Did you know there is a difference between joy and happiness?

Happiness is a temporary, external feeling and joy is an internal, long-term perspective.

I love Danielle Laporte’s article entitled The difference between happiness and joy. And why it helps to know.  She said  “Happiness is like rising bubbles — delightful and inevitably fleeting. Joy is the oxygen — ever present” and “When you see joy beside the agony, you have the keen vision of a Soul warrior.”

She concluded the article with “The simple joy of being alive. So cosmically basic it’s mind-blowing: the joy to be here, connected, animated, breathing, blessed, resilient, to be broken, to be open, to have what was, what’s left, what’s coming. The joy just to be part of reality.

Happiness. Love it when it comes.

Joy. It’s the love that lasts no matter what.”

What are you striving after? The rising, yet fleeting bubbles of happiness or the every present joy of a soul warrior?

Think it over a slice of Peanut Butter Banana “Elvis” Bread.

Description: Your appetite will be bursting at the banana peel with the smell of the PB³ (Peanut Butter Banana Bread) baking. Subtly sweet, moist and dulcet, this bread (which could also be considered a cake since there is no yeast) will have you cutting a second slice in a “Jiff” with the varied textures  of the oat/bacon topping. With it’s sweet and occasionally salty bite (when you get a highly sought after piece of the bacon), you can easily convince yourself this can be eaten for breakfast, lunch OR dinner.

Peanut Butter Banana “Elvis” Bread

Ingredients

Bread:
1 cup Whole Wheat Flour
1 cup White Flour
1/2 cup Sugar
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Baking Powder
1 tsp Cinnamon
Pinch Salt
4 Ripe Bananas, mashed
2 Eggs
1 cup Peanut Butter
1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Topping:
4 slices bacon
1 cup oats
3 tbsp. agave nectar (plus more for drizzling)

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Whisk together dry ingredients in medium bowl.
3. Mix wet ingredients in separate bowl.
4. Combine wet into dry and pour into greased Bundt pan.
5. Bake for 30 minutes. While baking, mix topping.
6. After 30 minutes, sprinkle topping on cake and bake additional 15 minutes.
7. Allow to cool. Drizzle with additional nectar and flip onto plate for serving.

“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.”

― Thích Nhất Hạnh

BuoybyB.

⚓

P.S. For those who didn’t get the Elvis reference.