There is a survey-style Facebook status going around right now which involves rating your happiness based on a limited number of things that may or may not be included in your life. The idea of the post is to mark off which things are true in your life, add them all together, and find the percentage of how happy your life is. The higher the total, the happier your life must be. I was appalled when I saw this. I think this is one of the most ridiculous Facebook trends I have ever seen (apart from the “Don’t Judge Me” challenge). Some of the options that supposedly make your life happier include having a boyfriend/girlfriend, having more than two friends, having parents who are still married, having a computer or laptop, having a Facebook account, having more than 50 friends on Facebook, and never getting a failing grade in your life. There are many more questions you must answer but those are the ones that I found the most outrageous. You should never rate your happiness based on the number of friends you have or the number of things you have. There is no correlation between those things and your happiness. You could have all of the friends or things in the world and still be unhappy. You are the only thing holding yourself back from being happy.

I find it very strange when people think they can’t be happy because they don’t have certain things. You can be happy regardless of what you have. You don’t need to rely on other people or items to make yourself happy. You can make yourself happy by having the right attitude and not caring about things that shouldn’t matter as much as they do. If you want to be a happy person, rating your happiness will only take you further away from it. You shouldn’t be focusing on exactly how happy you are or how happy other people think you are because it is ineffective in the process of finding happiness. I understand that some people just go through a lot of bad situations in life, but there is a way to still be happy despite all of the misfortune. I know quite a few people who make the most of some pretty unfortunate situations and still find a way to be happy. It can be done. It may take a little bit of work, but it’s worth it in the end. You shouldn’t go through life always being miserable and never looking forward to anything. That’s not a healthy way of living. At some point you need to realize that you are in control of your happiness.

Don’t hold yourself back from being happy. Even if it feels like you may never be happy or don’t know how to be happy, you will find it eventually. Just keep trying. Find something that you really enjoy doing and keep doing it. Even if there’s only one thing that seems to make you happy, hold onto it. Use that to your advantage and find even more things that make you happy or just make you a better version of yourself. Those are the important things in life. Those are the things you should focus on. If you spend too much time comparing your life to others’ lives you will waste your life away. Don’t rate your happiness based on materialistic things or things that you just cannot control. Happiness is not something that can be rated. It is always changing and everyone’s happiness is different. Everyone finds enjoyment or pleasure from different things. So stop worrying what other people in your life are doing and just focus on yourself. You are the most important key in finding your happiness.