There has always been a phrase that has sort of rubbed me the wrong way and really made me think.

It is: "choose happiness".

It's a conspicuously common phrase and don't get me wrong -- I still find myself saying it and even buying candles and signs with those two little words plastered on them, but I’ve never fully agreed.

Yes, I get the basis of it and can definitely respect it; but then again, it's also one of the most overrated things that my eyes could ever read, my ears could ever hear.

Stick with me, now.

The words are hopeful. They are lovely and wondrous and optimistic. However, they just do not make much sense.

Saying to “choose happiness,” is about as logical as trying to force a horse to drink water or a donkey to move it's stubborn body. You can’t simply choose an emotion -- you just can’t.

Although -- you can most definitely choose to fight for it.

You can choose to fight for freedom from your burdens, to fight for joy and serenity.

You can fight for an elegant life, no matter how messy it is in reality.

And you can fight for happiness.

You can’t choose it, just like many things in life don’t choose you.

You have to work for pretty much anything and everything that’s worth it. Otherwise, would you really be achieving what you were fighting for?

Fighting and working for something is the journey of it all after all, and the journey is what's gonna get you there!

It’s the beauty and the grace in a chaotic, inconsistent world.

A beautiful world.

A beautiful world filled with mental illness, physical strain, challenge, tragedy and circumstance.

There will always be ugly around you, but there will also be beauty - happiness - and you wouldn’t be able to see nor appreciate that without the ugly -- without the scars of the fight.

Emotions are not just a simple switch in the mind that you can turn on and off and choose from.

They’re complex and intricate.

They’re confusing, often consuming and unmerciful.

You can’t control them like that -- no one has that much control over the maze that is the human mind with one choice: the choice to choose happiness.

They don’t have the power to choose because the choice isn’t even an option.

That would be too easy, and an easy life isn’t a beautiful life because remember that without challenge, you cannot appreciate beauty.

Without a fight, there is no satisfaction -- there is no truth behind the feeling.

Once the feeling comes, it most definitely may make you full of ease and lightness and make you feel like life is actually easy, but that comes from the work in getting there.

You cannot “choose happiness”, but you can fight for it.