Happiness gives you pleasure.
Joy gives you meaning.
Happiness makes you want more.
Joy makes you give more.
Happiness grows during fun times.
Joy sustains during tough times.
Happiness shows on your face.
Joy shows in your actions.
Happiness is situational.
Joy is long-lasting.
Happiness helps you have a good day.
Joy helps you live a good life.
--Gary Hogg
Over your shoulder turn
to study the past, a story
woven of shadows. Back
there walk the ghosts of
good intention. Now raise
your head to the far future,
a blur of hope and fear.
Out there walk monsters
of imagination. But here,
before you, you can love
this tiny arena of pretty soon
where with hands and heart
we may practice kinship.
--Kim Stafford
Perhaps, this world is broken
on fire, doomed to expire
but right this second, somewhere
someone has flowers in their hair
to bring the light, and someone
sits awake, all night
just to hold a hand, take a look
there are people running miles
in silly suits, to show their care
and yes this world is shattered
everywhere, but there is glue
and it is me and it is you
picking up pieces of each other
to get through.
--to all the people helping
--Donna Ashworth
When I say ‘happy new year’,
I’m not for a moment,
expecting this to occur,
for that is not possible,
a year must be all things.
Happiness must come and go,
like the tides and the winds,
just as sadness,
and all the emotions in between.
When I say ‘happy new year’,
I’m really wishing you,
a baseline of peace,
of gratitude.
Because if you can sit with these things,
for the most part,
happiness will thrive,
when it does arrive,
and sadness will know its place in the mix.
If you can nourish these things,
daily,
you will also grow hope,
for it flourishes in such soil.
And hope is the key,
to this enigmatic state
of ‘happiness’ we seek.
When I say ‘happy new year’,
I’m really wishing you more happy days,
than sad days,
more joy than misery,
more laughter than tears…
and the wisdom to accept,
that they all belong.
Happy new year, my friends.
—Donna Ashworth
[Sunset over the Sequatchie Valley in TN on New Year's Eve 2025].
―
Have I lived enough?
Have I loved enough?
Have I considered Right Action enough, have I come to any conclusions?
Have I experienced happiness with sufficient gratitude?
Have I endured loneliness with grace?
I say this, or perhaps I’m just thinking it.
Actually, I probably think too much.
Then I step out into the garden,
where the gardener, who is said to be a simple man,
is tending his children, the roses.
3.
The witchery of living
is my whole conversation
with you my darlings.
All I can tell you is what I know.
Look, and look again.
This world is not just a little thrill for the eyes.
It’s more than bones.
It’s more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.
It’s more than the beating of the single heart.
It’s praising.
It’s giving until the giving feels like receiving.
You have a life—just imagine that!
You have this day, and maybe another, and maybe still another.
7.
...And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.
I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.
I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,
I have become younger.
And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?
Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.
--Mary Oliver
Happiness gives you pleasure. Joy gives you meaning. Happiness makes you want more. Joy makes you give more. Happiness grows durin...
