Everyone wants to enjoy, and we’re delighted by the promises of happiness modernity romantically paints. But the modern society is constructing for us a restrictive, single lane to joy ideas, telling us following base desires or natural impulses or becoming slaves of capitalism or rebelling against big corporations by entrepreneuring or social activism will do the trick. Find yourself, your purpose, they say, and you shall find joy. Whatever that means.

Joy is not and should not be seen as ‘mono-pathy’. For there are different types of joy, and the key to enjoying life in its truest sense is to embrace the diversified paths through which joy comes to human.

For example, you feel accomplished when you bag a degree, but that joy is completely different to the one you feel when your baby wraps your finger in her hand and smiles at you.

You feel happy on your wedding day, but that joy is different from when you get into a desired fellowship or scholarship or position you really worked hard for. But these feelings are not the same as when your parents look at you with pride bustling and pat you in the back.

You feel a certain ecstatic rush at climax when making love to your spouse. Yet there’s another feeling of joy you feel when you just hold hands and take walks. And these feelings differ from the one you feel while in prayers and devotion to God and you feel alive.

You feel a certain joy being around friends, talking and having fun. This joy again differs from the one present when working on a creative project….

And the list goes on.

Try to strike a balance in your life. Give yourself, your family, your friends, your parents, your job, your talents, your children their dues. Live a well rounded life. Don’t pursue career at the expense of family, or carry family on your head that you lose yourself, or go after wealth with no regards to morals and ethics, or search for fame and power without giving thoughts to social responsibilities.

And don’t forget that you’re in the grandscale of things just a weak wayfarer in this world, and that God will call you to account on the Day of Judgment.