For hours, days, weeks, months, even years I have thrived on the happiness and the love of others and it has worked for me. I have let everyone else in my life be the reason that I was smiling, the reason that I was happy. I did not trust myself with my own happiness, I was convinced that my happiness was external not internal. I would literally go to people and expect them to make me smile again, make me feel something again, but sadly that is not how it works. People will only be there so long to make you smile, until eventually it becomes exhausting to be responsible for your happiness. This is not a lesson that I learned over night and it is most defiantly something that I will continue to struggle with, but I am trying. It was about a week ago that I found myself walking to class and I abruptly stopped and realized that I was smiling; no one has said anything to me, I had not received a happy text, talked to someone on the phone, nor did I receive a gift from someone. I paused and realized that I was happy with myself for getting up and being strong. I was smiling because I decided that I get to dictate how I feel, no one else. It was an amazing feeling to realize that the smile that I had was the result of me deciding to smile. People come and go, someone who made you smile yesterday can now be the reason that you walk the long way. The friend that you told everything to, now doesn’t even know how you are doing. That boy that could make you smile in a heartbeat is now the reason that you fight back tears at three in the afternoon. You see the people that used to make you smile have changed, they have now become the reason that you cry. But one person will always be constant from when you’re 3 years old to 90 years old, that person is you. If you are always a constant in your life why wouldn’t you want to make yourself smile daily? Why wouldn’t making yourself happy be a priority, when one day all you’ll have to make you happy is you. If you strive to make yourself smile every day, one day when someone else enters your world they will simply enhance your smile not be fully responsible for your smile. When you can truly rely on yourself to make you smile, when people leave the smile will remain because you will always be there to make yourself smile. Being able to smile on your own does not mean that you have to be alone or have no friends; it just simply means that you aren’t reliant on a happy text, a kind word, a surprise from someone, a joke, or another person's energy to make you smile. Please allow yourself to be in control of your happiness, no one else; be able to wake up every day and smile because of who you are and because you control how you feel every second of every day. In an hour, a day, a week, a month, or maybe even a year you will be able to take complete responsibility for the smile on your face that makes you beautiful in every way. One day someone will see you smiling and when they ask why you can look them in the eyes and say because I make myself happy.