being grateful

I have taken note that lately, many of those I love around me are finding it hard to appreciate what they have. One too many times, I’ve heard the “I’m tired of doing what I’m doing now. I just can’t be passionate about this anymore. I don’t know how I’m going to make this a career,” speech from several different people. It seems that currently, a lot of people are contemplating their future and seeing a bleak one instead of a bright and sunny one—no positivity whatsoever (and I thought I was the pessimist).

I have only one thing to say to these people: find a reason to be grateful. It honestly is the best, the fastest of all solutions. I don’t mean to say that my life now is perfect. I admit that it is far from it, but I AM happy to be where I am today. True, I have tonnes of ambitions that I have yet to achieve, but I see myself getting exactly what I want in the future because I simply, believe (as Raja and Tasnim would so plainly put it). A series of coincidences (or maybe they were choices) made me who I am today, and I am truly grateful for everything that I have.

1. I am a student, albeit not a high-scoring one, of linguistics. I enjoy my classes and enjoy learning new things and meeting new people. Naturally, there are parts of being a university student that I am not too keen about but that’s part and parcel of life. You can’t possibly have it all.

2. I am a daughter of loving and caring parents and I have heroes whom I can look up to living under the same roof as me. On one side I have the temporarily “crippled?” (for a lack of better words) father who is never weak enough to not offer me advice, and on the other is the super-woman mother who is strong in more ways than one. I have a sister I can look up to and brothers who are loving and protective over me.

3. I am an employee of a fun-loving woman who has now become more than just a boss to me. She is somebody I can look up to and confide in during times of hardship, a reliable shoulder and a fantastic “older” friend who is always young at heart but is also a mother-figure.

4. I am a colleague to people I can love and whose company I enjoy endlessly. People with whom I can talk to and seek boy-advice from because they’ve “been there, done that” and whom I can trust to always be honest and constructively critical towards me in my work.

5. I am a friend to few (but an acquaintance to most). The few whom I keep close to my heart at all times regardless how far they are in distance. People I trust to make me laugh when I am down and out and people who will always be there for me, those who can hold me when I cry, can take my sudden burst of anger or excessive emotion, and just thoroughly gets me.

When I find myself thinking that what I have is not what I want, it is these 5 things that keep me going—these and my ambitions. These things keep me grounded and grateful to God for everything with which He has granted me. It makes me remember to never be too proud of myself and what I have achieved, and always reminds me of who I am inside and where I come from. My ambitions keep me humble (as humble as I could possibly be which is really not THAT humble pun) because I know that I still have things I need to achieve and also gets me excited, to live and to have a life of my own instead of mongering on others’.

My parents made it a point (I think) to teach us how to be independent (not in the way that I go out whenever I want and all, just in a way that I don’t rely on them or other people when it’s not absolutely necessary), and having self-dependence has proven good for me and my personal growth. I feel (note the word feel, I’m not sure how true my feelings are) that I have grown beyond my age, farther then I should have by the age of 21 and I can only be thankful to them for this. I could not have asked for a better gift besides the gift of life.

Thank you Mama and Abah for the lesson of a lifetime.