“Happiness is a Solid and Joy is a Liquid
J.D. Salinger
We are certainly living in challenging times, so I find myself coming back again and again to areas of awareness and focus that we can choose that will support our resilience.
Today I simply encourage you to consider the difference between happiness and joy, then perhaps you can consider what and where you can focus to bring more joy to your life.
Joy and happiness are wonderful feelings to experience but are very different. Joy is more consistent and is cultivated internally. It comes when you make peace with who you are, why you are and how you are, whereas happiness tends to be externally triggered and is based on other people, things, places, thoughts and events.
Joy vs Happiness
Once you look towards what these two words mean, you can find many similar thoughts around definition, this one works well for me.
In short, I feel that our resilience can be greatly supported by a focus on what can bring us joy, that deep inner feeling that, when cultivated, can well up from inside us and be shared with others.
A closing thought. As I was finishing writing this. my friend Maeve Gillies gave me a call for a chat. I told her I was writing this piece and the quote on happiness being a solid, joy a liquid.
I then reminisced about a piece of jewellery she made for me (in the photo above) and that the piece brought me happiness, but receiving it and every time I wear it, the piece reminds me of the joy I feel in our friendship. I wrote about this years ago here, and if you’d like to hear us chatting yourself, Maeve is my guest on #WhatComesNextLive on Tuesday 15th December.