This morning I woke up, as I usually do, which is all any of us can really ask for each day. As I walked down the stairs to greet the day, I encountered my mother, who looked surprised at the sight of me. "What?" I questioned, perplexed at her expression. "Nothing," she replied, "you just look...happy. I haven't seen you like that in a while."

The secret is that I'm not. My life has been a bit topsy-turvy in a lot of devastating and confusing ways the past few months, the details of which are less important to share than the impact. I have not been purely, truly happy for quite some time and the reason has finally occurred to me: I have been obsessed with the opinions and instructions of others and have effectively lost my way on my own path by following other people's road signs.

This week it finally hit me. I began to do things that I had been specifically instructed not to do. I began to break the rules of others, and even some of my own; nothing dangerous, just minor things. And I began to realize something else: nothing terrible happened. I began to feel a feeling that had been foreign to me for months: calm. I felt content. I felt as close to happiness as I feel it is possible for me to be lately. I just learned to let go and free-fall. And boy, was it freeing.

I have become entirely in love with loving myself. Even if I am not always sure my actions are the right ones, or even always the smart ones, I am empowered by the fact that they are mine, and that I came across them of my own volition. I finally realized that the only person I had to please was myself. Once I had that revelation, all kinds of doors opened to me. I began to feel in control again in a life that had left me spinning lately.

I am not an overly religious individual, but I do have faith, and occasionally I have a little chat with God. It's usually when I want something, or feel at a loss for what else to do, which I realize is not the best way to have that relationship, but it works for us, so the opinions of others on that matter are not really relevant. I realized that over the past few months, I had been asking him in our chats to send me a specific sign or push my life forcefully in one way or another to give it some direction. This had not been working in the way that I thought it should and so I was becoming frustrated at my lack of a "holy two-by-four moment," which is a phrase my father uses to describe those moments where God knocks you over the head with a sign to guide you in the correct direction, effectively pulling you out of being lost in your own thoughts and way and showing you the path he intended.

Lately, however, I have not been requesting the two-by-four. Instead, in my new state of free-fall, I have simply asked for general happiness. I feel as though I have been travelling through a forest with no clear path, just wandering through the underbrush and among the tall trees around me. This is what I have decided to keep doing, just enjoying the walk until some symbolic, metaphoric wind comes along to change my path. But until then, I'm done looking for it. The best things in my life have happened when I'm not looking for them. So that is what I choose: if not to be happy, then to be content, because I am tired of the stress. And perhaps this will be the perfect state to find happiness in again after all, when I'm not even looking for it. It will be like the greatest surprise ever, and in the meantime, I shall enjoy the wait.