September 18, 2017 is just one of many dates that I will never forget. That day I embarked on a journey that ultimately changed my life for the better. At the time I was having a ton of negative thoughts and was in dire need of something to uplift my spirits. After browsing through YouTube, I came across a TedX talk by Dmitry Golubnichy, who talked about the 100 days of happiness challenge. This video piqued my interest and made me wonder if it were possible for me to be happy for 100 days.

Day one of the challenge was probably the hardest, as it is for most people when they start something new. I was having trouble finding a package that I was supposed to receive the previous day. I received a notification that the item had been delivered. However, it wasn’t in my mail room. To make matters worse, the courier was also having trouble locating the package. What I thought would be a ten minute phone call turned into an hour long phone call. Nevertheless, I kept my cool and eventually received my package.

Prior to starting this challenge I worked at a Christian summer camp and it really opened my eyes to the power and beauty of God. Therefore, I wanted my 100 days of happiness challenge to consist of me building a better relationship with God. To do so I would start off each morning by a daily devotional. I consulted “Trusting God Day by Day: 365 Daily Devotionals” and “The Confident Woman Devotional: 365 Daily Inspirations” by Joyce Meyer.

As soon as I began reading these devotionals, I felt as if Meyer knew my life like the back of her hand. Every day I completely understood why I read a certain devotional. It was as if Meyer was God and she knew what I needed to hear in order for me to have a positive and productive day. When I was consistently reading these devotionals, I found it easier to block out negativity.

Initially when I started this challenge I thought I had to pretend to be happy for 100 days. I thought I needed to force myself to smile and find something to be happy about. However, when other obstacles came along the way while doing this challenge, I realized that pretending to be happy was counterintuitive to reaching my ultimate goal of being at peace. By the end of this challenge I learned that in order to truly be happy, one has to understand that stress and anger are both emotions that one is bound to experience. However, it’s our job to ensure that when we are stressed and angry we look at is as a hurdle for us to leap over.