"Joy Is!!"

According to  that quote from President David O. McKay, "Pleasure is not the purpose of life. . . Joy is!!" But what is joy? How should we define it? And what does this mean in the context of the oft-quoted statement from Joseph Smith, stating that "Happiness is the object and design of our existence"?

I would guess that joy is a more specific, more permanent form of happiness. Happiness can be fleeting and elusive, but joy tends to endure. In contrast, fun and pleasure create a temporary sensation of happiness. Those who go through their lives seeking pleasures try to keep that temporary happiness going as long as possible, but it makes more sense to spend one's efforts creating a lasting feeling of joy.

God wants us to be happy, both now and in the eternities. Because He has an eternal perspective, He encourages us to do things that will contribute to our eternal happiness, our joy, even when they don't contribute to our happiness now. God's commandments are designed for our eternal happiness, not for temporary pleasure.

People who disregard God's commandments and seek pleasures instead sometimes seem to be happier than those who try to keep the commandments, and it's possible that they are happier - for now. Because they're focussed on maximizing their current happiness, they sometimes succeed in doing so. They enjoy many more pleasures than righteous people do, and they seem to have more fun. But though they experience high concentrations of short-term happiness, the total amount of happiness they experience will be much smaller than that of those who keep the commandments.

The reason sinners have less total happiness than righteous people is because the happiness sinners experience doesn't last, whereas the happiness of the righteous lasts forever. Multiplying a great deal of happiness by a short amount of time will get you a certain amount of total happiness, but multiplying a lesser amount of happiness by an infinite amount of time will give you an infinite amount of happiness, and that it what God wants for us.

The purpose of life is to get the greatest possible amount of happiness. If we're only considering this mortal experience, then it might seem that the best way to get the greatest amount of happiness would be to do whatever we want - to have fun and seek pleasures. But when we consider that this life isn't all that there is, and that our eternal happiness depends on our temporal choices, then it becomes clear that the best way to maximize our happiness is to invest in our eternal future. Pleasure-seekers get more happiness in the moment, but God-seekers gain more happiness overall. That's why pleasure isn't the purpose of life, but joy is.