Thought for the Week

MONDAY was international Happiness Day, and I have been thinking about happiness.

‘What is the difference between happiness and joy?’

I pondered this for some time, and while I know there is a difference, I find it difficult to articulate.

I offer two different quotes about happiness and joy.

‘Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn’t stop to enjoy it.’

‘There are moments when I wish I could roll back the clock and take all the sadness away, but I have the feeling that if I did, the joy would be gone as well.’

Happiness can be transient and is often dependent on external things, while joy seems to come from deep within ourselves.

When we walk across the beautiful Kintyre beaches with our two collies on a glorious morning, I am completely happy, but there is a deeper emotion there too. Could that be joy?

Our dogs express their happiness as they run and bark at the waves. As they chase each other with tails wagging, we know they are happy.

But my happiness goes deeper than that moment and that’s when I think it gives way to joy.

Joy is knowing love and feeling blessed, knowing that depth of wonder at the world around us and being part of it.

There is joy in the awareness that while these moments will drift away on the tide, there is something in the experience of having had them and that they are now part of me forever.

I think we can experience a quiet joy even when we are not happy, because we are grounded in love.