About a week ago, my alarm woke me up at 6:30 a.m. just like any other day. It was a slow Monday morning, and I would have given anything to go back to sleep for just a few more minutes. I must have gone through at least six different outfits that morning before I finally decided to just throw on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. As I began to re-hang all the clothes I took down to try on for outfits, I started to question why I was holding three different shirts, two dresses, and a sweater. Why wasn’t the first outfit I put on good enough? Why did it take me six tries to realize that I didn’t care what I looked like, and that jeans and a t-shirt would suffice?
After suffering through the twenty minutes it took me to put my makeup on, I knew this was not going to be a ‘normal’ day. My day hadn’t even officially begun, and I was already counting down the hours until I could go back to bed. Unfortunately for me, a typical Monday includes four classes that start at 8:00 a.m, which makes for very long and dreary days.I met my friend for breakfast at the dining hall, and one of the first things he said to me was, “Are you okay? You look upset.” My response to his question probably came out a bit harsher than I intended, but I didn’t understand why he would ask me that. What did I have to be upset about? I had only been awake for less than an hour. But little did I know, I was about to be asked this question many more times that day.
On five different occasions I was asked if I was either upset, unhappy, or having a ‘bad’ day, but this couldn’t have been further from the truth. Honestly, I just didn’t feel like trying to impress anyone that day. I went about my day without really caring what anyone thought about me. I didn’t feel the need to go out of my way to greet people, or to make sure they were having a good day. Instead, I took a few steps back from all the chaos of everyone else’s lives and just focused on my own. At no point during the day was I upset, unhappy, or having a ‘bad’ day. I was actually pretty content. The difference however, in this day versus any other, was that not once did I fake a smile.
I didn’t spend the entire day moping around either. I still laughed when someone made a joke or when something good happened, but I didn’t make it a point to be, or to appear happy if I wasn’t. When my day finally came to an end I realized that I was far less stressed out than I normally would have been at this time of day. And while nothing annoyed me more than having everyone ask me what was wrong, I knew that it didn’t matter what everyone else thought of me. You don’t have to please everyone you meet, and you certainly don’t have to fake a smile just for people to like you. Just remember to be you. Your true friends will still be there even if you aren’t the happiest person everyday of your life.