The joy of others is the only thing that can truly bring you happiness. It can be simple as words or even a small act, but the smile that spreads across their face is one that you will never forget. This face is my mothers. She has always sacrificed for me, her time, money, and to be honest, patience. This made it very memorable when I had a opportunity to return the favor. I saw her outside the house through a window as she walked in from work. Frowning and sulking, I saw her shake herself up and put on a smile right before walking through the door. It hit me like a truck. The rest of the day I had become the nuturer and was making the meals, giving her massages, anything I could do to make her at home life easier. To this day, when I still go around doing household chores and I see her smile as she walks through the door, to a clean house, pure euphoria spreads through my body.

The grind. The hustle. What must be done. The first step to happiness. These are all things that I have associated with doing my work and getting things done that improve my situation in the future. Even though I believe there is so much more to this world. Those who don’t have a loving family or wonderful religion see the world as a mission. Go through school, get good grades, get a good job, and then, and only then will life actually start. I completely disagree with this statement though, because the day-to-day of life is what makes it truly beautiful. Although it is important to work your hardest and give everything you have to everything you’ve got, enjoying the small things is what is really important. The laughter of a sibling or hanging out with your closest buddies is what personally brings me internal happiness, and I think that happiness shouldn’t be an end goal in life, it should be your life through it all.

Confidence. Some say that they are born with it but that just isn’t true. Confidence is built through time and repetitive experiences where you feel proud or sure of yourself. I definitely didn’t have confidence when I came into this world, but it was my dad who gave it to me over time. It felt like any girl that was under the age of 25 my dad would dare me to talk to or ask for their number. Countless times I was dared to go up to a cheerleader and ask for a kiss on the cheek or sit down by a group of girls as if I knew them. This seemed exciting yet torturous at the time, but I came to have a strong sense of confidence when I started doing those dares. After years and years of my dad stopping a group of girls and saying “hey do you know my son?” and peer pressuring me into talking to them and getting their number, I now have an almost unwavering confidence. My dad taught me to jump into things I don’t know head first and learn while making mistakes. This confidence I have now attained is very useful and nice for all of my day-to-day actions. Talking to girls and knowing what they like is second nature, and doing dares my friends give me that would normally embarrass others don’t even make me flinch. I am thankful for this confidence and I am beyond grateful that my dad started growing it early.

As a guy, especially when you’re young all you want to do is become a man. The urge to have armpit hair and to have to shave is immense. Even though these things don’t matter at all and are actually kind of inconvenient, just fitting in and knowing that you are slowly turning into a man is a necessity at that age. One of the hardest things at the time was to see friends of mine progress faster than me or in other ways than I could, and it made me very jealous even though it wasn’t under my control. My dad would always tell me though, your time will come, your time will come, even though it didn’t help much. This problem was the worst in 7th grade when almost all of my friends had a growth spurt and were slightly taller than me. I felt so small and felt weak compared to them. Being a slow grower over time though, I eventually outgrew them and now I am a tower that looms over their petiteness. Only after this happened do I realize though that none of it truly matters, and that it doesn’t matter how a kid develops, as long as they develop as a person.

Optimism wasn’t always my strong suit, but now it’s what I live by. My best friend growing up always had a look on the world that was negative and scared of things. Everything and anything that could cause overthinking would be with him. I remember him saying that there’s so much that can go wrong and that it’s better to just not try at all, and these words left an impact on me. At first, they affected me in a bad way, making me just like him and seeing the world as a mistake waiting to happen. But then it started to slowly change me. I realized that overthinking isn’t going to get you anywhere and being happy all the time was way more fun. I saw these “fun” kinds of people at parties and there was one in my friend group, and I fell in love with that personality. Why not just have a good time with the life you’re given? I adopted this trait and my life has been far superior ever since. Waking up every morning excited to live through my life is truly a blessing and I adore how it positively affects others. Saying compliments and noticing small things that people change and commenting on them is really not that hard to do and it makes them way happier that someone notices all the little things they do. I love this personality and I know others do too. So why not?