Have you ever heard the saying about how you’re either a leaf blowing in the wind or you’re the captain of your own ship?

Well, if you haven’t, this is what it means. The leaf blowing in the wind is deterministic. It means that you let the wind blow you in every which direction with no sense of personal agency. You allow the events and circumstances of your life to dictate how you feel and where you go. But the captain of his or her own ship is the idea of pragmatism. It means you have the choice and the power to direct where your life will go. You decide just how things will be.

It’s kind of like fate versus free will. Now, I do believe in fate for some matters; for some things are just too perfectly meant to be. But, when it comes to your one, precious life, you better kick it into high gear and take charge of it. There is no sense in sitting back and just letting things happen to you. That is the perfect recipe for watching your life pass you by. Do not, under any circumstances, sit in the passenger seat of your own life. Do not become a passerby within your own existence. Make sure you’re the one holding the pen in your unique story.

Because when you take control of what is rightfully yours, you will find that happiness is a choice. It is nothing more, nothing less, nothing different. I knew this fact a year or two ago, but I seem to have fallen out of that mindset somewhere along the way. I am indescribably thankful to one of the most important people in my life for reminding me that my happiness will not magically appear. I have to nurture it, love it, shape it. Happiness isn’t always easy, sometimes you have to work against whatever is happening around you in order to claim that sigh-of-relief calming peace.

I was told that if I let little things affect my happiness so quickly, I can guarantee that I will never be happy. I have to hold my chin up and turn my eyes to the sky, because once I learn to ignore the stupid things that I let affect my mood so easily, I will feel weightless. That’s how I imagine it feels to let go of what does not matter: weightless. Because, then, absolutely nothing will be holding me down. Nothing will be holding me back. Positivity is all light, all the time.

So I am ready. To stop breeding the unhappiness I feel. To stop feeding fears and insecurity. I am done with looking for a reason to complain, searching for ways to justify my negative feelings. I don’t want to look back and be sad at the way I wished time away, or the way in which I pushed people away. And I know that if I were to continue to live the way I am living right now, I would be very sad 5, 10, 15 years from now. There is only so much wishing for the future before you rob yourself of the happiness you could be experiencing now. And just as I was told: “No one will pay the price for it, but you.”

I am thankful for a life filled with blessings: family, friends, love, passion, success, and achievement. When I really get to the root of who I am and what my life has been thus far, I do not have a single reason not to feel jubilant all day, every day, for all of time.

So, if you find yourself in the same spot as me, join me. Join me in a full makeover of mindset that will alleviate a heavy sadness that has been self-imposed for no good reason. Release the dark, heavy aura and create a sunny, yellow one that shines as bright as you know it can. And realize that it is possible to have sunshine in your soul; in fact, you are the one who makes it all possible, because you are the captain of your own ship.