For a while I didn’t know what happiness was. I thought happiness was long hair, perfect white teeth, tan legs, anything that would make me feel pretty. I based my happiness on my looks, which made me realize that I was never completely “happy.” I remember sitting in front of a mirror for hours trying to make sure I was perfect. Nothing I did could ever get me to that stage of "perfect" that I was striving for. No amount of makeup could cover up the way I was feeling. I was pretending to be something I wasn’t, and even though I thought I was OK, I didn’t realize that for a while that I was really hurting on the inside. I thought something was wrong with me because I couldn’t fit into society’s mold of perfection. In my head I was doing everything to make myself happy, but nothing was working. I was lost and needed to find myself.

I don’t really remember at what point in my life I noticed something was wrong with this mindset. But I wanted to make a change. So I decided to find my own happiness and hopefully find myself along the way. I threw everyone else’s opinions and comments out the window and thought about myself. I didn’t know what made me happy because for so many years I tried to be someone else’s view of perfect. From that point forward, I started searching for myself. Who am I? I had absolutely no clue. I wanted to make myself happy, but I still wasn’t sure what "happiness" was. I started by looking for things that made me smile, like puppies and french fries, and beach trips with friends. I surrounded myself with people that loved and supported me no matter what. Slowly, I started to put myself together and it was wonderful! For the first time in a long time, I felt genuinely happy. I’m still working on my own happiness and I think to this day I’m still trying to figure out who I am. I may not be finished finding myself, but I’m putting together pieces of my identity like a puzzle and learning to love myself.

I still don’t know how to define happiness because now I know that it’s different for everyone. But I know that happiness isn’t perfection. Happiness is finding yourself. Because how can someone be happy if they don’t even know what makes them happy? Today, I wear makeup because it makes me happy. I express myself through articles, writing, and blogging because it makes me happy. I surround myself with friends and family that make me happy. I stopped worrying about how everyone else saw me and it opened a whole new world of possibilities. If you get anything from this, I hope it is to create your own happiness. Don’t rely on your friends, your boyfriend, your family, or anyone else to create happiness for you. All they can do is contribute to it. You have to be the one that finds happiness within yourself and the things around you. Everything will only get better from there. Because a happy life is all we can hope for, right?