Choosing Joy: Navigating Life with Purpose and Passion

Life isn't easy. There isn't a cheat sheet or instructions to tell you how to sail through life smoothly. Although life has its ups and downs, there are experiences that will keep you afloat. I believe happiness is a choice and anyone has the ability to create lasting happiness for themselves. There was a time in my life when things were grimm. As nice as it would have been to have my very own "easy button" from Staples, I learned that people and my environment can make life worthwhile.

Since I was young, it was difficult to make friends. I was moving constantly and slowly all my best friends turned into faded memories in the back of my head. About a year ago I didn't have any dreams. Nothing I did made me feel happy. I lost myself. I was not sure what I wanted to pursue a career in. Like any other parent, my dad wished for me to have the brightest future I could get.

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This was something my dad always brought up. It stressed me out, and I was losing aspirations left and right. Six years ago I made my first real, kind, and loyal best friend. Her name was Casi. Every day I looked forward to elementary school but then came the time when junior high was finally over and we had to move onto bigger and scarier things, like high school. If there was a word to describe high school, it would be "bitter". I never failed to recognize toxicity in my relationships.

Selfish and untrustworthy people did me more harm than good by just being around. Friends come and go. It is a bittersweet reality. In actuality, Casi and I weren't great friends in elementary school. We had a lot of issues with one another because of one bleak person. I came home to my dad expressing how I felt and he said something I'll never forget.

He told me? Cutting people out of your life does not mean you hate them. Not everyone is meant to stay.

I simply nodded my head and said, I will always have one person I can count on...Casi.?

Although, we didn't start off on the best of terms we're still best friends to this day and I will never forget the happiness she gave me. I can't thank her enough.

Throughout the years I have found out that happiness is not a goal that can be attained through materialistic things. Instead finding a dream, a purpose, or a hobby, is a great starting point to the road of happiness. If there is something to look forward to, then it's something worth leaving the past behind for. So I created a new goal for myself, to enter High School and make the next four years of my life worthwhile. Besides a purpose in life, I found new interests like music and photography. I've strengthened my passion for art as well. Passion is the drive to create no matter the outcome. Passion is studying birds for so long you forget to use the restroom. Passion is the joy that radiates from creating things. My passion is art. It has been a positive influence in my life ever since I can remember. It is a great way to express my emotions and feelings.

Happiness comes in all shapes and sizes. Mine came in the shape of family, friends, golf, dogs, music, and art. I found new friends who are positive, loyal, and kind. Having a place in life really makes an individual feel special and I think I've found mine. What I'm trying to say is, "Happiness is like a random package delivery, it might take some of them longer to get to you, but it will come. There will be bumps in the road; obstacles that will try to ruin my day, but if there are others who have it way worse than I do and can shake it off with a smile, then I can too." -Shay Carl Life shouldn't be tolerated. In fact, life is like an amusement park. We come across rides that at first look daunting and make us feel sick but once we get to the top and look around we find out that the ride is even better than we could have imagined.

In the words of Dory from Finding Nemo, "Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming swimming. What do we do? We swim, swim, swim."