All my life, it’s been an easy game to tell when I’m happy and when I’m not, but I never really knew why. Six months ago, I stepped into the pool for my first day on a one-year journey and made a fascinating discovery. This thing we call happiness actually comes in two forms: pleasure and joy.

Pleasure is dopamine. It comes quickly, peaks high, and then it’s gone. Pleasure is in a bowl of ice cream, the bottom of a bottle, and your first car. Like a drug, pleasure is also insular. You can only get your first car once. In order to receive the same level of gratification, you must increase the dosage. You buy a sports car, a fleet of sports cars, and then a Lear jet. Pleasure ultimately takes more than it gives, as shown by the exponentially higher cost of these things.

Joy is different. It doesn’t scream loudly to make itself known. It doesn’t reward you for seeking instant gratification. Joy is buried deep within life’s most uncomfortable, meandering, and challenging processes. For each of us, there are joys hidden in our relationships, our jobs, and our hobbies. The rewards of joy are real — and they never go away. Unfortunately, most people never unearth the joys in their lives because they don’t know how. That’s understandable, because it’s counter intuitive.

Joy contradicts the goals most people set for themselves. In their relationship, people wish to get married. In their job, they wish to advance. In their hobbies, they wish to excel. It only takes one day to recognize that you’ve achieved a goal, to get married, to get a promotion, or to give a performance in Carnegie Hall. Most people expect these end results to deliver joy, when in fact they deliver pleasure instead.

Joy is the decade before. Joy is digging deep into physical and emotional labor in pursuit of these goals. Joy is putting your head down and hustling hard for six months, taking a step back, and thinking to yourself “I’m a completely different person than I was six months ago. I’m better.” Joy is the visceral excitement you feel when you then realize you’ll be having this epiphany again six months later. And again, and again, and again, for the rest of your life.

What holds many people back from discovering joy is the first six months. It’s really hard to show up every day without an expectation of reward. It’s uncomfortable, uncertain, and scary. My first day in the pool was abysmal by any logical metric — one lap and I was exhausted. I had to rest for minutes before going again, and I did until the workout was done. Over time, I forgot the pain and embarrassment I felt that day. What I never forgot was the stupid grin I had on my face the whole time. I don’t know how, but in that moment I felt keenly aware that I was embarking on an endeavor that would develop into a passion, and joy would be guaranteed.

I’ve learned a lot in the past six months, not the least of which is that some things that really matter, like love, fulfillment, and joy, take time. You can’t rush it, and you can’t expect a reward every day or even every month. What you can do is dig deep. Show up every day. Move. If motion is your habit, those first six months will fly by. You’ll grow, experience the joy of metamorphosis, and crave more. No longer will you need to push yourself — you’ll be pulled. Motivation, the push and pull, is another fascinating phenomenon, and the subject for another day.