Striving towards Excellence

-Karthik Gurumurthy

Listen closely, for I wish to tell you about a visitor who comes to us all...

There exists a traveler known as Joy, who wanders the landscapes of our lives with curious timing and mysterious ways. This traveler doesn't announce its arrival with trumpets or fanfare—no, it comes silently, often when the path seems darkest.

Imagine yourself walking through the valleys of your life, where shadows have grown long and hope feels like a distant memory. You've searched for light until your lantern has nearly burned out. You've convinced yourself that goodness has abandoned you to this wilderness. It is precisely then—when you've almost surrendered to the darkness—that Joy makes its approach.

The old tales tell us that Joy is a master of surprise, appearing when we have ceased looking for it altogether. It slips quietly through the cracks of our despair, finding pathways we never knew existed. Even as we stand surrounded by reasons to believe we deserve nothing but the hollow emptiness we feel, Joy somehow finds us anyway.

The elders say that Joy requires just one thing from us: that we continue our journey. That we rise each morning, no matter how leaden our limbs or heavy our hearts. That we honor each emotion as it comes—the grief, the anger, the confusion—and learn whatever lessons they bring. That we follow whatever small callings still whisper to our souls, even when the whispers grow faint.

The most mysterious truth about Joy is this: it exists not as a destination we reach through striving, but as a companion that finds us when we finally turn inward. For in the ancient wisdom of the soul, Joy is not something external we capture like a butterfly, but something that emerges when we at last become fully ourselves.

And so, dear one, even in your darkest hour, know that Joy is searching for you. It moves toward you even now, especially when you least believe it possible. All you must do is continue showing up for your life—for in finding yourself, you create the very path Joy will use to find you.

This is the promise that has sustained seekers through the ages: that Joy, like a faithful friend, always knows exactly where to find us, especially when we ourselves feel utterly lost.