Happiness and Joy, two terms we often use interchangeably but are largely disparate. Happiness is an age-old vocabulary that has long plagued society and humanity. We constantly interrogate ourselves and others as to whether we are happy. Even worse, we anchor our happiness to extrinsic factors - objects, people and places. We would often say - when I get my dream job, buy my dream house, meet my soulmate and visit beautiful places, I will be happy. ‘Happiness’ is an emotional response to an outcome. An ‘if-then’, cause-and-effect, quid-pro-quo standard that we are unable to sustain because we immediately raise it every time we attain it.

The very nature of ‘happiness’ is that it demands a certain outcome for it to occur, it is result-reliant. In the words of Matthew McConaughey from his book Greenlights, "If happiness is what you're after then you're going to be let down frequently and you're going to be unhappy much of your time. Joy however is a different feeling. Joy is not a choice. It’s not a response to some result. Joy is always in process, always in constant approach, alive and well in the doing of that which we are fashioned to do and enjoy”.

Joy is an intrinsic feeling that arises inside us from doing that which nature has foreseen for us and that which we love. It is independent of external factors, untethered to that which is material. Joy resides in our hearts, while happiness is only expressed via our outward appearance.

Unlike ‘Happiness’ which is temporary and fleeting, Joy is present in each moment if and when we lend ourselves to experiencing it.

Remember - “Joy is not in things; it is in us.” - Richard Wagner

Peace, Love and Light.