When I was younger, the world felt full of joy. Everything had a sense of wonder — like there was magic around every corner, waiting to be discovered. I didn’t know it then, but those simple moments of happiness weren’t things I’d always feel. Over time, the excitement I had for life slowly started to slip away. It’s strange, really — how growing up does that to you. One day you’re laughing so hard that it hurts, and then all of a sudden, that same laughter feels distant, like it belongs to someone else.
I remember watching Inside Out as a kid and loving it. Joy was my favorite. She was so… radiant. The way she’d light up Riley’s life with her positivity, trying to keep all the bad stuff at bay, felt like the perfect metaphor for how I believed the world worked. I wanted to be like her — happy all the time, bright and bubbly, the kind of person who made everything better by just being around. But as time passed, I started to understand that life isn’t always about chasing joy. Sometimes, it’s about sitting with Sadness, even when you don’t want to.
Now, Inside Out 2 is on the horizon, and just like Riley, I’ve grown up too. When I heard about the new movie, it hit me differently than the first one. I’m not a kid anymore. Life has shown me some of its tougher sides — embarrassment, anxiety, envy. These emotions are harder to shake. They stick around longer than Joy ever did.
And yet, as I’ve matured, I’ve started to see the value in those feelings. It’s not about rejecting joy, but about realizing that happiness alone doesn’t define life. In fact, it’s the quieter, less shiny emotions that add richness to our lives. They shape us in ways we often don’t expect.
Take anxiety, for instance. It’s uncomfortable — makes your chest tight, your thoughts race. But sometimes, anxiety is the thing that pushes you to move forward, to make decisions you’ve been putting off. It forces you to confront what’s really important. Sadness, too, has its place. I used to think crying was a sign of weakness. Now, I know that shedding tears is one of the most human things we can do. It’s our body’s way of letting go, of healing.
There’s a line in the original Inside Out that always stuck with me: “Crying helps me slow down and obsess over the weight of life’s problems.” It’s funny because it’s true. Crying forces us to pause. It makes us look at what’s really going on inside, and sometimes, that’s the only way to move forward.
Growing up means realizing that you don’t have to be happy all the time. And that’s such a freeing thought. The pressure to constantly be joyful can weigh you down, and as I’ve learned, it’s okay to let go of that expectation. The reality is, you can’t outrun your emotions. They’ll catch up to you eventually, and when they do, it’s best to face them head-on.
We live in a world that glorifies success and joy — social media is flooded with people showing off their best moments. But the truth is, those moments don’t tell the full story. They don’t show the sleepless nights filled with anxiety, the days where nothing feels right, or the quiet moments of self-reflection. We rarely celebrate those emotions, but they’re just as important, if not more so.
I’ve started to embrace this idea, to accept that I’m a work in progress, that all my emotions — good and bad — are what make me, me. It’s not always easy, but it’s real. Life isn’t always going to be joyful, but that doesn’t mean it’s not beautiful. In fact, the beauty often lies in the complexity, in the messy, raw emotions that make us human.
So, here’s what I’ve come to understand: the joy we felt as kids doesn’t disappear; it just evolves. It becomes quieter, subtler, wrapped up in moments we don’t always recognize right away. It’s in the bittersweet memories, the hard-won lessons, the times when we realize that it’s okay not to have everything figured out.
Growing up is hard. But in that struggle, in those moments of doubt, anxiety, and sadness, we find something even more valuable than joy. We find resilience. We find strength. And in the end, that’s what makes life worth living.
Life isn’t just about chasing happiness — it’s about embracing every emotion, because each one teaches us something important about ourselves.