I recently started surrounding myself with more positive people. I didn’t realize how much negativity I had in my life until now, and how much it could truly impact your mood. The people you surround yourself with is who you become, and if I haven’t learned that in the last year, then I don’t know what I’ve learned.

1. Being ignored when you genuinely need a friend isn’t something that happens.

Being in college, everyone has a little mental breakdown every once in awhile (and its okay), when you’re just stressed and need to cry to someone, the friends that care will go on a drive with you at 3am if you need it. Realizing I have friends that are willing to do this for me (and I’m willing to do the same for them) is a true comfort.

2. You don’t eat by yourself every dinner when you have good friends.

Eating by yourself in the dining hall every once in awhile is fine, sometimes you need alone time. But if every night you're struggling to get a response from someone who will spend 30 minutes with you just to eat? That’s not okay, I refuse to let myself let that be the norm.

3. True friends will drop everything, just for you to know that there are people who care about you.

I can't express this enough! I didn’t know this was a thing until I started associating myself with different people! I kept to myself, I didn’t want anyone to know. But they're your friends. They're your friends for a reason, and if they make you feel bad for telling them how you really feel about something or continuously turn your bad situation on how bad their life is, they aren’t the right person to be talking to. Sometimes you need your 15 minutes to say everything that's wrong to someone who will listen.

4. They have your best interest in mind.

Everything is not a competition with your friends! At least it shouldn’t be! For example, if I made the hockey team and they didn’t, they would still be happy for me! We all have different experiences in life, and they're willing to help me through things, instead of letting me figuring them out on my own. My guy friends started teaching me how to play video games like Rocket League and GTA, and what they told me was “We’re gonna get you good at these games so you can impress the shit out of boys.” They want me to be happy, and I couldn’t ask for a better blessing.

5. Nothing you do or say could change how much they care about you.

We can be sitting together doing nothing and someone lets out a “church house creeper” or silently crop dust us all, and we will laugh until our stomachs hurt. We’ll share our embarrassing date night stories, and jokingly make fun of each other for being a human furnace and not being able to control the whale sounds our stomachs makes. We love each other's imperfections.

6. Sitting around doing nothing is suddenly fun.

Sitting around doing nothing, watching a movie or playing video games, is something that isn’t as boring anymore. Half the time the "doing nothing" turns into something. When you surround yourselves with creative minds, nothing is boring. You can find yourself in the hallway playing floor hockey, midnight walks in the woods looking at the stars, getting the "let's go on an adventure texts" or late night Taco Bell runs because it always sounds good.

Being around people who love their own life rubs off on you, and suddenly you see why they're always so happy. No one ever talks about other people behind their back, there’s nothing to complain about, and if one person is having a bad day we’re all there for them.

The people I wrote this about know who they are, and I couldn’t be more blessed to have such intoxicatingly-happy people in my life.