Accepting Help

Help is not something that comes often knocking on your door asking if he could come in. That said, help comes in different forms and it is up to us to acknowledge its presence. Put proudness aside and open your mind.

I decided to start with me. I wanted to help myself. When I realised I had to change, I put in all my effort into seeing things in a different way. It wasn't easy, I have to admit. To find something to like in a job I hated, was definitely not a walk in the park. But common sense reminded me that there's always two sides to a coin. Changing my view was the first help I welcomed in this process.

Although I was not enjoying what I did, I knew I was good at it and I got along well with the people on my team. So, instead of focusing my energy on how much I detested my job, I decided to focus on how I enjoyed fixing things and the praises that followed. Every morning when I woke up, I told myself that 'Today is going to be an excellent day'. By doing this, I found that getting up in the mornings for yet another day at work gave me something to look forward to. I started feeling better. Even if it wasn't exactly a perfect day, at night, i'd go to bed feeling that it was a good enough day for me, because lets face it- everyday is different. But as mentioned before, it is us who decides if it's a bad day or a good day. I choose the latter.

Sometimes, help comes in the least expected ways. For me, it was through my housemate. My housemate was someone who loved reading self improvement books. She had a whole stack of them in my room. When I moved in, she was supposed to move the book shelf over to her room, but because I didn't have much stuff, and there was extra space on the book shelf, I told her she could just leave it there.

For the initial three months or so that I lived there, I would scheme through the books she had and just think to myself to be an accomplished person and those self improvement books were of no use to me. I suppose, as a person who was so full of herself, I judged people who read self improvement books. I use to think that they felt so little of themselves that they turned to books to inspire them. Little did I know, I was perhaps the smallest person in the world to have stereotyped them as such. Even writing this, I feel ashamed of the me two years ago (boy, am I happy that it was in the past- I feel like i've grown!).

After that fateful day when I teared up in a bus, I decided to take action. I decided to give it a go at reading one of those books that had began collecting dust. And of course, the first book I grabbed was the famous 'The Power of Now' by Eckhart Tolle. I can't stress enough at how this books is a life changer. That book changed my whole perspective on self improvement books and without realising it, I started developing a sense of respect towards all who read to improve themselves.

The thing with self improvement books is- it makes you read the simple facts of life that you already perhaps know in black and white and reminds you to apply it in your day to day life. It is one thing to know that you have to stay positive, it is another to actually take it within you and to see the positive side in everything you do.

Until today, I am so glad that I opened my mind and reached out for help in the form of the self improvement books. I started talking to my housemate about life and what it has to offer and her piece of advice which I am glad to share with everyone today is simply to stay strong and positive. No surprise there. Thank you for that.

Another point to note- help yourself and the whole world will also start lending a helping hand. Somehow or another. You have just got to believe it.