relationship, why did we take that job, why do we spend time on that hobby of ours – at the root of each one is “we just want to be happy.”

And…sometimes life doesn’t go our way. Sometimes the relationship or the job goes sour. Sometimes there’s failure. Sometimes it hails on our garden. Then what? Does that mean our efforts towards happiness were in vain?

I experienced this a few months ago. I was on vacation with my family. I was in a beautiful location, surrounded by my loved ones, eating amazing food, having exciting adventures, relaxing on a warm beach…and miserable. I was grouchy and dissatisfied. I call this particular mood “unidentifiable malaise”.

There’s something else at play here – joy.

The Difference Between Joy and Happiness

 We often use the terms happiness and joy interchangeably, but there’s a powerful difference. Happiness is a feeling of contentment or pleasure that comes from external sources, such as material possessions, achievements, or relationships. Happiness “happens” to us. Joy, on the other hand, is an internal feeling of peace and contentment that comes from within.

Happiness is often fleeting, rising and lowering by the tide of external factors. We might feel happy when we get a promotion at work, but that happiness might fade if we don’t get along with our new boss. Joy, on the other hand, is more stable. We can feel joy even when our external life is in tatters.

Happiness lives in the world of the temporary, the fleeting, pleasure-seeking of this moment. Joy is foundational, rooted in the bigger picture, the meaning and purpose of our lives.

For many of us, we’ve been climbing the wrong mountain. We’ve been trained our entire lives to excel at finding happiness. We’re experts, blindly striving our way to the top of a steep and snowy mountain, only to find ourselves lost and snow-blind once we’ve arrived at the summit.

The absence of joy becomes a hole in our lives that no amount of striving or winning can ever fill. Without joy, there is no long-term happiness.

Sitting grumpily on the beach, I asked myself how I had gotten there. Had I been putting in the work? Meaning, for me, had I been doing my spiritual exercises, had I been taking time for gratitude? Had I been focused on the big picture and meaning of my work, my relationships?

The answer, as it always is for me when I find myself feeling “unidentifiable malaise” is…no. Of course not. I’d been too busy, focused on the material.

The Recipe for Joy

 The recipe for joy, like for things that are important, is simple, but not easy.

Joy comes from cultivating our inner light. We meditate, or pray, or contemplate – whatever our inner practice is that quiets the chatter and noise of the mind and allows us to connect to something deeper.

For our outer world, we shift our focus, moving to a state of gratitude for what we have, vs. a constant comparison to what we want. We focus on our values, making changes in our lives to get aligned in the places where our values have been violated.

We’re embracing life, not escaping it. It’s not necessary to fully retreat inwardly.

We can still focus on our relationships, but instead of fixating on what the other person is or is not doing for us, we can develop our own internal love and sharing it freely.

We can still focus on our careers, but with emphasis on how the work we’re doing is contributing to the greater good.

We can still focus on our hobbies, savoring the moments of our creative expression, vs. trying to figure out a way to make them about achievement.

We can reimagine a life where every thought, word, or action becomes infused with joy. Where we can shine like the light of a thousand suns and express our true nature.

It happens from the inside out.