The word glad used to refer to something of exceptionally pleasant quality, even to the point of shining in the joy it provoked. These days, however, the emotional concept of feeling glad is much more subdued.
When people today say they’re glad about something, it’s a way to express a positive reaction without going overboard. To be glad is never exuberant or flashy. It’s a warm reaction, but never torrid. Glad people approve, and are grateful, but there’s no risk of losing balance in the emotion. It’s an even-keeled feeling.
People with low emotional granularity might use glad as a synonym for happy, but those with a well-developed emotional vocabulary understand that the two feelings are not quite the same thing. First of all, happiness is a more energetic feeling than gladness. Happiness can lead people to go out on a limb, but gladness never goes anywhere near that far.
To be glad is to declare a positive conclusion to a matter. Something’s happened, and we’re glad about it, and that’s the end of it. Happiness is, by contrast, an endless pursuit. Being happy can lead us to hunger for more happiness.
More fundamentally, to be glad is a reactive emotion. People are glad that something in particular has happened. Happiness, on the other hand, can sometimes arise without us understanding what its cause has been.
It’s often asserted that some people are happier by nature than others, as if being happy is a character trait. Because the feeling of gladness is always in reaction to what’s happening in the outside world, it couldn’t possibly be an inherent trait. We can call someone a “happy person”, but we would never describe someone as a “glad person”.
We hope that happiness pervades. Being glad is only of the moment.
