You deserve happy. You deserve that extra scoop of ice-cream, to indulge in the sweetness of the chocolate. You deserve another season of your favorite TV show, to relive the anticipation of watching all the teaser trailers until you memorize them word by word and writing way-too-complicated fan theories about whether the “Pretty-Girl-Protagonist” will end up with “Brother One” or “Brother Two.” You deserve to go on a road trip with your closest friends, to be on video call with them the entire night before, ecstatically packing your bags with snacks, and constantly changing the songs in the car to sing until you all drift asleep at the same time. You deserve to have people sing happy birthday to you, to sit shyly but happily in your chair, not knowing how to react. You deserve every single little thing that makes you happy. 

We so often think that we don’t deserve happiness. We think that “fine” is “good enough” and that being just “okay” for the rest of our lives is all we can ever be, but we often forget that we can make life more than what it is. We can dream of a life that seems impossible, a life that we know we will wake up everyday falling in love with all over again. What we don’t realize is that we deserve to have the rest of our lives be the best of our lives. Because if you don’t think you deserve happy, then no one else can do anything to convince you otherwise.

You deserve happy because you are not defined by the worst thing that has happened to you. You are not that argument you had with your parents, the words spilling out from you as you say things you don’t really mean. You are not your first heartbreak, nor the tears that spill down your face as you think to yourself, “why is it so hard to love me?” You are not your failed exam, nor the letter grade that you think defines your intelligence, despite the hours you poured into memorizing every formula and revising your notes. You deserve happy because you are not your past, so don’t dwell on every petty mistake that you have made. You might have “failed” but you are not a failure. You might have made a mistake, but you are not one. Instead, take these mistakes, find the hidden lesson in them, learn those lessons, and let them go. This belief that we are every single bad thing we ever did is what clouds us from the truth that we deserve happy. You have the rest of your life in front of you and you can make it anything that you want.

You deserve happy because you are a “someone” in this world. You are here for a reason. You are here because you matter, because the world would be different without you in it.

You deserve the best that life has to offer. Know that, believe that, and live by that.