This I Believe: The Key to Happiness

Having everything you want doesn’t make you happy. You can always think that nothing can ruin your day, but in reality, something bad can always happen. But even when I find myself in that position, I think, I have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain.

The only thing that keeps me from giving up is the small part of me that still believes I can move forward from this fault. I believe it takes losing everything you’ve ever wanted, then gaining it, to find happiness in your success. In a way, it’s the key to happiness. I always believed that in this world there is an action and a reaction. My mother always said that even if you make the wrong choice, it’s not what occurs that matters, but what you do to fix it that really matters. This means that after losing whatever you held so close, don’t just let that happen, take action.

I say that because once you do something about it, you’ll find that you are happy because after everything pulling you back, you were still able to go on unaffected. By doing so, you’ll find yourself being successful and glad that you did something to improve yourself. Each scenario is never the same and can be very different depending on the degree. I constantly find myself in this position. As I look over what I wrote, I constantly think of one part of my life. In that moment, I felt as if I could only keep rising and rising like a tidal wave in the ocean that was our world but eventually, like any other wave, I was bound to crash.

Realistically, the ocean doesn’t come to an immediate stop after the wave crashes, it keeps rebuilding and moving forward. This would happen to me on one of the hotter days in mid July. That day was my soccer team’s tournament. I could still remember the moist grass that allowed the water to seep through my cleats and the smell of fresh cut grass. I was shocked because the night before it had rained really hard and that day it just seemed too beautiful. There was absolutely no clouds in the sky but the bright sun.

Trust me, I remember this because of my unusual leg tan that stayed for weeks. I had woken up so late that my family and I had to run out the door as quick as we could and somehow, I had managed to be on time. Anyways, while progressing to the championship after each win, I had gotten extremely nervous because I was constantly thinking if I mess up it’s my fault. Somehow, I had managed to block it out until the final game, the championship. This team was aggressive, fast, and had tremendous accuracy while shooting.

Every second of that game made me more and more nervous because we had finally tied with them. I can still hear that referee blow his obnoxious whistle to signal the game was over and it was time for penalty kicks. Everyone could see how nervous our coach was because he had to make the choice of who went to shoot. I remember thinking, even if I miss, my parents on the sidelines would only care about how I felt after the game. So I rose my hand and asked the coach if I could shoot a penalty kick.

The time literally went so fast that by the time I devised a plan it was my turn. We had managed to tie on penalty kicks and I was the last one to go. As I had walked up the keeper he was already saying that I would miss and be the embarrassment of Lockport and it had torn me apart because I was constantly told I was not a threat on the soccer field which made me feel like I was the weak link on team. In a way, it was as if my wave of success had crashed. Without thinking, I just kicked the ball hoping it wouldn’t go over the pole like I had seen my teammates behind me do. Remembering the words of my mom, I had reacted in a way that when I would leave that game, I would be proud of myself.

In the end, I had scored and won the game. I had proven the keeper and myself wrong and I felt true happiness in my success. All around us people are constantly fighting their battles, big or small or maybe none at all. But no matter what, the way they chose to fight back will answer the fact of whether they win or not. I believe in the fact that you can gain whatever you lose and only you can turn the tide and take action.

By doing so you can learn from your mistakes and find true happiness in your success.