Joy is the feeling of grinning inside
Joy is personal, an exultant reaction to an event or momentary perceived fulfilment of a personal desire. Weddings, births, graduations, sex, drugs evoke joy in individuals. It is spontaneous, unexpected and pleasurable.
More clinically, joy is the passion or emotion excited by the acquisition or expectation of good; pleasurable feelings or emotions caused by success, good fortune, and the like, or by a rational prospect of possessing what we love or desire; gladness; exhilaration of spirits; delight.
The signs or exhibition of joy; smiling widely, gayety, mirth, merriment, festivity.
Joy is an emotion of sincere happiness. The key visual component of this emotional state is the smile. Still, “Why do we smile?” Animals don’t smile. Baring the teeth is actually an aggressive facial signal. This is a great psychological question and we’ve not been able to find a convincing (non-BS) answer. So … maybe this hypothesis applies. “Humans descended from pre-cretaceous non-predatory mammals in which dental excellence and root chewing ability was more important and than fangs. Good teeth = good mate?”
The expression of joy communicates a state of happiness, pleasure, enjoyment and ecstasy. A true expression of happiness involves both the upper part and lower part of your face. Whereas most of us relate happiness with a pull up and back of the lip corners, a critical element to the emotion is also the contraction of the orbicularis oculi, the muscle surrounding the eyes. This true smile, also known as Duchenne smile is anatomically distinct and indicates a genuine feeling of happiness.
Next time you greet someone, try to focus on your face and the type of smile you give the person. Are you feeling genuine happiness? Is your whole face smiling or just your lips? Once you have mastered identifying your smile start watching how others smile at you!
It seems you are more likely to experience joy if your base line of happiness is reasonably high. Happiness is a shared emotion and is often dependant on communal and community events, work interactions and feelings of success, fulfilment and well being. Joy is a personal feeling event.
Evidence suggests that, with the exception of the years 40 – 50, most people generally get happier as they get older. Researchers specify that people in both their 20’s and 70’s tend to be happier than during midlife, although the measures of happiness change at different rates (e.g. feelings of stress and anger tend to decline after age 20, worrying drops after age 50, enjoyment had been very slowly declining but finally starts to rise after 50, etc)
This could be for any number of things. Psychological factors could include a greater awareness of one’s self and preferences; an ability to control desires and hold more realistic expectations; getting closer to death may motivate people to pursue more goals; improved social skills, like forgiveness, may take years to develop; or happier people may live longer and are slightly overrepresented in the elderly population. Chemical changes that come with age may also be playing a role.
An emotionally stable personality correlates well with happiness. Not only does emotional stability make one less prone to negative emotions, it also predicts higher social intelligence – which helps to manage relationships with others (an important part of being happy).
Cultivating an extroverted temperament may correlate with happiness for the same reason: it builds relationships and support groups. Some people may be lucky, then, that many personality theories leave room for the idea that individuals have some control over their long term behaviours and cognitions. Genetic studies indicate that it is genes for personality (specifically extraversion, neuroticism and a general factor linking all 6 traits that account for the heritability of subjective well-being.
“Joy is the feeling of grinning inside.”
Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift. Albert Einstein
It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. Albert Einstein
We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves. Buddha
We are formed and moulded by our thoughts. Those whose minds are shaped by selfless thoughts give joy when they speak or act. Joy follows them like a shadow that never leaves them. Buddha
Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy. Mohandas Gandhi
Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. Mother Teresa
Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy. Khalil Gibran
Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humour itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humour in heaven. Mark Twain
Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with. Mark Twain
The secret source of humour is not joy but sorrow; there is no humour in Heaven. Mark Twain
Read more: http://www.brainyquote.com/words
So to joy, thinking, thinking back to feeling it. I was in a troubled state of mind, divorce bound and attempting an unconditional love for the people involved, myself the circumstances and especially my feelings. I got tired of the hours of contemplation, of balancing my perception, of remembering and neutralizing my feelings and their genesis.
I was alone and unable to concentrate. I made some tea, and idly picked up a book of Ralph Waldo’s Emerson’s essays. I had read them, with great pleasure, in the past and now the book fell open at the essay ‘Circles’ and I read, “There is no virtue which is final; all are initial. The virtues of society are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed such, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices.” I don’t really know why but suddenly I was catapulted into a state of intense joy, white light and I felt my face break into a big smile. I still to this day don’t totally understand what made me so joyful, but I still hark back to it and am usually happier for doing so.
(Here is a link to the same essay if you wish to read it, it’s brilliant: http://emerson.classicauthors.net/CirclesAnEssay/)
Still, I have had more comprehensible states of joy. My small son running towards me with his arms out and a huge grin on his face made me break out into joy, listening to music will sometimes make me feel joyous, Sigur Ros with its epic soaring rhythms can bring me to my knees and make me feel transported with joy. Joy meets some unexpected need in us and its birth is sudden and its life fleeting.