Happiness is probably one of the most sought after emotions to feel in our day-to-day lives. We all identify happiness with different aspects of life, and our definitions of happiness vary drastically from person to person. Our innate instincts are to partake in and create an environment where we can smile, laugh and enjoy ourselves. However, sometimes we get a little too caught up in what it is that makes us happy, and therein is the problem.

As a female in her early 20s, I can easily identify with this problem. I am guilty on all counts. For the past two years, my happiness was reliant on the presence of another being. I smiled when he called me mid-afternoon just to say hi. I frowned when he didn't. I was over the moon when we spent time together. I had anxiety if we were apart for too long. I based my feelings and emotions on his actions, or sometimes lack thereof. My happiness wasn't happiness. It was a figment of my imagination. I see this now, but at the time, I swore that I was truly satisfied with life, and with him, when things were good. When they were bad, that was a different story.

That story is over now, and I've come to learn quite a bit about myself since. I am in charge of my own happiness. Nobody else. He didn't make me happy. He made me feel happy. There's a difference. With happiness comes a sense of comfort. With him, I was comfortable. I assumed that because I didn't get jittery around him, or fail to make eye contact when we spoke, or that I could tell him my deepest and darkest secrets and he still swore he loved me, that it was enough to make me happy. I had no idea that I was the one to make me happy, not him.

I've since been spending my days doing things I enjoy. I've started to write again, for one. I treated myself to a fresh mani-pedi because I felt like it. I wake up now with a fierce desire to see the world around me in all of its glory, because for so long I didn't. I saw him. He was my world. Now, I've created my own, and no person or thing can take my happiness away from me.