“joy noun
1 whoops of joy | the look of joy on her face: delight, great pleasure, joyfulness, jubilation, triumph, exultation, rejoicing, happiness, gladness, glee, exhilaration, ebullience, exuberance, elation, euphoria, bliss, ecstasy, transports of delight, rapture, radiance; enjoyment, gratification, felicity; cloud nine, seventh heaven; French joie de vivre; humorous delectation; literary joyousness; rare jouissance, ravishment, jocundity.
ANTONYMS misery, despair
2 it was a joy to be with her: pleasure, source
delight, treat, thrill; informal buzz, kick.
ANTONYMS trial, tribulation3 informal if you still have no joy, you may have to resort to the courts: success, satisfaction, luck, successful result, positive result; accomplishment, achievement. “ (Online Dictionary)
In my book, Beginnings: A Book for Widows, McLelland and Stewartt, 1977), I made a distinction between joy and happiness. I don’t want to look it up now, though I know I still make the distinction. Happiness for me is a state of being which I am seldom in. It’s more like contentment (resignation?) now. Marie Kondo, the tidiness best-seller, has nailed it. She advises throwing away the things that don’t give you joy and organizing things so that they do. Since I organized my socks the way she prescribes, my sock drawer now gives me joy, not jump-up-and-dpwn joy, but satisfaction, pleasure—contentment—an“ informal buzz” . She says you should get rid of your books because, she thinks, books don’ t give you joy. Imagine!
I can’t.
I’m organizing my files and papers to send my last shipment to the University of Manitoba archives. It’s a huge, time-consuming task and I’m very slow but it gives me such pleasure, aka joy. I’m re-reading everything, vey much aware that I’m alive now but I won’t be if and when some scholar wants to check me out (after I have checked out. that is) so I must to be very picky for their sake.
I’m slow but I’m enjoying it.
Yes, it gives me joy—an informal buzz.
I hope you have some thing that gives you such pleasure.