Don't forget to count your blessings

This title here , it seems so familiar. Maybe I read it on the blog I have taken to following off late. But it just seems so apt for what I am saying here that I decided to use it anyway. Just this morning as I made my way from home to work, a task that is absolutely uninspiring and a source of irritation everyday of my life, I was absolutely distraught with the amount of work I had left to do, how I was going to get it done, how I needed a new job, how my life was falling apart in terms of my career. Apart from this, I was obsessing over my health as I always do, worrying about how much I eat and spend on food, worried about my parents - ok you get the picture. So basically I was worried about everything under the sun and I started to feel a little suffocated.

Then suddenly, something hit me and I paused to take in the setting around me. The sun was up and about, nice and pleasant. There was a gentle breeze as the branches of the trees above my head swayed. I took a deep breath and I realised that I had lived another day in peace and the comfort of a proper home, with proper food and good clothes. I had slept for a good 8 hours, woken up to another amazing day on this planet. What more, I could speak to my parents whenever I wanted to and I have great friends who I can turn to at any time of the day. Suddenly the air was fresher and I saw that the possibilities/opportunities were plenty. It was just a matter of me pulling everything together and working towards what I want or what I think I want and need. And in that moment, all the worry left me and I felt relieved.

 I just wanted to share this experience because sometimes we are all so absorbed in what we think are the worst problems in the world that we forget to look around and appreciate the smaller and more important things. Maybe if we all took the time out to see the positives of everyday gone by, life would not be half as hard.

Inspire Me

“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”
― Mahatma Gandhi


 “Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum LP

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth


“If you meet a woman of whatever complexion who sails her life with strength and grace and assurance, talk to her! And what you will find is that there has been a suffering, that at some time she has left herself for hanging dead.”
― Sena Jeter Naslund, Ahab's Wife, or The Star-Gazer


“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
― Marcus Aurelius

“Listen to the people who love you. Believe that they are worth living for even when you don't believe it. Seek out the memories depression takes away and project them into the future. Be brave; be strong; take your pills. Exercise because it's good for you even if every step weighs a thousand pounds. Eat when food itself disgusts you. Reason with yourself when you have lost your reason.”
― Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

“Life is filled with unanswered questions, but it is the courage to seek those answers that continues to give meaning to life. You can spend your life wallowing in despair, wondering why you were the one who was led towards the road strewn with pain, or you can be grateful that you are strong enough to survive it.”
― J.D. Stroube, Caged by Damnation


“You almost have to step outside yourself and look at you as if you were someone else you really care about and really want to protect. Would you let someone take advantage of that person? Would you let someone use that person you really care about? Or would you speak up for them? If it was someone else you care about, you'd say something. I know you would. Okay, now put yourself back in that body. That person is you. Stand up and tell 'em, "Enough!”