Is there a
difference between happiness and joy? They are both
positive and desirable feelings, and it could be
said, who cares? If you're feeling good, you're feeling
good.
There is a
subtle but important distinction between the two,
however, which can lead to a person being able to
consciously make himself or herself feel better.
Happiness
is observing or doing something you really like.
Joy is
connecting with the source of life within you.
In our
materialist culture, self–awareness is said to originate
from matter and energy. According to this logic,
pleasure must also be material in nature. Needless to
say, this is backwards.
Happiness
is fleeting. Joy can be continuous. Happiness is
dependent upon something or someone outside of yourself.
Joy is self-enabling and comes from within.
When you
observe or do something that makes you feel happy, what
you're feeling is the unrestricted flow of your own life
force. In other words, well-being is you feeling you.
Because consciousness is non–physical and language is
physical, it’s hard to find words that express this
concept. We’ll just say that happiness requires effort
–– molding the environment to suit your tastes, or
procuring things to play around with –– whereas joy is
effortless.
For
instance, you go on vacation to your favorite location.
You release all of your worries and cares, and just have
a good time. All you're doing is releasing the
resistance to the positive energy that is flowing to you
and within you at all times. There's nothing inherent in
what you're observing or doing that CAUSES you to feel
good. You feel good because you stop resisting.
If you
could do that in your daily life, there would be no need
to go on vacation. Most of us cannot afford to go on
vacation the year round, or buy every little thing that
strikes our fancy. But there is one thing you can do to
feel better, even if your experiences don’t remotely
resemble the life you want.
You can
practice feeling good. Seems weird to say it, but it's
true. Most of us practice just the opposite every day.
We worry about finances, jobs, health, and relationships
The list is a long one. Why we do this, I don't know. I
think its just a bad habit. But bad habits can be turned
into good habits!
What would
happen at work if you found things to feel good about
and talked them up with your fellow employees? My bet is
that you’d soon see people scattering right and left as
you entered a room. You’d be regarded as just a little
bit loony. For some reason in our society, it’s more
acceptable to complain than it is to appreciate. The
tendency to find fault, rather than to appreciate, is
what ruins many relationships.
For
example, Jill has a boyfriend with seven good qualities
and three irritating ones. She has two choices:
concentrate on the seven good qualities, or try to
change the three bad ones (or just ditch the guy). Jill
decides that she really likes this guy and that it
doesn’t matter that he has some irritating habits. So
she concentrates her attention on his good qualities
(don’t laugh ladies. My wife has been doing that for 28
years). She praises Jack’s good qualities, and the more
she concentrates on those, the more of those he exhibits
when he is around her (Jack might act like a total prick
to someone else, but that is the dance of vibrational
matching he is doing with the other). The law of 'like
attracts like' guarantees that the more Jill focus on
Jack’s good qualities, the more these qualities show
themselves in Jill’s interaction with him. Soon, Jack’s
three bad qualities hardly ever appear in Jill’s
relationship.
If Jill is
like a lot of people, however, she tries to change
Jack’s three irritating qualities; she thinks to
herself, ‘he’s THAT close to being perfect.’ So on
football Sundays she complains that he spends too much
time in front of the TV set. After dinner, she hounds
him to put his dirty dishes in the dishwasher instead of
leaving them out for her to clean up. And she always
scolds him for leaving the toilet paper rack empty. “But
it’s irritating!” Jill cries. “How can I get him to
change if I don’t remind him!” In the back of her mind
she thinks ‘if he really liked me he’d do what I ask.
I’m not requesting the moon.’
Jill’s idea
is that if Jack changes his behavior, she could be a lot
happier. All that does is focus her attention on Jack’s
unwanted characteristics. Jill is not perfect either
(sorry ladies) and Jack begins to find fault with her as
well. Soon the unacceptable stuff begins to dominate
their relationship.
This
applies to everything in life. If you want to meet a lot
of happy people, find excuses to be happy yourself. The
more you resonate to happiness, the more happiness comes
to you. Soon you never even rendezvous with any grumps!
They might be in the environment, but you never come in
contact with them.
It's pretty
powerful stuff.
Happiness
comes from the outside, joy from within.
It's just
an amazing property of the universe that the more you
focus on something, the more it appears in your
experience. If you need the environment around you to be
pleasing in order to be happy, then you better roll up
your sleeves and get to work! It's going to be a long,
hard road, for there are 6 billion fellow humans who are
probably wanting different things than you!
If you can
just release the impulse to change the conditions (and
people) around you, and instead work to change the
conditions within your own being, you will find that
inevitably, the environment will change around you to
match your desires. It's totally amazing, but true.
How do you
practice feeling good? Find little things to appreciate.
When you do this, those little things become very big.
For example, while driving I try to appreciate the cloud
patterns. Or I’ll admire the nice looking cars that pass
by. If it’s raining I’ll appreciate the fact that I have
window wipers, and if it’s really hot I’ll appreciate
the air conditioner. It sounds like a tired old bromide,
but appreciation always works. It can turn something bad
into something good! Remember that there’s no inherent
‘goodness’ or ‘badness’ in physical objects, or your
environment, that forces you to feel bad or good. When
you practice appreciation, you are activating your own
connection to the life force energy that is all around
you.
Joy comes
from within, and with an attitude of joy, you are in
consort with source energy, and the energy of the
universe. You are going with the flow. You are in a
state of grace.
When you
feel good, you feel God.
Joy is a
continuous state of happiness, a continuing state of
positive emotion.
Happiness
is a fleeting thing, brought about by observation of
something pleasing.
All of us
have the ability to create happiness from within. All it
takes is a little practice, by finding excuses to be
happy, even if it's only for a few seconds at a time.
The more you practice, the easier it gets.
It seems
weird to say, 'find excuses to be happy' but many people
would rather feel crummy than change old thought and
feeling patterns. I know I did. But it helps to know
that you can alter the conditions around you in regards
to something merely by changing your thoughts and
feelings about it. If you have never experienced this,
then it might seem fanciful. But if at any time in your
life you have ever consciously created something
positive for yourself, you know what I am talking about.
We are all
at cause over the condition of our lives. We are
creating them moment by moment, even if we do not
realize we are doing so. If you desire to create a
better life, know that the laws of the universe are
fully supporting you. All you have to do is change from
within, and the environment around you will respond.