The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

What Is Joy?
Joy seems to me a step beyond happiness. Happiness is a sort of atmosphere you can live in sometimes when you’re lucky. Joy is a light that fills you with hope and faith and love.
— ADELA ROGERS ST. J OHNS
The research has taught me that happiness and joy are different experiences. In the interviews, people
would often say something like, “Being grateful and joyful doesn’t mean that I’m happy all of the
time.” On many occasions I would delve deeper into those types of statements by asking, “What does
it look like when you’re joyful and grateful, but not happy?” The answers were all similar: Happiness
is tied to circumstance and joyfulness is tied to spirit and gratitude.
I also learned that neither joy nor happiness is constant; no one feels happy all of the time or joyful
all of the time. Both experiences come and go. Happiness is attached to external situations and events
and seems to ebb and flow as those circumstances come and go. Joy seems to be constantly tethered to
our hearts by spirit and gratitude. But our actual experiences of joy—these intense feelings of deep
spiritual connection and pleasure—seize us in a very vulnerable way.
After these differences emerged from my data, I looked around to find what other researchers had
written about joy and happiness. Interestingly, the explanation that seemed to best describe my
findings was from a theologian.
Anne Robertson, a Methodist pastor, writer, and executive director of the Massachusetts Bible
Society, explains how the Greek origins of the words happiness and joy hold important meaning for
us today. She explains that the Greek word for happiness is Makarios, which was used to describe the
freedom of the rich from normal cares and worries, or to describe a person who received some form
of good fortune, such as money or health. Robertson compares this to the Greek word for joy which
is chairo. Chairo was described by the ancient Greeks as the “culmination of being” and the “good
mood of the soul.” Robertson writes, “Chairo is something, the ancient Greeks tell us, that is found
only in God and comes with virtue and wisdom. It isn’t a beginner ’s virtue; it comes as the
culmination. They say its opposite is not sadness, but fear.”
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We need both happiness and joy. I think it’s important to create and recognize the experiences that
make us happy. In fact, I’m a big fan of Gretchen Rubin’s book The Happiness Project and Tal Ben-
Shahar ’s research and book Happier. But in addition to creating happiness in our lives, I’ve learned

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that we need to cultivate the spiritual practices that lead to joyfulness, especially gratitude. In my own
life, I’d like to experience more happiness, but I want to live from a place of gratitude and joy. To do
this, I think we have to take a hard look at the things that get in the way of gratitude and joy, and to
some degree, even happiness.