“Why me? What did I do to deserve this?” does not sound like an unfamiliar phrase to me.

You had already studied hard, sacrificed your time to go to the office hours and spent countless amount of studying for an exam. Then, when you got the result back and the exam’s score did not reflect the effort you put in, you feel like you want to give up. You start to wonder, what did I do wrong? Even your study buddy has a higher score than you, you feel even lower.

The same situation happens when you have given so much to a friendship or relationship, and the result is zero. Like the time when you asked your friend to hang out but they rejected you and said no. Or the time you tried to give all the love you have to a lover and take care of them as if they were beautiful flowers in a desert. You handle them with care, and yet they still want to break up with you.

Another time is when you initiate the first moves, asking them to go to the Knicks game with you and yet they had to decline. You shouldn’t be bitter about them rejecting you, instead, respect their choice.

It's life, sometimes you have to accept the bitter truth that nothing will ensure your happiness.

I learned to accept the situation as it is. People are responsible for their happiness. Prioritizing what they want and need should not be a problem.

It also goes the same for you. The time you compromise your happiness is the time you are forgetting your happiness. You are putting other’s happiness before yours. You forget that you are important too. You forget that you’re not a bad person for putting your happiness first. The time you gave your homework answers to the friend that “forgot” to do their assignment, you are giving what you think will make life easier for them even though deep down you know that it is not fair.

I do not mean you have to be selfish in your actions to increase joy. But, what I learned was that nobody owes you your happiness because they refuse to do what you want. When an occurrence didn’t happen as you may expect is not always about you.

You don’t have to be so hard on yourself.

I discovered this week that happiness come from within you. It is your responsibility to put yourself first. Remember that not everything bad that happens to your life says anything about your characteristics and your quality as a person. Accept the bad and move on. Nobody owes you anything, not even your family, friends, a lover or even this life. You might as well start building what makes you come alive in this world and tell yourself “chill, you got this.”