17 Jul 2023 · 6 min
Jordana distinguishes joy from happiness: joy is a brief spark triggered by external things like bright colors or symmetry, while happiness is deeper contentment. She challenges listeners to identify one daily source of joy—a person, place, or activity—and engage with it for a week, arguing that small consistent moments build lasting happiness.
This is InBrief. Let's get to it. Hello, and welcome back to the InBrief podcast. Each week, we take a few minutes to dive into a new topic that hopefully makes your transition or whatever you're going through a little bit easier. And maybe it gives you a new perspective to take into a new week. I'm Jordana. I'm the CEO of the Recon Network, and this week we're talking about chasing joy. So back in 2020, if you remember, while we stayed in our homes in lockdown, a trend began to spread. It was on Netflix. It was pretty much everywhere, and it was championed by Marie Kondo. This trend saw people purge and clean out their homes and drawers and storage units and garages and become Way more focused on minimalism, and by default, it was promised that then they would become happier. The question that you were supposed to do if you were condoing your house was: Does this spark joy? And it was the first time that many people had considered how our surroundings can affect our feelings of joy or happiness, which was really important to everyone back in the pandemic as we were being affected by a number of different things. all at once, and our surroundings were limited at that point. So as we became more and more focused on seeking out joy, it became easier and easier for a lot of people to find, which is how the entire idea of Marie Kondo got started and kept going for so long. The thing about joy, though, is that it gets mixed up a lot with its cousin happiness. They're often used interchangeably, but there's actually a big difference between the two. Happiness is a deep, lasting state of well-being, while the feeling of joy is more of a spark of emotion, and it's often triggered by external events, and it's far more fleeting. Happiness is like a feeling of contentment and satisfaction that comes from within, and joy is the breath of air that we take when we're at a place so wonderful that we want to stay there forever. Joy is like a firework. It's bright and flashy, but it doesn't last very long. While happiness, on the other hand, is like a warm blanket. It's comforting and it can last for a long time. In her TED Talk, The Power of Joy, Ingrid Feddle Lee explores these differences between happiness and joy and focuses on what makes us as humans joyful. At a large scale, she noticed certain things were common when people described what made them Fireworks, ice cream cones, and rainbows were a few that she mentions. Digging deeper, she noticed patterns: bright colors, symmetry, or a feeling of abundance like confetti or a field of flowers, or of elevation or lightness like with clouds or streams of light. But Lee also notes our biggest problem with joy: as we get older, we hold ourselves back from it. But why? Because we think that being colorful or light or joyful opens us up to judgment. We worry that others may find us unserious or childish. And in the effort to be perceived as whatever it is we think we need to be perceived as, we seek out joy less, and unsurprisingly, we find it less. Now, for those of you in some sort of transition process, and please understand, we are all always in some sort of transition, you may be experiencing a lot of things, and I'd be willing to bet that joy isn't high on that list. There's stress, there's concerns over a new job, there's financial standing, you're moving, family issues, leaving friends, and a lot more. Often you're also dealing with imposter syndrome hovering over you, which we've talked about on this podcast before. But can actually be really debilitating in how you move forward. And with all that going on, you may be focused on change itself more than finding out what is actually going to make that change worth it. But it's important to remember that happiness and joy are still possible, even in the middle of transition. So here's your challenge this week. You're going to Marie Kondo your life. Focus on what brings you joy and seek those things out. What are the activities or people or places that make you feel like a firework? Make a short list and then commit to doing one of those things every single day this week. Now, if that means that the pizza place down the street makes you feel alive, go over there for lunch. If sitting in the dark listening to cicadas sing brings you peace, go outside to sit and listen. Or put a photo on your desktop that shows your favorite place in the world or your favorite person in the world, even if they're thousands of miles away. Both happiness and joy are important parts of a fulfilling life, and seeking out joy can be the spark to light a smile. Do it often enough and you'll probably be building a habit of happiness too. But don't become so focused on living and getting through life That you miss the point. Make sure you're seeking out the things that make you actually want to live.
