You're going to meet people in your life who might not always have your best interest at heart. You might think they're your friend, you might think they're your family or that you love them, but sometimes you need to see them for exactly who they are - and sometimes you need to walk away.

Your happiness is the one thing in your life that no one has the right to take away. No one has the right to tell you, you don't deserve to be happy. No one had the right to decide to take that happiness away from you. And when someone tries to do that to you, you need to love yourself enough to walk away from that person. You need to stand up to them, for yourself, and you need them to know that you're not going to let them control you.

It's okay to get caught up in a friendship or a relationship and to love that person and want to make things work out - everyone goes through that. And although you should fight like hell to keep relationships that matter to you, when someone constantly puts you down and decides that your happiness isn't worth standing up for and it's worth as much as theirs, you need to cut that person out of your life. It can be incredibly hard because you have memories together and you have a love for each other, but there are times when you need to take a good, hard look in the mirror and decide to move on.

There will be people who will say one thing to your face, but say a completely different thing behind your back. They'll make it seem like they're your friend but then they'll start to tear you down, with or without you around. Sometimes they make you feel inadequate as a friend, sometimes they make you feel like you can never do enough, sometimes they act like your best friend but turn to others and say bad things behind your back. It's hard to cut these people out because you don't want to be the one left out. You don't want to lose your friends. You don't want to have to change your whole world because one person isn't being nice to you (as elementary as that sounds) and that's totally understandable, but you deserve SO much better.

You deserve people who will lift you up and who believe in you. You deserve people around you who are going to support you - with or without you around. You deserve nothing but happiness - so why are you letting someone take that away?

Don't. Stand up for yourself. Choose happiness and do not let anyone take it away from you. Look in the mirror and know that you're a good person who does their best every day, and you deserve happiness above anything else. Always remember that.