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You don't need joy to give it
Acts of joy are things done to make joy possible for oneself or for others. They can make people feel connected or less alone, create a sense of meaning, or give people something to laugh about. One version is putting something beautiful into the world that might surprise someone. Another is sending a note to encourage somebody and let them know they are being thought of.
Neither requires feeling joyful or hopeful beforehand. Almost always the person who does it ends up receiving some of it too. The person who was encouraged is encouraged and responds in a way that feels good, or delight comes from imagining or seeing someone understand that you went out of your way to make their day better or give them something to laugh about.
Why do kindness acts boost the giver's mood?
Sonja Lyubomirsky, Kennon Sheldon, and David Schkade reported in 2005 that students who performed five acts of kindness on a single day each week for six weeks showed greater increases in happiness than students who did not. The acts included things like donating blood, helping a friend with schoolwork, and writing thank-you notes. The gain was larger when the acts were done on one day than when they were spread across the week. The researchers suggested that concentrating them made them more noticeable.
Why do people underestimate how much a note matters?
Amit Kumar and Nicholas Epley at the University of Chicago reported in 2018 in Psychological Science that people who wrote gratitude letters underestimated how surprised and happy recipients would feel. They also overestimated how awkward the recipients would find the letter. In the experiments, writers focused on how well the letter was composed, while recipients focused on the warmth of the gesture. Recipients rated their positive feelings higher than the writers had predicted.