Although they may get confused, joy and pleasure are not identical.

Pleasure is triggered by something external—something we ate or saw or felt. Joy is something internal, not dependent on what’s happening in the world around us.

Pleasure is short-lived—the experience itself is transient—and soon we’ll be looking for something else to trigger it again. But joy, since it’s not dependent on the outside world, is something we can continue to experience.

Pleasure and joy are both good. But it’s joy that has the capacity to sustain us when the things that bring us pleasure are nowhere to be found.