Joy, for Nasreddin, was not the destination but the weather — the atmosphere inside which everything else happened. He did not pursue it; he cultivated the conditions for it: curiosity, honesty, community, the willingness to be wrong, and a donkey that was usually somewhere nearby. A joyful life is not a life free of difficulty; it is a life in which difficulty has not been given the final word.
Each step builds on the last.