Alternate:Words

Lebens­freude — Joie de vivre, orig­i­nally uploaded by Thorsten Becker.

From Wikiep­dia:

“Joie de vivre (from the French joie, “joy”; de, “of”; vivre, “to live, liv­ing”; “the joy of liv­ing”) is a term some­times imported into Eng­lish to express a cheer­ful enjoy­ment of life; an exul­ta­tion of spirit. Joie de vivre, as one scholar has writ­ten, can be a joy of con­ver­sa­tion, joy of eat­ing, joy of any­thing one might do… And joie de vivre may be seen as a joy of every­thing, a com­pre­hen­sive joy, a phi­los­o­phy of life, a Weltan­schau­ung. Robert’s Dic­tio­n­naire says joie is sen­ti­ment exal­tant ressenti par toute la con­science, that is, involves one’s whole being.”

Many peo­ple are look­ing for joy in their life. How­ever, I find that we often tend to con­fuse joy with fun or plea­sure seek­ing. There are plenty of activ­i­ties offered to us that (sup­pos­edly) are fun and plea­sure­ful. How­ever, those feel­ings don’t last very long. They fade away shortly after the activ­i­ties end and we’re often left feel­ing some­what empty and long­ing, seek­ing more fun and plea­sure in turn.

Joy on the other hand is not tied to spe­cific actions but to our dis­po­si­tion, our atti­tude and out­look on life. Joy is often found in rather mun­dane things such as a nice meal, a walk through the park, loung­ing in the sun, a stroll down the beach as well as hob­bies. Also, joy and hap­pi­ness are closely related; a joy­ful per­son is most often a happy per­son. Some­one that has a lot of joy radi­ates it and is a plea­sure to be around. Joy can eas­ily be shared while fun is most often tied to very sub­jec­tive things, those only we may find excit­ing but aren’t as much fun for others.

While there is noth­ing wrong with hav­ing fun it is only one small part of a happy life. Find­ing joy is of much greater ben­e­fit and, depend­ing on our dis­po­si­tion and out­look, can have a last­ing affect.

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