In Disney Pixar's 2015 film Inside Out, each of our primary emotions is brought to life in the form of individual, quirky characters: Joy (pictured below), Sadness, Disgust, Fear, and Anger.
When the movie debuted, Vox Media published an article that included the chart below; the chart outlines all of the emotional overlaps that occur when any two of the emotions featured in the film are combined.
I'm not an expert in this field, and I don't know if the 30 feelings above capture the complete range of human emotion. But it looks like a fairly comprehensive list.
And do you know what struck me immediately when I first saw this chart?
Without Joy, life sucks.
That's not an earth-shattering insight; you probably already knew that.
But seeing it visually is powerful.
It's unlikely you'll ever be able to completely rid yourselves of Sadness, Disgust, Fear, or Anger. You might not even want to: intrigue and surprise are generally pleasant feelings, and even righteousness can come in handy sometimes.
Still, ensuring you always have joy around seems to be a good way to live, doesn't it?