Despite experiencing bullying and low confidence in his old Indiana school, senior William Curtright has true happiness now that he lives in Columbia and learned where his worth comes from. Holding onto a steady hope in a world that’s fading away allows him to look to the bright side of situations and exhibit joy.
 
“I think that happiness comes from a lot of things. It’s kind of a mindset, one of those things where every morning I have to pray to God and be like, ‘Would you please allow me to be engaged and happy today?’ Also, I’ve found that a lot of things I do make me happy. Hanging out with people is number one. I just love spending time with people in any capacity. I think that comes from having to move five times. It makes me see the joy in situations with new people and stuff and just hanging out. I think I really enjoy playing guitar and getting stuff done. I really like moving for some reason. It’s therapeutic. I kind of like grilling, which is very fun. Those are the main ways that I make myself happy. I think that, like I said, happiness is a mindset. Sometimes there are not going to be any things that are tangible in your life that will make you specifically happy, but in that moment, you definitely have to choose happiness.
 
In eighth grade, I was getting really bullied by this one dude … He lives in Miami now. He would call me ‘gay’ every moment he saw me. He would show up at church events at a church that he didn’t even go to just so he could bully me. The dude was a total jerk, but he ended up getting suspended. The point being is just in that time, I got so depressed. Even after he was suspended, I continued to feel depressed. I started thinking, ‘If he doesn’t like me, then I guess other people don’t like me either,’ and it really killed my confidence. It made it hard to hang out with people and do the things that I usually loved to do. I hated it and it got to the point where I didn’t even want to go to school for a half month or so. It was around that time that I went to a YoungLife camp and I became a Christian. That totally changed the direction of my life and what I find happiness in. I used to see tangible things as the only way to find happiness, but the number one way to find happiness for me was through my faith in Christ. A belief system in a higher power is really what’s going to make or break it because if you don’t have anything truly real or permanent to hold onto that’s not going to change, it is going to be so hard to be consistently happy. I guess what I’m really getting at is that it’s not [worldly] happiness that we need to be enjoying, it needs to be true, genuine enjoyment of life and joy. The fact that we’re alive every single day is from a permanent joy rather than a temporary happiness.”