By Giulia Pincetti (’24)

“Happiness is an inside job. Don’t assign anyone else that much power over your life.” – Mandy Hale

All those times that I depended on someone else for happiness was a mistake. Every time that I felt unhappy because someone didn’t come to my house, or because my friend ate the last cookie, my happiness blew away faster than the wind on a breezy day. But why do we give people power over our emotions? Who gave them the key to our mood generator and allowed them to pick extremely mad or hateful? Who had the key and shoved it right at their face forcing them to take it? We did. No one made us give up the keys, but we did anyway. Why? Was it because we didn’t want to take charge of our emotions, since there was someone right next to us who would gladly take control. Even without knowing they could turn all the knobs in our brain the way they want to. Stop. Clearly, it’s not working for us. Clearly, giving someone total control over our emotional well being isn’t the way to go. We all want others in our lives to make us happy, but, however, sometimes we give them too much control over our emotions. We forget that we have the ability to be happy by ourselves. Relying on others makes us unhappy. It’s important that we find ways to feel emotions on our own. We can create our own moods, so why not allow ourselves to be happy? Sometimes it’s important to allow ourselves to weep over the world, however we don’t want the weeping to turn into a hibernation of sadness. It’s also hard to allow emotions that make you smile into your life when the world is yelling at you, but there is always a way to put yourself front and center and yell back. You get to decide if the world is yelling or cheering you on. Change your perspective. Be in charge. Be happy when you desire. Just because sadness is the easiest way to cope with struggles, this doesn’t mean we should resort to it all the time. Know when it’s time to let negativity go and join the rainbow. Sadness will control your life if you let it.