The Joy Series: Joy Around the World – What Different Cultures Can Teach Us
Post 3 of the Joy Series
Joy is universal. Every culture on earth, across every century of human history, has pursued it, protected it, and built philosophies around it. And yet, the way different cultures define and experience joy varies in ways that are deeply revealing.
When I began researching this post, something struck me almost immediately. The cultures that align joy with peace, harmony, community, and simplicity seem to have found something that the achievement-driven Western model of happiness often misses. And as someone who spent over a decade fighting to reclaim her own joy, I found that deeply personal.
This is Post 3 of The Joy Series. Today we are going to travel the world together and look at what different cultures understand about joy. And I think by the end, you will see your own journey a little differently.
The Western Model: Joy Through Achievement
In Western cultures, particularly in the United States, joy is most commonly linked to personal achievement, excitement, and success. We celebrate the promotion, the milestone, the goal reached. We chase what researchers call “high arousal” positive emotions: elation, excitement, euphoria. We are taught from a young age that happiness is something you earn through effort, ambition, and accomplishment.
And there is nothing wrong with celebrating achievement. But here is what I have come to believe: that model describes happiness more than it describes joy.
Achievement is a flower. Beautiful, worth celebrating, worth working for. But it blooms and fades. The promotion becomes the new normal. The excitement fades. And then we are chasing the next thing, and the next, always looking ahead for the next moment that will make us feel alive.
That is not the garden. That is not joy.
The Eastern Model: Joy Through Peace and Harmony
In contrast, many East Asian cultures, including Japan, China, and Korea, associate joy with something much quieter. Peace. Serenity. Inner harmony. Connection to community and family. These cultures tend to value what researchers call “low arousal” positive states, the kind of deep, settled contentment that does not depend on what just happened or what is coming next.
Cultures influenced by Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism often embrace a philosophy where joy and sorrow are not opposites but partners. Life contains both, and wisdom lies in accepting that balance rather than frantically chasing one and fleeing the other.
I find this profoundly beautiful. And I find it profoundly true.
Because in my own experience, the joy I fought so hard to reclaim is not the loud, triumphant kind. It is quiet. It is the moment I look through a camera lens at a flower and feel completely present. It is the deep, settled sense that life is still an adventure worth living. It is peace, not performance.
The Eastern model, to me, is much closer to what I described in Post 2 as the garden. It is cultivated from within. It does not depend on circumstances. And it can coexist with sorrow in a way that high arousal excitement simply cannot.
Ubuntu: The African Philosophy of Joy Through Community
In Southern Africa, there is a philosophy that has guided communities for centuries. It is called Ubuntu, and it translates simply as “I am because we are.”
Ubuntu teaches that our humanity, our wellbeing, and our joy are inseparably tied to the people around us. It is not enough for me to flourish if my neighbor is suffering. True joy, in the Ubuntu tradition, is found in connection, in compassion, in the shared experience of being human together.
There is a story sometimes told about Ubuntu. An anthropologist placed a basket of fruit near a tree and told a group of children that whoever reached it first could have it all. Instead of racing each other, the children joined hands and ran together, arriving at the basket at the same time, laughing and sharing the fruit equally.
When asked why, they said simply: “Ubuntu. How can one of us be happy if all the others are sad?”
That story stops me every time. Because it describes something I believe deeply. Joy shared is joy multiplied. And isolation, one of the cruelest side effects of loss and divorce, is one of the most effective joy thieves there is.
Norway: Joy Is Found in the Simple and the Natural
My ancestors are from Norway, and I have to tell you, when I discovered these Norwegian philosophies, something in me felt like coming home.
The Norwegians have a concept called Friluftsliv (pronounced free-loofts-leev), a word coined by the playwright Henrik Ibsen in the 1850s. It translates as “open air life” and describes the Norwegian belief that nature is not separate from life. It is essential to it. Being outdoors, breathing fresh air, walking through a forest or along a coastline, these are not leisure activities in Norway. They are a philosophy of living. A way of restoring the soul.
Does that sound familiar? It should. Because it is exactly what I found in the garden with my camera.
The Norwegians also have a concept called Koselig (pronounced koo-sheh-lee), their version of the Danish concept of Hygge. It describes the feeling of warmth, coziness, and deep contentment found in simple everyday moments. A candle burning on a dark evening. A warm cup of coffee shared with someone you love. A quiet afternoon with a good book. Nothing dramatic. Nothing achieved. Just the profound pleasure of being present in a simple, beautiful moment.
This is joy as a way of life. Not a destination to reach but a practice to return to, again and again, in the small and the ordinary.
My Norwegian ancestors understood something that took me a decade of pain to learn.
The Joy Thief Nobody Talks About Enough
Across every culture I studied for this post, one thing consistently emerged as a threat to joy: comparison.
In the age of social media, we are bombarded every single day with carefully curated images of other people’s happiness. Their achievements, their relationships, their bodies, their lives. And every time we measure our own insides against someone else’s outside, we lose a little piece of our joy.
The research is clear on this. The active pursuit of happiness through comparison and competition actually decreases wellbeing. You cannot tend your own garden while you are constantly looking over the fence at someone else’s.
One of the most powerful things I have learned on my journey back to joy is this: accepting who you are, fully and without apology, is one of the most direct paths to lasting joy. Not who you were before the loss. Not who you think you should be by now. Who you are, right now, in this moment, with all your scars and all your beauty.
That is where joy lives.
What the World Is Telling Us
When I look at all of these cultural perspectives together, a clear picture emerges.
The cultures that seem to have the deepest relationship with joy are the ones that root it in something constant. Community. Nature. Simplicity. Presence. Inner peace. These are not things that can be taken away by a job loss, a divorce, or a devastating season of life. They are practices. They are ways of being. They are, as I said in Post 2, the garden rather than the flower.
The Western model is not wrong. Achievement and excitement are genuine sources of happiness and they deserve to be celebrated. But if we build our joy entirely on those foundations, we will find ourselves rebuilding constantly every time life knocks them down.
The deeper joy, the kind that sustains you through the darkness, is quieter than that. It is found in the people beside you, the beauty around you, the acceptance within you, and the simple, stubborn decision to keep tending your garden no matter the season.
Your Homework for Post 3
This week I want you to try one small practice from the cultures we explored today.
Step outside and take a slow, deliberate walk. No phone. No destination. Just you and the open air. The Norwegians call it Friluftsliv. I call it coming back to yourself.
Notice what you feel. Notice what you see. Notice whether something quiet and deep stirs inside you.
That stirring is your joy. Say hello to it.
Which of these cultural perspectives on joy resonates most with you? I would love to know in the comments below. And if you have Norwegian roots like me, I would especially love to hear from you.
God Bless You On Your Journey,
KathieyV
kathieyvwriter@gmail.com