High

In our day-to-day lives, we often think of joy as being synonymous with happiness. We think of it as a good feeling that makes us feel satisfied, content, delighted, and sometimes grateful. The problem is, we don't have a whole lot of control over how we feel - so when we let our ideas of "happiness" or "contentment" rest on having a feeling of joy, we end up on a bumpy ride, being pulled wherever our feelings take us. Because when we derive our joy from a world of changing circumstances, we subject our joy to that same changing nature.

But what if satisfaction, contentment, and joy aren't feelings? What if they were a way of life, based on something that transcends our ever-changing circumstances?

Then, we could be joyful in any situation, because that situation doesn't get to be a variable in the equation anymore.

In a world whose nature is full of change, it can be incredibly restful to find something constant.

Low

In our struggle to live a life of joy, maybe we need to look for something that doesn't change. Something that doesn't depend on health, or the economy, or what other people say about us. It is only in the restfulness of the unchanging that we can truly choose joy.