1327 ally ally oxen free sent this in through the SOTM Flickr group. It's a powerful message and story, and I liked it so much that I decided not to change it to grayscale. Therefore it's the only SOTM to be printed with a dash of colour (other than black, white or sepia).

She wrote: “My mom said this to me once, when I was talking about how sad I was, how hard it was to make friends, how hard it was to keep friends, how miserable life was for me.

"’Why can't you just be happy?’ she said. It wasn't even rhetorical. She honestly could not figure out why I couldn't smile and look at the positive instead of dwell on the negative.

“Neither did I. But I've come to accept that it is harder for me to be happy. My mind dwells on the negative. Even if I can find a silver lining, it doesn't really do much. I know that I'm going to have to try harder if I want to just be happy.”