Life experiences

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My little sister always appeared "happy" growing up and that's probably because there were many things in her life that influenced her happiness. As we grew it felt for a while our happy place fell apart and as it was falling apart my siblings and I tried hard to shield my little sister from the things that were happening in order to preserve her happiness.
After things did fall apart and we weren't able to preserve her happiness the way we wanted to due to the fact that no matter how bad we didn't want to- we were growing up. With growing up comes new responsibilities and new focus points; sometimes doing what you want to do holds more importance over what you should do or need to do.
My little sister had moments of depression and luckily I've experienced depressive thoughts before I had anything giving me a reason to have them so hearing about hers due to circumstances were easy to talk to her about.
Talking to someone who cares about you. Writing your feelings down and analyzing the problem to come to a resolution. Walking in nature to feel at peace with yourself and one with the world. Hot showers to relax the mind and body. Through incorporating these things into our lives we learned that there is joy even in sadness and there will always be something negative to look at if you want to.
Coming together throughout all the heart ache, trials and seeking closeness and understanding has helped me to see that troubles exist to form strong bonds with those around you; having gone through pain together and being able to confide in each other has built up understanding and acceptance with my little sister and I.
You can't control life and we all handle it differently but the people placed in our lives are there for specific reasons; when my little sister goes through her pain I am able to comfort her since I observe the pain and analyze it thoroughly. My little sister has always been able to help me to see the happier side of life even whenever she has moments of sadness and I have learned from her that sadness and anger only lasts a moment unless you dwell on it causing it to become a thorn in your side.

During some of the most trying times we would make a point to get out and create adventure by appreciating the most easily overlooked yet most beneficial thing on this earth for humans; nature. Laughing and dancing as though worries didn't exist then hugging and crying in the next moment. As life goes on our adventures have extended to friends and family members; I seek to have adventures with a significant other now. Self love spreads like wildfire when you make yourself a priority on those tough days as opposed to becoming consumed in life's seemingly unmanageable mishaps.
Once you've placed yourself in a loving head space, you're giving yourself an opportunity to excel at exploring the different options we have while, inevitably, managing the mishaps.

Even when life isn't giving you a reason to be happy; give yourself a reason to smile.
Life is shorter each day that passes, make the most with the time you have- no matter what that looks like to someone else. If the most you can do some days is take the trash out- make sure you take a few moments to stretch while you're out there- then drink some soothing tea back in bed. If other days the most you can do is workout for an hour, work an 8 hour shift, study then do laundry and clean the kitchen and cook dinner well make sure your busy body takes a hot bubble bath at the end of the day- geez. No matter what your best looks like each day; your day should always involve a form of self care and that might change depending on each day as well.
You always deserve happiness but at times it has to be a choice just make sure you're making that choice for yourself in some way.