Get Up

I often get people writing these soul-touching, mind-bending, tear-jerking, heart-rending emails on my inbox from time to time. Extremely sensitive people. Many of whom I don't even know. Have never met. People from all over - from 15 years old to 50 years old. People telling me about their lives. Sharing their fears and kryptonites.

How someone got cheated. How another's confidence is in the pits. How someone had a life full of abuse. How another's heart is broken to bits.

Sometimes I don't know what to do with these emails. What should I tell someone I don't know, about a situation I've never been in? How do I pull someone up from a bunker of self-doubts and sorrows when I grapple and struggle to wade off my own?

I am no counselor. A listener. A friend. A fellow sufferer. Yes. But I don't have formulas to a perfect life. I wish for nothing but the best for you. But I can't guarantee I have magic fixes.

Truth is, more often than not, we are our own obstacles.

So if you're reading this all I want to say is this.

Appreciate yourself. Love yourself. Appreciate when you fail. Appreciate when you pick yourself up and try again and fail again. Appreciate when you go blank in an exam hall. Appreciate when you get rejected at an interview. Appreciate when you slip on a banana peel and fall flat on your nose. Appreciate when you drop sauce on a crisp white shirt and bite your tongue.

Appreciate when you forget to switch off the fan when you leave the room, for the 551st time. Appreciate when you burn your cake. Appreciate you bang your car. Remember that everything that goes wrong in life, comes with a salvation. God always gives you one right for every wrong. Sooner or later. We don't realise it instantly. But we realise it just in time.

So appreciate yourself. Love yourself. They will tell you that it's easy. But the truth is, it's perhaps the most difficult thing to do in the world. Because we spend all our lives cursing, belittling, doubting and comparing ourselves. With all the rest of the world. Remember that this life is not a competition.

It's not a beauty pageant or award function, merit list or train junction. It's a gift God gave you. For free. So take it. Keep it. And spend it well. The day you stop thinking of this world as a race course, your run will become a lot simpler. The key is always to try and become a little bit better and a little bit stronger than who you were yesterday.

No one can grow you up better than yourself. Not your parents. Not your teachers. Not even God.