Happiness or Joy

What is happiness I used to think that happiness is found in the material items, titles, or successes I acquired. People pleasing became a way for me to obtain the validation I was desperate for. Always thinking am I good enough? Why don’t they like me? I am doing everything they want me to do and for a moment I felt happy when they would reciprocate for a short moment. 

Then I realized that this is unsustainable and quite frankly has the opposite effect of what I truly want. See, there is a difference between happiness and true joy. Happiness is contingent on what we have, who acknowledges us, situations, or status we finally reach. None of those things are truly sustainable because people change, jobs can be lost, and material things depreciate with time. Happiness is fickle and codependent. 

Whereas, joy cannot be measured by the things we have, do, or positions we hold. Joy is available and free to all but many fail to possess it. My prayer for all of you reading is that you will come into a relationship with joy and choose it before anyone else.