Elaborating on Joy

Gandhi believed that “all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.” True joy is not passive acceptance of suffering but an active force, expressed through service that assists those in need, resists injustice, and works to overcome oppression.

It coincides with empathy: standing alongside families stripped of Medicaid, unjustly terminated workers, neighbors crushed under unaffordable living, and immigrants terrorized by criminal enforcement. But empathy is not sufficient. Joy is a disciplined commitment to justice, a refusal to normalize cruelty, and a rejection of acceptance of despair.

A joyful life is to resist oppression at every turn, to speak truth to power, and to dismantle the systems that profit from fear and division. As a smarter Kennedy described, “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

A person in his forties does not possess many answers to life’s meaning. But helping others is a pretty good place to start. If we are the ocean contained in one drop, then serving others is really serving oneself.