Sunday 25 January 2015

Making A Beautiful Comeback

This week, there has been a video floating around on Facebook that I finally got around to watching yesterday.

To summarise, the guy in the video, Josh, lost his dad and some members of his school decided to bully him for missing his father. His story resonated with me. When you lose someone close to you, there is a mountain of emotions that you face. Anger. Hurt. Betrayal. Loss. This is by no means an exhaustive list. But the pain that you face is torture itself. And for Josh, it didn't end there - the bullies decided to take it further. Cowards maybe, ignorant more likely. They (perhaps) had no idea what Josh had been through so could never understand what they were doing to him and putting him through.

Despite the pain and hurt Josh must have been feeling, he went on to triumph. And he triumphed beautifully! Just by doing something kind he did something powerful. It may not seem like much on a daily basis, but the act of kindness that Josh used to tell everyone he was still alive and not invisible moved so many in his school - they may have found it strange to begin with, but grew to look forward to it each day!

Take a moment to watch this video and see his story for yourselves - you'll be glad you did!

http://www.faithit.com/this-quiet-kid-sick-being-nobody-watch-what-did-literally-change-everything/



Erin x
(thereislifeoutthere123@gmail.com)

Saturday 10 January 2015

Happy New Year (And All That Jazz)

So ... It is now 2015! 10 days in ... Do you feel like a whole new person yet??

With another year comes the inevitable 'New Years resolutions'. And aren't they always incredibly unrealistic! How often do we try and convince ourselves that "this is the year" - to lose the extra pound or two and get in shape, eat healthy, find a new hobby or quit our jobs and just start backpacking around the world. In all fairness, sometimes these resolutions stick. But, the majority of the time they just seem to fall short before the end of January (and this is even perhaps too optimistic). We have all made resolutions, myself included, and resolutions will continue to be made by many in the hopes of encouraging and enforcing change. 

However, like I said, they rarely stick. Personally, I feel that just because the year has changed, it is still just another day that we wake up to. The transition between the 31st December and the 1st January holds no magical, mystical explanation. Seriously, it is just like every other day, where the day turns into night, and the night then brings a new day. We put way too many expectations on something that happens 364 times elsewhere in the year. Yet, we don't make resolutions for each of these days. Why? Because these 364 other days are not the beginning of the new year, silly! You can only make resolutions (which are essentially dreams, hopes, goals etc.) when it is the new year, right? WRONG!

We dream. As little children we dream. As we get older, we start setting goals, whether these be for personal reasons or for professional purposes. We do this all the time. We don't need to wait for the 1st January to roll around each year before we allow ourselves to dream and strive for what we want out of our lives. We have every day of every year to do this.

I get it. I understand why we wait until the new year. It makes sense - we think about what we want to accomplish in the coming year. But again, we have all year to do this. Would it not be better, more beneficial for us to have this kind of focus and passion all year round. We don't need to wait to feel that we can accomplish something. We are capable of doing this everyday. Sure - it may not seem like we accomplish much on a day-to-day basis, but we do. Just being able to understand a piece of homework, run that extra mile, not burn dinner is an accomplishment.

It's not that I don't make resolutions - I do - but whenever I do, I just forget about them after a week or two. Plus, they are always about me. And if you are being honest, yours are probably all about you too! Don't we spend too much time focussing on ourselves? If we are going to set resolutions, why don't we make them about other people? That way, maybe they will stand a chance of lasting a little longer than the ones you made for this year have. You will be accountable to someone else other than yourself. Potentially, there could be more pressure and encouragement to fulfil the resolutions. You could make someone happy, instead of feeling like a failure because your resolution was unrealistic and failed all too quickly.

If we all decided to allow ourselves to accomplish things throughout the year instead of waiting for the clock to turn midnight on New Year's Eve; if we all decided to focus more on other people, not just at the beginning of a new year, but throughout the year, think of the good we could do and accomplish . . .



(thereislifeoutthere123@gmail.com)