Many of those who know me know that all around I am a generally happy person. I usually have a smile on my face and I am telling jokes. I am 100 percent an optimist and I take great pride in being that bit of sunshine in someone's life! But many people wonder how and why I smile since the world seems to be such an ugly place and bad things happen to everyone. Well I feel as though it is more important to look at the good in the world and the things you can be thankful for! I completely understand when bad things happen you cannot just automatically be over it and happy again you need time! I am not someone who is like that either, I hurt when I fall and it takes me a little while to be happy again but I will never forever be sad because I have so many blessings. From little things to huge life changing events happy or sad I do take the time I personally need to process. I know that processing time varies from person to person and how you process again is personal.

For me trying to see the good in all things is how I cope and how I remind myself to be happy! When bad things happen, such as my friend's passing, I am still able to smile and my whole apartment was able to smile when we talked about the amazing memories we had with her! I am forever saddened by this event, but luckily I have other things in life that take over my thinking space. When I do think about it, I try to focus on the good since I can at least somewhat smile even though I am sad there will be no more memories to make. I know that just from meeting her my life will be forever changed, and I smile because I had this opportunity to find out more about myself and meet an amazing person!

More recently on my trip, I am still in Ecuador, I was pickpocketed. My phone rested in my jacket pocket until all of the sudden it was gone. I was a fool for the placement of my phone and not being as cautious as I usually am; either way, it was gone. I was walking with friends, and of course I was upset. For one thing my phone was gone, and for another I was stupid to have it so easily accessible. Thankfully I could contact my mom at home using my laptop, and my friend who is in the same host house with me brought her old phone with her since she just switched days before our trip. I was also happy to have already had all my photos on my laptop from my phone so really nothing except a material object was lost.

These are bad things that have occurred in my life that would make anyone upset, but here I am still smiling. You want to know why I still smile? First of all, my family is a main reason I smile. They are constantly making me laugh and filling my life with so much love! There are so many inside jokes within my family, that when I try to share them with friends it just ends badly. But that leads me to the second thing that makes me smile, my friends! If I can no longer stand my family, they are who I go to; some friends are now a part of my family! The blessings I have had in my life, like being able to go to school and have this amazing trip to Ecuador to study abroad, is another thing I smile about! Although school makes me exhausted and the work is difficult, I love it and I have made so many happy memories. Those memories will always be a part of me, and I smile for that! But in the end, life itself just makes me smile. The beauty that can be found in all things, makes me smile!