Where Joy Goes When We Share It

I stepped into the morning expecting little more than a quiet walk, yet the moment Caesar drifted toward the first patch of grass and Anubis followed with that steady, curious gait he adopts at dawn, something in the air widened. Their noses dipped toward the earth with a kind of reverence, as though each scent offered a subtle invitation, and I felt myself soften into the rhythm they already understood. Joy entered quietly, the way morning light gathers on the edges of things before anyone notices.

Their attention flowed naturally—not from leaf to soil to wind-shaped traces in a tidy sequence, but from whatever pulled their senses gently forward, the earth itself determining their curiosity. Watching them stirred a recognition I had nearly misplaced: joy often begins in the body before the mind gives it permission.

With the patient curiosity of a novice monk, Caesar lingered over a cool scatter of leaves while Anubis circled a single stalk of grass. Their devotion to noticing reshaped the moment, turning an ordinary walk into something contemplative.

Joy often begins in the body before the mind gives it permission.

Yet as the walk settled into this gentle ease, another truth pressed against it—one I resisted at first. Joy rises easily when the world cooperates, but what of the mornings when nothing offers itself freely? What of the days when attention feels heavy, when gratitude hides behind fatigue, when wonder refuses to appear on schedule?

That contradiction unsettled the simplicity of the moment. It reminded me that joy does not always arrive as a gift. Sometimes it demands a willingness to open anyway, to soften even when the world feels unyielding. That tension created a hinge.

I realized joy deepens not because conditions align, but because we choose to let small things matter even when we are tempted to overlook them. Caesar, still absorbed in his quiet investigation, had no concern for the state of the morning; Anubis, tracing a scent only he could decipher, had no interest in whether joy felt philosophically coherent. They didn’t negotiate with the day. They participated in it.

Joy’s strength lives not in circumstance but in connection.

This recognition shifted my thinking more than I expected. Perhaps joy is not fragile at all—perhaps it grows strongest when our mood gives it no help. And if that’s true, then the ease I felt this morning was not the source of joy but one expression of it, a reminder rather than a requirement.

What surprised me most was how naturally their wonder extended mine, how their undivided curiosity almost insisted I match it. Joy traveled between us—not as effort or performance but as a quiet invitation. It felt less like something I discovered and more like something I stepped into, already waiting in the shared space between our lives.

The thought settled then, without ceremony: joy goes where we share it, and returns fuller when we let it pass through us rather than hold it in reserve. It becomes steadier when offered, warmer when received, and more honest when unforced.

By the time we turned toward home, nothing dramatic had changed in the world, yet something spacious had opened in me. The dogs padded beside me—content, unhurried—and their simple companionship revealed again what I often struggle to remember: that joy’s strength lives not in circumstance but in connection, in moments where beings breathe the same air and find wonder in each other’s presence.

Joy goes where we share it, and returns fuller when we let it pass through us rather than hold it in reserve.

While we crossed the threshold back into the house, I carried the truth with an ease that felt earned: joy widens where we share it, deepens when we release it, and lives longest when we let it move beyond us.

Stay inspired and inspirational.

— Sifu Khonsura A. Wilson