The excursion is the same when you go looking for your sorrow as

“The excursion is the same when you go looking for your sorrow as when you go looking for your joy.” — thus spoke Eudora Welty, the great chronicler of human hearts, whose words carry the stillness of the Southern earth and the eternal wisdom of life’s quiet cycles. In this line, she reveals a profound truth about the journey of the soul: that whether we seek happiness or sorrow, the path we walk is the same, for both lead us into the depths of our own being. What changes is not the road, but the heart that travels it. Joy and sorrow are not opposites but twin lights cast by the same flame — each revealing, in its own way, the truth of who we are.

To the ancients, this truth was the heartbeat of philosophy. They knew that the soul’s pilgrimage is not divided into separate paths for pleasure and pain, but that both are woven into one long road toward wisdom. The Stoics, like Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, taught that joy and sorrow are merely responses of the mind — reflections of our judgment, not of fate itself. Whether a man climbs the mountain to weep or to rejoice, he must climb just the same. In this way, Welty’s words carry the echo of ancient insight: the excursion of the human spirit, whether toward delight or despair, demands the same courage, the same vulnerability, the same willingness to confront life fully.

Welty, born and raised in Mississippi, was a keen observer of how ordinary lives carry extraordinary emotions. Her stories capture the beauty and ache of existence side by side — laughter in one breath, tears in the next. When she wrote these words, she was not merely speaking of travel or outward seeking, but of the inner journeys we all undertake. To look for joy is to open the heart; to look for sorrow is to do the same. In both, we uncover the truth of our capacity to feel deeply, to be human. Thus, the “excursion” is not a journey through the world, but a descent into the chambers of the self.

Consider the life of Helen Keller, who knew both the darkness of limitation and the radiance of discovery. When she was young, her world was a prison of silence. Yet when she learned to communicate — to touch words, to taste meaning — she discovered not only joy, but sorrow in its purest form: the awareness of all she had lost. And yet, for her, the journey toward sorrow and the journey toward joy were the same. Each required courage, patience, and faith in life’s hidden beauty. Her sorrow deepened her joy, and her joy gave meaning to her sorrow. The road was one — only the light upon it changed.

Welty’s insight also reveals the unity of human experience. In our modern age, people chase joy as if it lies on one side of life and flee from sorrow as if it lies on the other. Yet both are found in the same places — in love, in memory, in the passing of time. To love deeply is to invite both rapture and grief, for the heart that feels joy today will one day feel its loss. But if we fear sorrow and avoid the journey altogether, we lose the chance to know joy as well. The same path that leads to mourning also leads to meaning. The wise understand this and walk without fear, embracing both sun and storm as parts of the same sky.

In this, Eudora Welty joins the lineage of poets and philosophers who saw life as a circle, not a line. The excursion she describes is the pilgrimage of existence itself — a winding road through love, loss, laughter, and longing. To seek sorrow consciously is to acknowledge that pain has something to teach; to seek joy is to accept that life, even in its fragility, is worth living. And in the end, both searches lead us home — not to comfort or despair, but to understanding.

So, my child, take this lesson into your days: do not fear the journey, whether it leads you to tears or to laughter. Walk it bravely, for both sorrow and joy are teachers sent by the same hand. Do not waste your years chasing one and avoiding the other, for they are bound together like dawn and dusk. When sorrow visits you, bow your head and listen; when joy embraces you, lift your face to the sun. The road beneath your feet is the same — only the color of the sky changes. And when you have walked it long enough, you will understand, as Welty did, that both paths — the bright and the dark — lead to the same destination: a heart made whole by the fullness of living.