Lou

“What’s the difference? Happiness involves a victory for the self, an expansion of self. Happiness comes as we move toward our goals, when things go our way. You get a big promotion. You graduate from college. Your team wins the Super Bowl. You have a delicious meal. Happiness often has to do with some success, some new ability, or some heightened sensual pleasure. Joy tends to involve some transcendence of self. It’s when the skin barrier between you and some other person or entity fades away and you feel fused together. Joy is present when mother and baby are gazing adoringly into each other’s eyes, when a hiker is overwhelmed by beauty in the woods and feels at one with nature, when a gaggle of friends are dancing deliriously in unison. Joy often involves self-forgetting. Happiness is what we aim for on the first mountain. Joy is a by-product of living on the second mountain.”
― David Brooks, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life

“We are all part of the same story, each of us different chapters. We may not have the power to choose setting or plot, but we can choose what kind of character we want to be.”
― David Arnold, Kids of Appetite

“My heart was so full, I thought it might explode into the ether, creating some bizarre new solar system whose inhabitants ate only love, drank only hope, and breathed only joy. What a substantial galaxy that would be.”
― David Arnold, Kids of Appetite

“The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.”
― Russel M. Nelson