Enriching classes that broaden your mind. Social gatherings filled with loud music and dancing. Freedom of choice without the guidelines from parents. Staying up late and sleeping in through the morning. When you think about these aspects of college, it seems as though happiness would be effortless.

This week I ran a poll on my Twitter page asking my peers if they considered themselves happy. Only 31 percent of them said yes. This was a startling finding. Is our expectation of achieving happiness too high? Is the society we live in truly this degrading? Or are we just a bunch of babies?

In my opinion, it is none of these things. Our generation as a whole spends way too much time stressing and worrying about things we have no control of. We have no control over whether our crush is going to text us first, no control over if friends decide to come and go, and no control over your luck of class registrations. I have found that once you recognize that there are things in life you can’t control, you are able to better focus on things you can control. One of these things being your hard work.

You can control how hard you work in school or in your career. Putting time and effort into your schoolwork might sound boring at first, but in the long run it pays off more than you would think. Getting good grades after putting in hard work can be so rewarding. Once you put your time and effort into school, your success can bring you a lot of happiness. Everyone knows how great it feels to get an A, especially after how hard you worked to achieve it. This same idea goes for working hard in your career. Producing good work provides a sense of pride when you can present the work that you spent so much time on. Getting acknowledged for your hard work by your boss can be truly gratifying.

You can control how much hard work you put into your relationships. If there are people you want to become friends with, you have the power to put in the work to start the friendship. Reaching out to new friends can be scary, but the pay off could last a lifetime. However, this goes both ways. If a friendship isn’t what you want it to be, you have the power to put less work in. Don’t feel the need to put work into a friendship that doesn’t give you the satisfaction that you want.

You can control how much effort you put into your health. Making healthy meals and going to the gym throughout the week are decisions made up completely by you. By putting effort into a healthy body, you can also find results of a healthy mind. And, if your mind doesn’t feel healthy, you have the control to seek help from counselors or trusted friends and family.

Taking control of your life can be easy, it just takes the hard work. Once you stop worrying about things you can’t change and start worrying about those you can, the results of your hard work can truly be gratifying. Find happiness is places you didn’t know were there. Put in the hard work for a happy life.