I've seen this so many times and I never understand how you guys get to this conclusion. The initial conflict is that Joy needs her mother to see and love her in a way that she can feel. Joy has been traumatized and after seeing the reality of the misery of the worlds, have lost hope that human existence is worthy of her living in it. She still searches for an Evelyn among the worlds, one that can see and love her even though it's irrational based on her worldview because humans are irrational creatures and love is an irrational emotion. At the end, Evelyn acknowledges that nothing makes sense and the good moments are fleeting and not guaranteed, but stay around anyway because I'm choosing to stay for you.

Yes, Waymond is an influence in getting Evelyn to understand differing perspectives and that there are other ways of surviving than hers, but taking his approach she almost lets Joy go because that's what she asked her to do That's not where they end up though, and that's not presented as the "right" answer. At the end, she comes back, does explicitly the opposite of what Joy told her to do, tells Joy she's also been a bit of an ass, and pushes in the way that Evelyn has always done, but this time with a better pespective behind it.

This has always been a movie about the complicated relationship between immigrant mother and her daughter and the world they exist in, but for some reason, so many analysis of the movie comes back to Waymond has the answer, Waymond is right, they just needed to listen to Waymond. Well Waymond has been around in the family for the whole fucking time hasn't he??? But Waymond doesn't seem to have been able to address Joy's issues at all?? That doesn't mean he's wrong or responsible, but it does mean that I side eye all the people who wants to valorise Waymond while dismissing all of the rich dynamic and love and resentment and misunderstandings and story between Evelyn and Joy