Joy vs. Happiness

I realize that I am not very good at this blogging thing. I guess you are supposed to write in it more than every 4 months. My bad. Anyway as I was sitting at home under a blanket I felt inspired to write.

I was thinking about a conversation that I had with Trevor a few weeks ago. It was about being happy. I had been dealing with some hard stuff and I made a comment about wanting to be happy. Trevor pointed out that we can't always be happy but we should strive to be joyful. I never really thought about the difference between the two, but as I let this process I realized how different the two are. Happiness comes and goes. It is not something we can control. It is a state of being and changes with circumstances. However joyfulness is a choice. We can choose to be joyful even in the worst of times. Trevor asked me if I could try to be joyful. I thought it was worth a shot.

So I began to look for joy in each and every circumstance. The one that really sticks out in my mind happened at work. I had been frustrated with my job and was feeling somewhat hopeless about it. As I was leaving the office I saw two kids that were in treatment foster care when I was doing my practicum in college. I knew they were looking for a forever family back then. However, they were at our office because they had been adopted and were having therapy with their new family. You should have seen the joy in their little faces. They jumping up and down and saying Dad a million times. They now had a dad, a real forever dad. They had a forever family and they were overjoyed. As I drove home tears filled my eyes. I remembered why I wanted to become a social worker and in that moment I was truly joyful.

So I would challenge you to look at the differences between happiness and joy. When you really think about it joy is a good way to go.