At the start of 2026, I decided that my word of the year would be joy. It seemed like a very straightforward thought at that time because 2025 somehow felt devoid of this emotion, and I simply wanted to turn things around. I belatedly realized that this stemmed from my burnout the year before, from a longstanding ache in my heart I’ve been trying to neglect, and from a deep-seated exhaustion doing life in survival mode.
I definitely don’t want to discount the fact that a lot had already changed and I was growing and healing, but I was also still trying so hard to be an adult. It’s like I’m in this never-ending cycle of push and pulls, highs and lows. I keep battling with my fear of uncertainty and need for control as I struggle to keep up with life’s nagging demands and expectations. I couldn’t get hold of my anxious thoughts, and I was always defensive and overthinking.
All of this propelled me for a hard reset, so I set my new year mantra in place and began my intentional pursuit of joy. I thought, yes, this must be the solution! I’m so tired! Being an adult is hard! Maybe if I learn to prioritize my joy, things will get better. Maybe if I can find more ways to be joyful, I’ll be able to manage all this discomfort.
It was honestly all very external at the beginning—play more tennis matches, reconsider my career path, or maybe practice a new morning routine while I’m at it. I thought that if I changed my lifestyle or circumstances, I would be more joyful.
Don’t get me wrong—all of this still helped and I found a special kind of fulfillment from challenging myself, finding a new job, and developing new habits. I genuinely acknowledge that I’m also coming from a place of privilege to even have the access and capacity to do these things. Yet, at the end of the day, it all still felt superficial somehow, like I was just manufacturing a sense of joy from everything that is within my realm of control. Truthfully, I still ended up with an unexplainable void in my heart that I couldn’t seem to brush off.
We’re now more than halfway into the year, and here’s what I realized—simply changing my environment will never bring forth joy when I still battle a storm inside of me that I try so hard to escape from.
I was again forced to ask myself some uncomfortable questions like “How’s my heart?”, “Is it truly well with my soul?”, “What have I been running away from again?”, and it was only when I took my time to sit with my rawest, unfiltered emotions did I get to a sliver of a breakthrough, as I always do. This whole time I’ve just been trying to avoid the distress and escape from all the difficult conversations I needed to have with the Lord and with myself.
This is surely not new information to me, and in my mind I already know what to do, but it never seems to get easier. The truth is, problems won’t go away. We live in a broken world and there will always be tough times, difficult relationships, and challenges that will surface all the heart issues we try so hard to run away from. We are all broken people, and we will always have to deal with uncomfortable emotions.
Nothing external can ever fill the void in our hearts no matter how hard we try. Maybe it’s only when we check in on our inner worlds and come face to face with our deepest discomforts can we ever find a liberating kind of joy. Only when we face a mirror of our triggered selves do we get to uncover who we really are—when our brokenness is magnified and we see things we don’t want to see.
It’s in these moments when we are also pushed to make a choice, to either give ourselves grace and compassion, or condemn ourselves further for the things we struggle with and can’t control.
Maybe real joy can only stem from within, no matter the season or circumstance. Real joy comes from letting go of control, and learning to be compassionate with our broken and flawed selves. Real joy comes from a place of acceptance, and not in trying to take control or “do the most”. It’s being kind and accepting of the current versions of ourselves, while also being patient and hopeful about who we are becoming.
I had to learn this the hard way lately, and I’m honestly still figuring it all out, but I’m seeing the light as I try to unpack and understand my underlying motives and hurts. To share a bit of my triggers lately, I’ve been finding it so hard to let go of my perfectionism and fear of judgement, especially in my tennis. I’ve been so invested in this sport, but it had somehow become a source of stress rather than joy leading up to a tournament I was preparing for.
My automatic response was to inflict so much pressure on myself to perform my absolute best so I can prove myself to the whole world and be perceived as a “good player”. My fear of losing and being judged overpowered me, and I was always feeling on edge preparing for my first match. Obviously, when you’re mentally stressed, your body naturally follows with your muscles also tensing up and your feet no longer moving the way you want them to. I was holding back on all my shots, getting injured faster, and even lost almost all of my practice matches.
To be very honest, I was on the brink of losing it. I struggled to figure out why I wasn’t performing well, and was becoming a ticking time bomb and liability to the people closest to me.
I knew I needed to do something differently—to stop hyper focusing on the external and to finally check in on my mind and heart. You already know by now that it was only then when I finally got past that dark season leading up to the tourney.
First of all, I realized that my underlying desire to prove myself to others was definitely one of the main reasons for my demise. I was bound to fall when I made other people’s validation more important than everything else. It brought more pressure than motivation because it was anchored on an illusion that other people care about how I perform and play my game. Honestly, I don’t think anyone genuinely cares. Also, yes, external pressure can force you to perform your best, but when it doesn’t work out, you fall even harder.
My fear of judgement got the best of me, and it snowballed into everything else including my need to get everything done perfectly. I was being so hard on myself for every error, and I noticed that my self-talk was also becoming more and more negative as we inched closer to the first match.
Tennis is a mental game after all, and I found that my mental battles have not just debilitated me from performing well, but have also stolen my joy. Honestly, it’s still the same struggle that I have been dealing with for the longest time, but just in a different font. I found that the Lord will surely use any season or circumstance in our lives to teach us valuable lessons—we just have to be attentive and respond in ways that will propel positive and lasting change.
All of this to say that I still come back to the same kind of pursuit. After all, I even named this blog “finding felicity” at the start of my journey towards healing and self-discovery. Seasons change, but I still come back to the same truth—that real joy is in acknowledging our brokenness and imperfection, while also being confident and secure in our God-given identities. We are all broken, unique, and beautiful in our own ways, and only when we learn to accept and carry all those parts of ourselves can we ever experience true joy.
For me, my joy is in Jesus. I found that while I’m here on earth, my heart will always long for eternity and an immeasurable joy that I can only really have when I come face to face with my Creator. But while I am here, I can still bask in the joy that God has given me as I enjoy what I have, do good, become a blessing to others, love unconditionally, and honor Him with my life.
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.
I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away.“
Ecclessiastes 3:11-15 (ESV Version)
finding felicity 
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