Defiant joy isn’t happiness. It’s a posture.

It’s that inner light that says: despite the chaos, you don’t get the best of me.

I still choose radiance. I still choose to lift the room I’m in.

Viktor Frankl—Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist—wrote that even when everything is stripped away, we retain a final freedom: to choose our attitude. That’s the engine of defiant joy. Not denial. Choice. Agency. Sovereignty.

So as the headlines try to grind you down, remember: no one can command you to “be happy.”

Happiness is an outcome.

Defiant joy is a stance.

Camus called it revolt in the face of the absurd—the discipline of saying yes to life even when it makes no sense. Or as he framed it, we must imagine Sisyphus happy.

Move through your day lit from within.

Be defiantly joyful—so others see it, feel it, and remember their own light.

✨ QUESTION FOR YOUR DAY:

When, today, will you practice one tiny act of defiant joy—and what will it be?

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