The Things That Bring Us Joy

    Think about your friends, family, role models, hobbies, even your four-legged kids for a minute. Now notice the smile that crept on your face while doing so with possibly a slight chuckle that followed afterward. Sometimes we take those that make our life better for granted and don’t fully appreciate their impact as much as we should. These are the people or things that bring peace and happiness while also allowing us to bring joy into their hearts. This is my personal thank you note to my friends and family for bringing nothing but authentic love and genuine happiness into my life.

    Do you ever find yourself asking your friends “what would I do without you”? I tend to ask them at least three times a week because it’s true, where would we be without our true friends. Personally, my friends each have impacted me in multiple ways since they bring out different sides of me. Jordan, the rockstar of the group that loves to express herself through her bold fashion statements, keeps me grounded by reminding me to always stand out in the crowd of conformity. It’s not always about resisting conformity through fashion, but she also educates me and emphasizes the importance of staying open-minded, especially during the events happening in the world right now. There are those friends such as Jordan who not only educate you (a form of self-growth) and have not the slightest of knowledge as to how she’s impacting me and viewing her as an inspiration. I am blessed to have a friend with genuinely loving qualities, and I hope you all have or will find someone who can impact you just how Jordan has inspired me.

Aside from my friends and family where I derive most of my inspiration from, there are the non-materialistic things that bring me peace of mind such as painting while sitting under the sunlight that peeks through the moss trees. As the air becomes cooler, I have no excuse to not enjoy surrounding myself with Earth’s natural beauty. While I admire the leaves changing, that’s when my creative mind starts to simmer. Then I’ll admire the greenery of the trees and plants as it meets the skyline and then I begin to picture it on a canvas. Once I begin visioning the landscape as an outline, I instantly want to paint the landscape. These are the moments that I love whenever I can get a hold of some downtime. Having something that pauses our busy lifestyle for a second, especially as college students, is a staple to allow comfort and peace to keep flowing throughout our minds to maintain our sanity. A hobby that is constructive or focuses on the mind and/or body connection is always recommended by me instead of hobbies that are more technological-based such as texting, being a couch potato and watching Netflix (all day), and playing video games on the Playstation. Not bashing anyone’s favorite hobby but try adding another constructive hobby along with it; you can never have too many hobbies. Some examples of constructive hobbies are 

• Painting

• Reading 

• Writing

• Exercising (yoga included)

• Sewing

    Appreciate the things that bring us happiness and inspire us, they are the people or things that keep us grounded and mentally stable. I can admit too, I don’t give them enough credit sometimes as much as I should, but that is where we change that.