today's inspiration was my lesson (continuation)

Think of what you could possibly do that is capable of changing your present mood.

I woke up at dawn this morning with the mindset of writing a story about a woman popularly known as Mrs Nkoli. Since I had in mind what I was going to write, I went back to bed. When it was the break of dawn, my mum woke me up with a harsh tone in her voice, thinking it was for our normal morning devotion, she said “ Zita those pots and utensils you guys used to cook make sure you don’t leave for work without cleaning them up” and I was barely awake as at the time. You know how it feels knowing you are waking up with an extra morning duty. When I finally woke I was so angry because I felt I was the only one doing the whole domestic chores in the house. When I know fully well I have an elder sister at home who does nothing except for on Sundays when she cooks.

As we were saying our morning devotion, I wasn’t concentrating, all that was in my head was how I would tell my mum that she wasn’t fair enough in her delegation of duties in the house, and that I and my sister also goes to work and most times she comes back before me but I will still be the one to make dinner for everyone in the house.

 I was pondering over all these even after I had done what my mum instructed me to do. I prepared for work carrying a moody face all through. When I was in the vehicle on my way to work, that was when it dawn on me that I was actually unhappy and I said to myself, “wow I’m not bright this morning and I feel sad from the inside. I felt irritated at everything around me; anybody that talks it seemed to me like they were saying bullshit or I felt like I should tell them to just shut their mouth.

It was then I realized I was also an inspiration to myself, because I was preaching about being happy and staying happy but I was actually doing the opposite that was when the inspiration came to me and I felt I had to change the story from Mrs. Nkoli to Miss Zita.

This is to say no one is perfect except God and all we need is just self-discipline, self-control and self-mastery as Brian Tracy would say so as to achieve total happiness. I thought of what could cheer me up and brighten my day. Two things actually came to my mind, the first was to start working and the second was to make a call, that is to speak to someone who I was such would cheer up at the end of our conversation although, I had to play some little pranks before I could get him to call me.

This brings us to an exercise for today, think of the things you could possibly do, or the person you could possibly be with or talk to as I did that revive your mood when you feeling unhappy or disturbed. Some people listening to music could help them, playing with their kids could also help them, being with their partners could help them, saying a quiet prayer (i.e talking to God could also help) etc. think of what you could do or rather find out the things that interests you that could put a smile on your face again.

Secondly, some of the things that gets us upset are basically trivial issues and most times the other person we are angry at don’t even have us in mind at all, we just get angry and keep causing unnecessary damage to our health. You just have to be happy, because you owe yourself that.

 to be continued

by Zita Anyaeche