Think of JOY as a more meaningful type of happiness. ’Hedonistic happiness’ is fleeting, and only includes emotions we tend to think of as positive. ’Eudaimonic happiness’ includes meaning, growth, and acceptance. Even of emotions we may call negative.
The twelfth century Buddhist lojong texts about mind training state that, “Joy is our essential nature, something everyone can realize. We could say that our desire for happiness is in a way, an attempt to rediscover our original state of mind.†According to The Dalai Lama, “The suffering from a natural disaster we cannot control, but the suffering from our daily disasters we can. We create most of our suffering, so it should be logical that we also have the ability to create more joy. It simply depends on the attitudes, the perspectives, and the reactions we bring to situations and to our relationships with other people.†He also reminds us of the adage, “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.†Psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky that shows only 50% of our happiness is determine by set factors like our genes or temperament. The other half is determined by our attitudes and actions, which we can control.According to Lyubomirsky, the three factors that seem to have the greatest influence on our happiness are: 1. Our ability to reframe the situation more positively, 2. Our ability to experience gratitude, and 3. Our choice to be kind and generous.