Joy Is a Gauge, Not a Reward

We are used to treating joy as a reward: I’ll do it — I’ll get it; it will happen — then I’ll rejoice. Until it happens, we sit and wait. Turn it over: joy is an indicator emotion, a sign that you are dwelling in happiness. Not a prize at the end of the route, but the needle of an instrument showing where you are right now. And like any needle, it can be used: joy is exactly the marker you can lean on to understand what you want.

Everything in this world is a wave, emotions and thinking included. First you feel off, everything seems bad — but then there is bound to be a rise, because a wave cannot only fall. The main thing is that at any point of this wave you can turn and create a wave in the other direction. A person chooses for himself: accelerate it, damp it, change its vector — or leave it as it is. Most often people leave it — out of fear of changing anything. And then the brain takes stagnation for the normal flow of life and builds a scenario of safety around it. Notice: it is capable of building that scenario at any point of the wave — including the lowest.

At any point of the wave you can turn and create a wave in the other direction.

An event is a background

How do you turn? There are situations that, as it seems to us, bring no joy. But change your attitude — make the situation the aftertaste of a previous event, lay over it your understanding of the moment where joy was — and the picture changes. This reveals a simple mechanics: every event is a background onto which any emotion can be laid. An event does not arrive with an emotion included. You choose the emotion — or a script chooses it for you.

There is a deeper layer: “non-joy” always faces outward. It is not a person’s inner state but a reflection of an external circumstance which consciousness has stamped as its own. Joy, though, can be permanent — and its support is internal. When we like ourselves, that is already a form of joy. Ideally a person should not care what others think or say of him, because he himself understands who he is and what he is like. The more such inner reasons for joy you are aware of, the more easily sad events pass — and the calmer the bright ones become: instead of the emotional swing of up-and-down comes an even positive state that does not depend on an occasion.

Every event is a background onto which any emotion can be laid.

On sharp disappointment

But what about events that genuinely strike at the soul? Look honestly: if the disappointment is very strong, most likely you were not ready for the situation, because you were looking at what was happening differently — or keeping your eyes shut altogether. The level of disappointment always corresponds to the level of readiness. That is why it matters to watch life in real time — not the version of events it is comfortable to see, but the one that is actually happening. This does not cancel the pain, but it removes from it the effect of suddenness — which is what knocks you off your feet.

And one last, down-to-earth thing. To live in joy, look after the body — sleep, nourishment, physical condition. A person often neglects this and then cannot understand why he feels low when “everything in life is fine”. Joy is not only philosophy. The key to happiness is your attitude and attention to yourself — physically, mentally and spiritually, all at once, not in turns.

You came into this world to rejoice in every moment of your life — and the capacity to choose joy develops like any capacity. The only question is who chooses the emotion for today’s background: you — or habit.

The key to happiness is attitude and attention to yourself.

Cover work — “Joy” →

— Evgeny Fleysher