Redefining Joy
From Another Point of View
I left Seattle on December 31st, 2025. Somewhere over the vast Pacific or Indian Ocean, the New Year arrived without fanfare.
Cabin lights were dim. Most people were asleep. I was liminally suspended. Between time zones. Between languages. Between cultures. Between years.
I was crossing the world with an intention written plainly in my journal and in my heart. My word for 2026 was joy.
Everything about January had been carefully designed around the intention for joy.
I knew my body was still recovering. But something compelled me onward. Back to Ayurveda. To yoga. To a blissful retreat at a 104-year-old ashram. Gentle healing by the sea. Kerala. Lonavala. A long-planned Nonviolent Communication training.
It was a return to India, with an intention of joy.
I believed I was more than ready.
In fact, I was not.
The flight made that clear. The discomfort I had been living with for months became undeniable. My hip and knee protested unyieldingly. Pain has a way of stripping away denial when there is nowhere to escape and nothing to distract.
Body & Mind Negotiation
In Mumbai, it became a constant negotiation between my mind and my body.
Mumbai has a way of pulling you in. The sea. The delectable smells of food. The relentless pulse of humanity. The chaos. It was all there. My mind wanted to experience everything. My body refused to cooperate.
I began to doubt whether going to the yoga and Ayurveda retreat even made sense. Still, I stubbornly held on. I mean, this pain is exactly why retreats and healing modalities exist after all, right?
Then, the MRI results arrived.
Unclear language. Clinical phrasing. Alarming words. I didn’t fully understand them, but I knew enough to feel uneasy.
I spoke to the doctor at the retreat center. His response was immediate and firm: Please don’t come. Go to a local hospital instead.
Just Like That, Everything Shifted
The carefully curated month of joy dissolved into hospital corridors, blood tests, scans, and countless waiting rooms. India, which had always been about family visits, shopping, shopping, and more shopping, food indulgences, personal wellness, and rich history, suddenly became something else entirely.
The joy I had carefully designed for myself was no longer accessible.
In Bangalore, I found myself surrounded, not by yoga teachers, but by doctors, specialists, surgeons, and therapists.
By people who cared for me. By experts who made time for me. By the two young massage therapists who worked with me tirelessly and attentively. Their laughter filled the room. Their compassion flowed naturally.
Joy was showing up.
Just not in the way I had designed.
From Another Point of View
One evening, I walked — slowly and with effort — to a café near the sea in Mumbai. I was alone. Around me, tables of young women laughed loudly and unapologetically. I watched them, feeling just a little sorry for myself, and remembered that being alone does not mean you can’t find joy.
That’s when a woman walked in wearing a bright, orange t-shirt. She sat beside me, waiting for a friend. The text on her shirt, written upside down, read: “From another point of view.”
We began talking. Ritika Bajaj is a storyteller and founder of Indian Storytellers Pvt. Limited. She’s a showrunner. A creative director. Curious. Present. She invited me to tell my own story. And to question the story I was telling myself. Our conversation and the phrase on her shirt have stayed with me.
It became a theme and a grounding thought for uncertain times.
Redefining Joy
I’d started the year with a very specific definition of joy.
Joy was travel.
Joy was learning.
Joy was spiritual immersion.
Joy was carefully curated healing experiences.
Joy was something I could design. It was something I could control.
But, January had other plans for me.
Instead, joy arrived in unexpected ways:
In Flight Attendants looking out for me.
In Care Coordinators intervening on my behalf.
In Doctors who took time to explain without rushing.
In Surgeons who confirmed without criticizing.
In Therapists whose laughter softened my fear and whose gentle manipulations helped me feel better.
In Hotel Staff who adjusted meals to meet my dietary restrictions without being asked.
In dear Family who have held me steady in their kind graces.
My intention for joy was not lost; instead, my definition of joy has expanded.
I’d confused joy with control and design. I had equated joy with execution and accomplishment.
I believed that if I aligned the right experiences, in the right order, in the right place, at the right time, that joy would follow.
But that’s not the way joy works.
Joy was not lost in the retreat I canceled.
It was found in the care that was conferred on me.
Joy was not found in pushing through the pain.
It was found in surrendering to it.
I am letting this unfolding experience continue to redefine my sense of joy, of health, and of wellness.
Are there ways you can think of to expand your definition of joy?