"Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude." - Denis Waitley

I am happy seeing other people be happy. I gain happiness by seeing other people smile. I experience the most joy when I hear other people laugh.

And to be honest, I feel like I can not be the only person who feels this way.

I am always told by my friends "Just choose yourself for once." The issue with that piece of advice is...I can not follow it. People do not see it, but I have found my own happiness. Others just do not seem to understand me when I tell them how I experience happiness. I am happy when I see others be happy. I guess some can even say I feed off of other people's energy.

So, what exactly makes me happy?

Joking around, laughing and chilling with my best friends.

Working out with my best friend and just catching up on life.

Sending my baby cousin off to her senior prom.

Seeing my baby cousin graduate high school.

Forming new and lasting memories with my family members.

Being in my grandma's presence when she's watching her favorite novela. For those of you who don't speak Spanish, it's a soap opera.

Sitting in the living room with my dad after he's had a long day at work and he finally gets to relax.

Having conversation about my mom's day over the dinner table.

Reminiscing about my high school theatre days and the friends I made through theatre.

Sitting and having my weekly shopping and dinner dates with my boyfriend's mom.

The look on my student's faces when I finish a tutoring session and they finally understand what they have been struggling with.

The pure joy that comes over the face of the little boy I babysit when I let him jump in the pool.

Seeing the look of pure joy on all of my cousins' faces when they successfully perform at their piano recital.

Lastly, simply being in my boyfriend's arms is the epitome of happiness for me.

There are so many other things that make me happy, but these are to just name a few.

Being with people makes me so much more ecstatic than anyone could ever expect it would.

So, in the end I have chosen my own happiness. I just do it a different way than most other people would expect. I find my happiness every time I make someone else happy.

Why do I do this? Because I know what it is like to not have anyone help you when you're down. I want to be the person to help someone out of their lowest low. I want to be the person no one ever was to me before.

I can proudly say that I put other people before my own happiness. And I am not ashamed to feel this way, nor will I ever be.