Joy Vs Happiness

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN “JOY” & “HAPPINESS”

JOY	-	HAPPINESS
The word “JOY” comes from the Greek root word “CHARA”, and it means "to be exceedingly glad within”	-	The word "HAPPY" comes from the Hebrew root word “ASHAR” and it means "to set right to have happiness based on external happenings”
Joy remains forever	-	Happiness comes and goes.
Joy burns within	-	Happiness depends on external happenings.
JOY is untouched by circumstances	-	Happiness is touched by circumstances.
Joy is an attitude of heart	-	Happiness is an emotion of mind.
JOY is the state of the human soul	-	Happiness is a state of the human mind.
JOY is untouched by circumstances	-	Happiness is touched by circumstances
Joy is permanent	-	Happiness is temporary/fleeting.
Joy is based on knowing	-	Happiness is based on feeling.
Joy is from God	-	Happiness is from us.
Joy is spiritual	-	Happiness is not spiritual.
Joy is eternal	-	Happiness is not eternal.
Joy is God’s Spirit	-	Happiness is not God’s Spirit
Joy is the Presence of God	-	Happiness is not the Presence of God.
Joy is the Power of God	-	Happiness in not the Power of God.
Joy is not optional	-	Happiness is optional
Joy is Loving God & others	-	Happiness Loving oneself .
Joy is Love	-	Happiness is not Love.
Joy is Peace	-	Happiness is not Peace.
Joy is Strength	-	Happiness is not Strength.

More about Joy….On an individual level, ‘Anhedonia’ is the technical term for the inability to experience joy. Less dramatic than anhedonia but a much more pervasive problem is a condition that doesn't even have a clinical name; it's the gradual withdrawal into isolation and indifference that is so common among citizens (in fact this is a mark of the beginning of depression say specialists). Professor Robertson Davies called this condition ‘Acedia’; it's similar to the deadly negative attitude of idleness. It's not merely laziness; it's a gradual closing down on the world around. Citizens stop taking chances; they avoid stimulation for change, want to play it safe, and begin to cut themselves off from anything that might rock their boat! This is a slow poison that slowly disconnects the democrat from democracy! Acedia makes people vulnerable to corruption, causes hardening of individual attitudes; creating petty, passive-aggressive system of government.

In these times, world over, Acedia has seeped into every profession creating empty lives, and is on the increase. Putting anger, guilt, and shame in their place is not enough; we also must take responsibility for learning to feel good. We might prefer to play it safe, but we simply can't! Fullness of Life doesn't work that way! Acedia causes relationships to deteriorate into brittle, bitter, vulnerable shells. While learning to feel connected with the world around may be temporarily upsetting, in the long-haul it adds richness, meaning, purpose and fulfilment to one’s life.

On a planetary level the cumulative effect of ‘Acedia’ results in an unsustainable system of economic growth that has entrenched itself in politics, banking, academia, advertising, commercial media, and just about every facet of civilization. Growth economics is driving climate change and overwhelms the atmospheric, marine, and terrestrial 'waste sinks' of the planet. It drives resource depletion, inequity and a host of injustices of all kinds in the name of 'the free market' and supposed prosperity for all.

Humanity faces widely recognized threats to present and future peace and stability in the form of ecological collapse in general and climate change in particular. The cause of these threats is the unsustainable manner in which human civilization has evolved, including our wasteful consumerist lifestyle continually lauded in the media as the norm. We are on track for unfathomable suffering from hunger, starvation, disease, and warfare over limited food and water supplies.

Our disregard for planetary limits, with rapidly dwindling natural resources and the ecosphere’s inability for to absorb our wastes, will seal our fate and climate change will soon put us outside of the climatic bounds under which life as we know it evolved. Our current levels of consumption and growth in the scale of the human economy are fundamentally unsustainable and undermine the very viability of life on Earth.

Thus on a societal level a paradigm shift from the current model of exponential economic growth to one of genuine well-being, joy and progress, is urgently needed. There is no such thing as ‘green growth,’ since boundless growth can never be ‘green’, and no such thing as sustainable growth either, since boundless growth in scale within a finite planet will ultimately result in planet rupture. A ‘course correction’ is essential if human civilization is to survive and thrive on planet Earth.

On an individual level it is to be realized that Joy is not a gift someone else can give us, it is not even something we can buy for ourselves, it happens as a by-product of unconditional love and peace. It's never been easy to live a life of concern for others; it does not come by default! It needs consciousness. It requires us to open the ‘eyes’ of our heart to see the problems faced by others! It takes a set of special skills that we name as love, generosity, patience, compassion, justice, righteousness and so on, for us to see if we can make a difference. People are not born with these skills or qualities. People need to be told and taught to consciously cultivate and practice these critical attitude skills which are key ingredients for us to experience joy in our lives; which is our right!

Our brain does not merely store our experiences. Each experience changes the brain — structurally, electrically, chemically. The brain becomes the experience. In order to break free from the stress cycle of individual, social and planetary systems, we need to feed our brains and bodies with experiences of mastery, creativity, and joy. Our minds (the way we think about things) have tremendous power to help us rebuild and rewire our brains, power that we too often ignore or use self-destructively. But we can use that power constructively, to build autonomy, competence, and relatedness, and help ourselves step off the stress cycle forever and on to the ‘Road of Joy’.