How many times have we heard this? Happiness is a choice.

It was something I didn't quite understand until I got my heart broken a few years ago and did some major soul-searching. As challenging of a time that was for me, I came out a different person. A better person. It helped to wake me up, and it was then I realized when you choose happiness above all other things you start to understand life a little bit better.

Here are 11 things I didn't understand about happiness until I choose to be happy.

1. It doesn't matter whether or not someone is doing their best. -- What someone else does or think has no weight on whether or not you are a happy person. Even if they go out of their way to hurt you, it won't affect your happiness.

2. Your childhood plays no role in your decision to be happy. -- You childhood will play a role in a lot of things but your happiness will not be one of them.

3. If someone loves you, it doesn't matter what you look like. -- At some point or another, a lot of us fall victim to the belief that you need to look a certain way to be loved. However, when you make peace with yourself you realize love doesn't exist because of how you look.

4. You are perfect the way you are. -- Everything up to this point has been the best thing for you and it's allowed you to be exactly where you are. Happy people embrace their past and accept the wisdom it has to offer.

5. Grieving heartache is essential for happiness. -- The most painful experience in your life -- grieving a heartache -- will ultimately lead you to a happier, more compassionate and loving place.

6. Betrayal is a catalyst for enlightenment, if you choose. -- The darkest of times can tear you down emotionally but can also offer you a rock bottom foundation to recreate yourself. And this time it's on your terms. The new-found awareness is priceless and freeing.

7. If you surrender to what's around you, you will find beauty. -- Losing control is different than giving it up. Happy people understand the only thing they can control is their reaction to the life around them. When they do that there is no other way than to see all the beauty that surrounds you.

8. Accepting yourself is the highest act of loving yourself. -- Accepting yourself fully and forgiving yourself for the shortcomings you think you may have will, without a doubt, offer you a happiness and peace you have never known before.

9. Disassociating from loved ones doesn't mean you don't love them. -- When you choose happiness as a way of life you can let go of unhealthy and damaged relationships without letting go of the love you have for that person or people. How beautiful is that? To love someone enough to let them go.

10. Suffering from anxiety is not a life sentence to be unhappy. -- Happy people who suffer from anxiety understand anxiety is not in control. It's something that is part of their life and it is something they need to find ways to cope with but they never sacrifice their happiness in spite of it.

11. A happy life doesn't mean you're happy all the time. -- This is probably the biggest misconception about happiness. Choosing to be happy doesn't mean you'll never be sad, frustrated, angry, betrayed again. You will be, trust me. But it means taking the highs with the lows, the sadness with bliss, the ugly with all that is beautiful.

Happiness is a journey. It's your choice to balance life as it comes. And it's a choice you get to make every single day. What an opportunity to have! To see the world with acceptance instead of judgment, compassion instead of angry, and love instead of hate.

Once you do your whole world will look quite different, in the best way possible.

This post originally was published on Boycott the BS.
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