Most people equate joy with pleasure. George Bernard Shaw, however, said ‘the true joy in life, is being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one: being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap, and being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.’ And C. S. said: ‘We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.’
Joy is the great life quest, and we rarely find it; because we forget that joy is a thing of the spirit.