joy

The word joy refers to the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune, and is typically associated with feelings of intense, long-lasting happiness. Dictionary definitions of joy typically include a sensed emotion in reaction to an external happening, such as a physical sensation experienced or receiving good news. Distinction vs. similar states saw a clear distinction between joy, pleasure, and happiness: "I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for Joy," and "I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and Pleasure. Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again... I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power and Pleasure often is." Michela Summa says that the distinction between joy and happiness is that "Joy accompanies the process through and through, whereas happiness seems to be more strictly tied to the moment of achievement of the process... joy is not only a direct emotional response to an event that is embedded in our life-concerns but is also tightly bound to the present moment, whereas happiness presupposes an evaluative stance concerning one period of one's life or one's own life as a whole."