Had your breakfast? Rushed for work/school? Had a good lunch? Back home for dinner? Too tired to do anything else, or maybe spent some ‘quality’ time on the computer? Or maybe play a game or two? So all set for a nice shut eye?

Sounds familiar? I am sure it does. We are all ‘guilty’ of it. Guilty? Why Guilty you might ask – why not I will ask you back. How old are we? What did we do with our life? We are always tossed around by this huge wheel called life. Why are we slaves of the environment? Why do we caging ourselves to the routine boundaries of the world of our making? No one has enslaved us – we have! We are always looking for people to blame this on… Look no further, there is none. It is we. We are the ones we make ourselves who we are. Let us not go into the blame game.

Take a step back. Is there something we can do differently today – maybe start with the small things. Maybe you could take a moment to smell the roses, say ‘Hi!’ to your neighbour, or your bus driver, or maybe read a book, write a poem, share a coffee with your loved ones, spent time to reflect on yourself, and the list goes on. These are not difficult tasks, but we find it so hard to just do that little more.

I once was queuing up for lunch. I was extremely hungry and the person preparing the food was very slow. As I try to have my own conversations to keep myself sane from the infuriating flame of anger and agitation, I saw an old lady behind me. I was asking myself if I should let her go ahead of me, then again I carried on my internal conversation: ‘I am sure she had all the time in the world, but I am the busy one’… ‘But then she is old and she will feel pain standing’… ‘well my food is going to be very simple to prepare, it will be very short… should I even bother thinking about giving her the space to move forward?’… The internal conversations I have are simple in nature but complex in depth. When my turn came, I moved aside and let her move forward. She got her food, and she did not thank me… but that did not bother me. I was totally elated to know that I did a good thing. 

It is not the size of deeds we do everyday. It is the thought and the will to make a difference to others and in the process for ourselves. We have to always learn to take a step back and look around us. To take a deep breath and to appreciate the fact that we are living. We need to accept the fact that we are grateful for the many thing – even to have this nice keyboard and monitor to do the work, sitting on a nice cosy chair. Take a break, take a breather, enjoy life!