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How To Embrace Every Day Of Your Life With Love, Kindness And Happiness

Artwork by Angge Lorente

There is this moment when you open up your eyes after sleeping, and your eyes flutter and everything is blurry and you fight to focus to see clearly. In that moment that consciousness hits you, it’s another day; a new day. Is there sunlight on your bed, darling? Is there sunlight fighting to sneak between the gaps between your curtains to illuminate your skin? It is. Let it enter. Let your skin bathe in the light.

You lie beneath the blanket, already contemplating all the tasks you have to accomplish today, all the things that you have pending on your desk, in your mailbox. You’re already feeling deflated to do the tasks like the machinery you work on everyday tirelessly.

Take a minute, darling.

You JUST woke up. All that will eventually happen anyway, don’t think about it right now. Breathe. Breathe again. Cherish the fact that you’re ALIVE. You’re healthy, you’re safe. You’re ALIVE.

I know you’re really tired, not just physically but mentally too. It’s okay. I know but just breathe, okay? Today is another day, TODAY is another day. I know this is nothing new and it sounds like something written on a car bumper sticker but really. It is.

So, BREATHE.

Stretch your legs as much as you can underneath the blanket, you’ve been stiff for too long. You’re always constricting yourself, streeeetch like a cat does. If your spouse/ partner is sleeping (still) next to you, lean and gently (and quietly) kiss them good morning. I know maybe you have a ton of work and things and deadlines to reach today, but you’ve just woken up, darling. Take it all on later. Just STOP and breathe.

Now that you’re fully conscious and aware, gently carry yourself up on the bed. Waking up in a warm bed, under a roof, is a privilege. It really is. Take pleasure in every movement. Put your feet on the floor and feel that cold kiss of the floor on your bare feet.

Artwork by Angge Lorente

Artwork by Angge Lorente

Darling, life isn’t an express train. Don’t live it like it is. Don’t think that you’re always late and you’re always stumbling and cursing your way to the station because it’s going to leave you behind. Walk at your own pace. It’s YOUR life. It’s always going to wait for you. It’ll always be there, okay?

Enjoy the first meal of the day, you gotta taste it. You gotta have breakfast that makes you so goddamn glad you’re alive. Make time to have your breakfast in peace. The rest of your day is decided on how hurriedly you ate your breakfast. You’re always rushing, always stumbling, always running. STOP and eat in peace. Make time to eat in peace.

For The Moments When You Struggle To Love Yourself, Here’s A Letter To Read Aloud In Your Darkest Times

Don’t forget to see how beautiful and immense the sky is when you step out of the house. Put on your headphones/earplugs and put your music playlist on shuffle. Life is so much better with your favourite music playing in the background.

LOOK!

Look at how the world has changed! Look at how the trees have changed colours! Look how everybody has disgruntled expressions because of the cold! There is sunlight on your skin, bask in it. Illuminate yourself in it!

So many people, so many people, I see living in their phone screens, rather on Earth. If you’re so busy looking at the pictures on the sceneries in your phone, rather than all around you, what a waste that is! This world is a beautiful place. It really is. Just because you have a lot of work haunting you, or the hands of times striking your face every second, the salvation is in nature. It really is. It’s the only timeless thing.

There is beauty in everything. The architecture, the crowds, faces of strangers. Look and search for it!

Ah, the music ringing in your ears! You feel like prancing around to it! Even the most banal scenes turn into a music video! Listen to music, look at the trees alongside the pavements, the expressions on strangers’ face. Be the smiling and happy stranger to someone. You gotta be the smile you look for in a stranger’s face. Smile and the world smiles back at you! Some people love to frown, but that’s okay. You should smile!

Stay happy in simple ways, okay? Life isn’t that sad, it isn’t that tragic, it’s not tough. Don’t make it like that, okay? We ALL deserve to be happy. YOU, yeah YOU, you DESERVE it. Nothing can deter that fact. NOTHING. No matter what happened, no matter what you did, what they did to you. YOU DESERVE TO BE HAPPY.

Happiness isn’t that hard to find, okay? It really isn’t. That’s just what people say because they’re just miserable and want others to be like that too. Be brave to LOOK for it. You know where it is? Shall I tell you? It’s YOU. You make your own happiness. You cultivate it. You. Happiness is YOU. You’ve forgotten it. I remember it, though. I know how happy you used to be, just by silly things. By NOTHING at all. Everything made you happy. Life got complicated. People came, they went away, some fucked up your life for you, some stayed behind to pick up the pieces. You forgot how to be happy without asking for it. I know. Well, I’m reminding you that it isn’t lost yet to you. You can never lose your happiness. You still have it and you ALWAYS will. You cannot give it away. Nobody can steal it. It can never be over. You just have to be brave enough to cultivate it on your own, okay? AND YOU ARE.

There is too much to be sad about these days, there is TOO much to hate these days. But it’s always been like that, and by the look of the things, it might not get better any time soon. But you know what? When you, or me, or when WE wake up, we’re alive. AND as long as we’re ALIVE, we can change. And if we can change, THINGS can change. AND we can change the way things are.

Just, promise, promise that when you wake up and you try to focus on the sunlight on the curtain, you’ll smile? Please?

Life may be tough, unfair, dull but I know YOU’RE tougher. You’ll fare through. You’re BRIGHTER. I KNOW you are. I’m SURE. It’s not about me not knowing you and what your life is like, all I know is, YOU’RE here, reading this, despite everything you’ve been through, everything you’re GOING through, and you’re here. If you’re reading this, I just want to tell you, in case you haven’t heard it in a long time:

“I’m SO proud of you. It’s  going to be alright. You’ll be alright. Everything will get better again. Slowly, slowly. It WILL. Wake up, darling. It’s a beautiful day. It’s a beautiful day. Just like you. JUST like you. ”

Oshin Ahlawat is a young poet and writer based in New Delhi, India. “I believe people who write are like tornados and cyclones. We wreck a lot of lives; for better or worse. It all depends on the people who read our work. They decide where the damage is going to be; the heart or the mind and whether it’s going to be for the good or for worse. I wish to give them the choice to decide that. I’m just going to focus on doing what I want”, she says. 

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