"Happiness" by Christofer G

     Happiness Oh boy. Here we go again, right? Another story about some poor soul who was bullied as a child. I wonder what he’s going to talk about. Maybe he’s going to talk about how it ruined his life. Maybe he’s going to talk about how it’s made him antisocial. Maybe he’s going to talk about how being bullied caused him to lose his sense of trust as he secludes himself from society in order to save himself from the possibility of being hurt again. Well… not really. Quite the opposite, really. I should start off by stating that although I am extremely lucky that being bullied did not cause any of these things to happen to me, not everyone is as lucky. Not everyone can cope with the effects of being bullied, and I would simply like to explain that I am not, neither in the beginning of this story nor throughout it, intending to state that everyone’s story is the same: not everyone’s life goes the way I described. Now, although I was bullied throughout my life, it mainly became an issue in 5th through 6th grade.
     Of course as I am now a senior in high school, bullying hasn’t really been an issue, nor has it been since I started high school. But, being bullied used to be a common occurrence in my life when I was about ten. I used to get teased because of my long hair, I used to get called names and secluded from everyone else because of it. But no matter what they did, what they called me, I knew that I was in the right. After all, the only reason I started growing out my hair was because one of my younger cousins had leukemia and I wanted to help out other people that shared her condition. But they didn’t know that, and they didn’t need to. I remember seeing other people being bullied, others who were forced to live their elementary school days in the corners of the playground as to avoid being bombarded with cruel nicknames and being shoved to the ground. I remember feeling bad, not only for myself, but for the bullies as well. I knew that there was something wrong with them that was causing them to bully others: maybe they were going through family struggles, maybe they were being abused and they felt that the only way to vent was to release their anger on others that they saw as being lower than them. Now where could I be going with this? How does any of this tie in to the title? Well, I’ll tell you. From the second I left elementary school, I told myself that from that point on, no matter what happened, I would always smile. I would always treat people with kindness, I would always try to make people laugh, I would always try to show people that they mattered. Even though I was rarely treated with that mindset by someone else, I was happy: It was something about seeing others smile. Something about seeing that they didn’t have to go through what I was going through. Something about knowing that I could say or do something that would lighten their moods or make their day was enough to make me happy. And from that point on, my life has been filled with nothing but happiness. Those who held me down, only encouraged me to help pick others up. And the only thing I’d ever ask for in return was something that no amount of money could buy: a meaningful smile.