Today I Choose Joy
It’s funny, sometimes the energy you put out there can really start a new topic of discussion. I have had countless people contact me recently all speaking on the positivity I display. Many people find it to be refreshing and others have asked me ‘Mayah what makes you so happy?’ In all honesty, I choose to be happy. The more time I spend navigating this world the more I see that joy and happiness are things that don’t happen to you. These are things that you grab by the hands and take for yourself.
My story is one full of roller coaster situations with twists and turns. My childhood and teen years saw me go through quite traumatic bullying. As a result, I ended up making poor choices, entering bad relationships and not taking care of myself. I had to reach a place where it was important for me to “check myself”. I guess you could say I learned that in order to get to a place of joy I had to start with myself…
Several years ago my life led me to a place where I took my relationship with God to a deeper place and I decided to get baptised. I had been contemplating doing so for a while but I guess all things happen in the correct timing. People of faith often speak on joy as though it’s something only reserved for believers. I don’t agree with that statement. I think we all have a right to happiness, light and love but I do know from personal experience that we have to make it happen. People tend to fall into the trap of thinking that one day they will wake up and everything in their life will be perfect. The thing is this; if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got! I think a paradigm shift and taking the steps to make things happen is the key.
I decided to start enjoying how I look, surrounding myself with like minded and positive people among other things. Talking about what I wanted in life was a pointless exercise. Deciding to just get on with things and focus on what makes me happy and what I’m good at made the difference. The easy thing is to focus on the things we’re bad at. That weight we’ve gained, our singleness, lack of money we have… I could go on really. My point is that we spend too much time and energy thinking about what’s wrong with our situations. When you switch your thought patterns to focus on the positive everything changes. You’ll be surprised at how happy you actually are! Don’t get me wrong you may not be where you want to be but, you will have made some strides forward!
When I saw this slogan t-shirt from Zizzi at Navabi I knew I had to have it. This one phrase describes my current state of mind and place in life. ‘TODAY I CHOOSE JOY!’ In other words, I’m making the choice to be happy. I like everyone else have my bad days but I thought i’m gonna make a statement by wearing the words and not just a smile! When putting this look together I wanted to pair the grey tee with a simple pair of black jeans. I selected my supper skinny stretch jeans from Lane Bryant. Yours Clothing recently sent me these fab ankle boots so they were an easy inclusion.
Finishing things off I decided to add a touch of freshness with this baby pink trench coat from Evans. I thought it would be cool to wear some accessories. Hanna let me borrow her Celine Audrey sunglasses for some added glam. Tobi recently sent me some fun new things which I wanted to include with this look. I’m pretty sure that by now when people think of my style hoop earrings come to mind. With that being said you can see why I wanted this pair of in the loop hoops! Adding more silver I selected the faux leather backpack.
Aside from what i’m wearing, ultimately the key is to do the things that make you happy. It might the clothes you wear that make you smile, the people you’re with or what you do.
