I starred at the face of the clock listlessly for God knows how long and an emotional pandemonium broke out in my mind. I felt like I had just being drifting in the last 314 days or worse, like the gear of my life has being placed on N in all that time but a question, that will soon be the reason for me being a cornucopia of emotions started to plague my mind, “what have you done with 2013”. It was vastly unsettling and I lost all calmness to the great psychological perturbation that hunted me every minute. Each day was almost like a nightmare and a persistent migraine followed my incessant rounds of mental exhaustion. I thought only of my failures and pitfalls, my unaccomplished goals and unexecuted visions, my dead ideas and lingering plans, disappointments from loved ones, betrayals and most of all the aborted dreams!
Not for once did I think about the seemingly unimportant things that have been given to me, the sun to dry my laundry, the rain to water the food I ate and the flowers I adore, the moon to help me dream, the birds whose colors are my fashion inspiration, the fact that I can swallow a morsel effortlessly and breath without help but these I later came to realize again that these simple acts are the most important of all through a simple but life touching event that reminded me of what I have forgotten- “the greatest accomplishment is to breathe, a gift providence has bestowed graciously on every mortal regardless of their caste and a gift with which all others can be achieved”
On Sunday, I reluctantly attended a carol service. I use the word “reluctant” because though I fore planned going for the service, a number of unforeseen circumstances almost completely changed that fact but I will be ever thankful that I made that 11th hour decision to dash out of my residence and barrel down to the church auditorium in good enough time that I didn’t get to seat in the overflow, stuck under a canopy and watching a flat screen.
The service was exciting and filled with so much life, shouts of joy and pleasant hymns until that ravaging thought gripped me again. The anxiety took over and I was lost in my mental battle, “what are you so excited about, singing and dancing when you haven’t accomplished anything substantial in the last more than 3 hundred days, and it is over because 2013 is gone?” immediately these words ran through my mind, my legs went numb and could no longer carry my body, immediately, I crumbled into my seat, feeling sick to my stomach and pondering on the negative ranting of my mind, aloof and detached but all of a sudden, from the corner of my eyes, I saw something. A sight that completely healed me of the mental pandemonium that has held me to ransom for over a fortnight and had plagued me with incomprehensible self loathe and pity. I had noticed a huge smile, one that sprang from deep down a joyous and appreciative heart. I followed that enthralling smile to behold the face of a young man, dancing, singing and expressing immense gratitude to the creator but that was not what compelled me to thinking, as I further probed, I saw that this joyous young man was barely more than the size of a midget though he had the facial features of a full grown male young adult but that wasn’t all of it, he equally had a disabled leg and was hanging onto a pair of clutches while he frantically tried to dance.
At that instant, I got up from my seat, silenced the voices in my head and the perturbation in my heart. There I stood, a biologically complete human with an over ambitious and ungrateful heart. I repented immediately and emulated the young man.
I understand that certain times we feel like we have not reached full potential and strive till we get all we want. I get this because no one in my family is as ambitious, pushy and compelling as I am. With a 60percent of the choleric temperament exhibited in me, it is natural for me to run roughshod to get what I want and complacency is one of the English words I detest the most after dishonestly but the truth is this, sometimes, we get so consumed in searching for what we think we don’t have yet and totally forget to be grateful for we have and many a times, ingratitude is what shuts our receiving door!
As 2013 wraps up, look beyond your failures and focus on the seemingly unimportant things which ironically, are the greatest of them all- show gratitude for the air you breathe, the water, the sun and the fact that as long as there is life, you will achieve all in due time.
You have no excuse to be grumpy as the year ends and you better not pout or cry, you know who is coming to town.
Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you have now was once among the things you only hoped for. EPICURUS
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life, it turns what we have into enough and more, it turns denial to acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home and a stranger into a friend. MELODY BEATTIE
