āWhat have you been thinking about joy recently?ā my husband, Mike, asked me over lunch the other day, knowing that I’m working on a series about the fruit of the spirit and mothering, and that this month was supposed to be my month of joy.
āIāve been thinking about that research suggesting that people are happier before they have children,ā I said. āAnd about how happiness and joy are different.ā
āAre you going to write the easy post about how you often feel less happy on a moment to moment basis since Dominicās birth, but you have more joy in your life?ā Mike asked.
āNo,ā I said. āBecause, although I would like to think that this is true, Iām not actually sure that it is.ā
Despite the fact that joy is the theme of this month, Iāve been trying not to think too hard about the difference between happiness and joy. This question confuses me, and thinking too hard about anything confusing in the face of this enduring sleep deficit is still a struggle. But thereās no getting around it, if Iām going to exert even a half-hearted attempt to grapple with the concept of joy, this particular question must be confronted.
Mike and I first started talking about joy a couple of weekends ago, a time when I was feeling low low low. Mike asked me what I was thinking about regarding joy on that day, too. As I recall, I told him I didnāt feel at all joyful and I didnāt feel like talking about it. Also as I recall, Mike being Mike, he persevered with the conversation, anyway.
āHappiness is present focused,ā Mike said when I gave in and asked him what he thought about the difference between joy and happiness. āJoy is more future focused. Also, happiness is more self-focused while joy is others-focused.ā
āLike how we feel when our friends get engaged,ā Mike continued. āObjectively thereās little in it for us other than a party, so why do we feel so elated by this? I think that feeling of gladness we feel at their good news, thatās less happiness than it is joy.ā
I donāt agree with Mike about joy being tied to anticipating future good things, but then again I donāt think that Iām a very future-oriented person. If anything, I get more joy from remembering past blessings than I do thinking about the future.
However, I think Mikeās point about joy being related to empathy ā being rooted in an appreciation for the āgoodā in life even when that good doesnāt directly benefit you ā is fascinating.
Many dictionaries define joy as intense or especially exultant happiness, but this doesnāt seem nuanced enough to me. Even if I donāt find it easy to pin down exactly why, I feel as if joy really should be something more than just a brighter shade of happiness ā something wider and deeper, something that stems from beyond myself and my pleasures.
I think the man who listed joy as one of the āfruits of the spiritā in Galatians 5:22 would agree. That man would probably say that true joy is a by-product of our appreciation for, and relationship with, the divine.
A good friend recently made a similar point by email.
āJoy is hard to quantify, no?ā she wrote. āI think that joy doesnāt always make you happy, because the fruit of the spirit is the result of the work of God in your heart and experience shows this to be not exclusively a blissful journey. (Maybe sometimes we are more like in the stage of āthe flower-bud of the spiritā? I mean, fruit will probably come, but not for a few months yetā¦).ā
āI love that image of a flower bud of the spirit,ā I wrote back. āI will hold the image of jasmine in my mind. At least, Iāll hold it in my mind until Mike teases me that Iām really more one of those carnivorous, meat-eating flowers you find in the Amazon. And then I might wonder aloud what sort of poor marriage decision that little flower made to end up having to adapt to living in the tropics, and tell Mike that sometimes flowers just do what they have to do to survive. Then weāll both laugh. Thank goodness that, most days, we can both still laugh.ā
We did plenty of laughing this morning when Dominic suddenly decided that our dog scratching himself was the funniest sight heād seen in his whole little life and laughed until he turned bright red and started hiccupping. Todayās so far been a good day full of long baby naps and bright baby smiles and leisurely walks under cloudy skies to pick up groceries. Today I think of Dominic and smile. Today I can say without hesitation that Dominicās birth has brought great joy into my life.
But today doesnāt tell the whole story of this last week.
Last week at this time I was alone in the house, exhausted from several nights in a row of broken sleep, unable to escape the screech of power tools right next door, and trying in vain to settle a grumpy baby who didnāt want to put down (or to sleep). I was walking the floor of our bedroom with Dominic in my arms, crying, thinking that this could not possibly be the point of life.
I would like to be able to say that even in that desolate moment I felt that the demanding, wailing bundle in my arms had brought joy with him when he burst into my life four months ago. Yes, I would like that. But the truth of the matter is that I simply felt so bereft of happiness and joy that I had a hard time conceiving that I would ever really feel either happiness or joy again.
I would also like to be able to say that even during that moment that felt so joyless, I still knew that the demanding, wailing bundle in my arms had brought joy with him when he burst into my life four months ago. Yes, I would like that. But the truth of the matter is, the only thing I knew for sure in that moment was that I still wouldnāt wish his birth undone. If the Archangel Gabriel had appeared in that instant and offered me the chance to hand Dominic over, I would have refused (unless Gabriel had promised to bring him back markedly more cheerful in a couple of hours ā then I would have relinquished him with great haste as well as both happiness and joy).
Perhaps I still donāt have this difference between joy and happiness all sorted out in my mind because theyāre impossible to completely untangle in real life. Sometimes, I think, joy does feel like a brighter shade of happiness. But sometimes in moments when happiness is nowhere to be found, I think it can feel like peace instead. And perhaps sometimes itās not really a feeling at all, but more an attitude, or even knowledge.
I donāt think that knowing you donāt really want to push the reset button regarding the existence of your child ā even in those dark, exhausted, tear-drenched moments ā quite reaches the lofty heights of joy. Perhaps, however, joy can sink its roots deep into this knowledge and continue to grow even when the fertilizer of happiness is in short supply. Because I believe now that what I discovered last month about love is also turning out to be true of joy.
Two months ago I wrote about how love for Dominic hadnāt swamped me like a tidal wave but was creeping in slowly and inexorably, like a rising tide. I donāt know why I expected joy to be a different kettle of fish in this regard, but I did. Subconsciously Iāve been thinking of joy as something you either have ā flowering full and perfect in your life ā or donāt have at all. It took my friendās letter to make me realize that I had missed a foundational implication of the fruit of the spirit analogy ā the fact that fruit, uh, grows. Slowly. As in weeks, months, and entire seasons slowly. This much I do know about the process, despite the fact that Iāve never been all that talented at growing things and prefer to buy my fruit from others who have done the hard and careful work of tending.
Gosh, wouldnāt it be easier if we could buy joy from our local grocery store or, better yet, instant-download it directly into our lives using the buy-with-one-click button on Amazon?
Easier? Maybe.
Better? I canāt articulate exactly why, but I suspect not.
I will strive to remember that as I rue the irony of spending the next month thinking about peace in the midst of our ongoing negotiations with our noisy neighbors. I will remember it tonight when I wake up in the wee dark hours, as I will inevitably do, to reach down and place a hand on a stirring baby. And I will remember it this afternoon as I go soon to get him up from his nap, change him, amuse him, feed him, love him. If part of deep joy necessarily springs from focusing on others, this mothering thing surely means that my emotional greenhouse will eventually be a fruitful, joyous, sweet mess of color. And in the meantime, there are fresh mangoes and tamarind available at the little stall just down the street. Maybe Iāll take Dominic for a walk in that direction this afternoon.