Peace Starts with Yourself and Grows

     Each and every day I love to surround myself with positivity. I always strive to find joy in each day even if it is simple as serving another with a good deed. Personally I love wall art that has inspirational sayings on them, one that I particularly love has the following saying: Peace Starts with Yourself and Grows. This is by far one of my favorite sayings because it is absolutely 100% true! Each and every day we wake up and we have a choice to make, either we can chose to be happy or we can chose to let outside forces and people control us.   


Growing up I unfortunately had the mindset that others controlled my destiny and I let other people get to me. For example I found myself commonly thinking that my own happiness or lack thereof was caused by others. This occurred for me commonly in middle school, a time where kids are extremely cruel, and as a kid you have no idea who you are. Reflecting back I put my search for happiness into the hands of others. My thoughts consisted of things like I would only be happy if the popular girls like me, or I would finally be happy if I was able to get all A’s.  This mindset continued into my high school years and into my college years as well. It was not until I started to serve others that I found this mindset was not true.  Peace and happiness are internal elements that WE create in our lives. If a person is constantly going through life with a mindset that they will one day find happiness the bottom line is they will never find it because happiness and peace are internal factors that we CHOOSE to bring in our lives. Peace comes from within ourselves and can be manifested by works that we do, but ultimately it is a choice we make each any every day. Remember you CAN find happiness and peace in your life, you just have to stop looking for it externally and rather look within yourself.