If you are anything like me, you are empathetic, considerate, and look for the best in people. You carry people’s pain in your heart, you always take the feelings of others into account before your own, and you want to see the good in even the worst of people.

Well, stop.

It’s one thing to have a moral obligation to help people and to always respect people when you don’t understand what they may be going through, but it’s a whole other story to try to give your love to people who don’t even love themselves.

You will not be in control of your life that way, because someone else will control it for you.

I have been in a position where I have been insecure, and I have really NEEDED somebody. I know what it feels like to put my happiness in someone else’s hands, so when someone NEEDS me, I drop everything, including pieces of myself that I believe will complete them. I have known many people who truly touched my soul, who I wanted to lift up and show all the steps to becoming a happy and untroubled person. But the fact of the matter is, happiness exists within, and if someone doesn’t have it inside of them to climb that ladder with you, and they let their emptiness and troubles consume them, then they will also consume you. The more you feed their insecurities, the harder it will be for them to grow and you will just be stopping yourself from growing with them. When they ultimately leave you, a little piece of your soul will go with them, and you will need time to mend it. If you are having trouble moving on, it just means you gave a bigger part of your soul.

Now, I am not one to regret the past. Everything happens for a reason, and I will never hate anyone who was once a part of my soul. I truly believe the people who consumed my life came into my life because we needed to borrow pieces of each other. We needed to teach each other a valuable lesson that we could not have learned otherwise. The good news is, there’s still plenty left inside of me to take control of my life at this moment, and the hardest part for people is just realizing that. No matter what I have been through, or what anyone has been through, there is always something inside that allows us to grow from our experiences, and that is acceptance and will.

Acceptance and will can not be taught to a person, which I have learned the hard way. You can’t will someone into being with you and you can’t force someone to accept you. That has been one of the hardest lessons of all, but a valuable one. Nothing makes me sadder than to see someone who doesn’t have the will to try, and who doesn’t have the capacity to accept. I feel sorry for people who never allow themselves to feel the emotions and learn the lessons that have to be learned to achieve happiness. My heart aches for those who choose to ignore life’s lessons and get through pain by seeking the next thing to fill their void.

But, quite frankly, it is not my responsibility to feel sorry for people.

My biggest concern right now is to allow myself to be happy. It will be selfish, it will be lonely, it will be different, but it will be rewarding.

With the little broken pieces I have left inside of me, I have willed myself to take control of my life, and in a short time, I have had more love in my heart for my friends, for my family, and for new people I meet because there is no longer someone else taking up that space.

I am in control of my own happiness and I will never settle for someone who does not allow me to have that, because without it, we truly have nothing. I hope I have never taken anyone’s happiness away, but speaking from my own experience, happiness can not be taken or given. You may feel as though someone is unable to make you happy or you are unable to make them happy, but the only person in control of their happiness, is you.