Over the weekend my roommate and I went to two different bookstores because she had a gift card that she wanted to use. I tagged along because I love running my hand along the spines of the books and seeing which ones draw my eye. I'm notorious for buying nothing or taking an hour to find that one perfect book. My roommate, on the other hand, came with a list in tow. The first store, Half-Priced Books, only had two books from her very long list. Barnes and Noble had the rest. By the end of the night she wound up with a whopping nine books in the back seat of her car, and only one of them was mine.

In the moment I was firmly on the this is ridiculous who needs to buy nine books at once side, but now I find myself taking another side the you go girl do whatever you want side. I think that if she wanted all those books and they make her happy why not buy them? She's going to read all of them no doubt. In fact, she'll probably be done with them before the semester is through.

I'm glad she bought all nine books and didn't put them away when I stared at them for a good minute. Granted she was going to buy twelve and my look made her put back three of them, but she still bought way more than I thought was socially acceptable.

When I was brainstorming for ideas of what to write on she jokingly suggested I write about her buying a bunch of books and I laughed it off. But then I thought about it and realized she'd given me a great idea.

My roommate had done what made her happy even though no one else seemed to understand it.

When you think about it that's a very brave thing to do. We don't tend to do things that make us happy but others uncomfortable. A lot of times we do things to make other people happy even if it means we aren't. Why should we live our lives pleasing others if we aren't going to enjoy one minute of it? We shouldn't.

We shouldn't be afraid to do what makes us happy even if it makes us stick out from the crowd. So buy nine books you can't wait to read. Sing along to your favorite song. Explain that mathematical concept to your heart's content. Watch that TV show that is for little kids but you secretly love. Do what makes you happy because it's much better to be happy doing the things you love that others don't understand than to be unhappy doing what they do understand.