# The Guest House of Joy

We do not seek joy; rather, joy seeks us out.

How so?

To receive joy, you must first prepare yourself. I have watched many—people with great success, great happiness, lives seemingly perfect—chase after joy like madmen, as if it were still beyond their reach.

You need not roll out a red carpet to welcome joy. You need only tend your heart.

Joy lives in a cup of tea, in the curl of coffee smoke, in the slant of sunlight through the leaves of a tree, in a strip of veranda, in sunrise or in sunset—if you know how to hold it.

Joy arrives and, because we fail to grasp it, it slips away. This happens all the time. Joy is that kind of guest—to make a place for it, you must keep the rooms of your mind in order.

Order does not mean keeping the outside polished and neat. It means preparing what is within. Those who are plain to look at, whose pockets are empty—joy finds its way into their homes too, if they have the heart to receive it and the eyes to see it.

Even in the most fragile of lives, joy can come. Even in a mind shattered by storm, joy's wave can rise again—if you give joy a place to sit.

Joy needs only the smallest thing, when the door that receives joy is made wide.

Joy comes without invitation, without festivity. Joy comes to those who think less and feel more. Too much thinking only brings more tears. Much thinking brings little gain.