Two weeks ago, I wrote about what it was like to miss my home in the North Georgia Mountains. I talked about all of the memories and crazy adventures I had with all of my friends from high school. As I wrote the article, all I could think about was going home and how much better it would be if I was at home. As most of you know, Hurricane Matthew hit last week and temporarily closed Armstrong State University, the college I attend. They evacuated Savannah, GA along with many schools down here. This sent me packing with some clothes and the bare necessities for a few days at home.

When I got home, I was ecstatic to be there. Being able to see my family and friends was the highlight of the whole trip. We, myself and one of my friends from college, arrived at my home in Young Harris, GA on Wednesday. I was able to be home for my birthday, which meant spending that day with the people who mean the most to me. I was thankful to have that opportunity and I dreaded knowing I was going to have to come home that Sunday and start school on Monday. Then we received some calls and emails telling us that our school had been affected by the hurricane and that they would update us when we could come home. I was happy to have a few more days home. Then a few days turned into a week and I had started to worry that my little college had blown away. I began to miss my tiny dorm room, my routine that I had fallen into, and all of the friends I had made here.

So as I was finally home, where I had longed to be for quite some time, and I realized that I was now longing to be somewhere else. I thought about how I wanted to be “home” but when I was, I felt like I wanted to be at my other “home” in Savannah. Which led me to the real reason for this article, we always want we can’t have, we always want to be where we can’t go, and we always think everything in life would be better if we could just do that one thing we can’t do. To be happy and content in life is a choice. You wake up, and you make a conscious decision to be happy. You put in effort into that happiness. You don’t focus on everything that could or did go wrong, and instead you focus on the things that went right. You focus on how your life is a blessing and how thankful you are to have it. You focus on how loved you are. You focus on you, because you are important and deserve to be happy and content.

The overall point and advice I hope to convey in this article is, choose happiness. Choose to be content in your life, yourself, and your current situation. You may be at the worst point in your life, but be happy that through prayer, trusting God, and putting your faith in God, your life can improve. Be happy and be grateful if your life is on track and going great right now! Choose to be happy over the small things in life. In every single day, there will be something you can choose to be thankful for. Whether it be that your coffee was super good that day or that your hair and makeup was just super on point. Take the small things, and make them the important things.

Be happy, be content, be thankful, and be present. Live in the moment. Laugh at the chaos and find a way through it. Don’t let that “what if” or that wishing you could be somewhere else get you down. Make the best of life with what you have right now in the present! Be the best you that you can be!