It was a rainy day, my mood, far from merry as I wait for the train. One foot on the bottom pole and my hands rested on the other as I go through my phone, scrounging for a message that will lift my spirit from the despair in my heart. So I look up and see this man, dressed Shabby, his jeans dropping off of his waist, and the sleeves of his top, too long for his arms, but the sunglasses were cool though.
He approaches people – anyone that he could grab hold of, “any spare change please,” he asks, but they ignore his welfare. Surely he must be tired from using the same phrase over and over again. Then he stands by the bin, searching on top for the cigarettes that have been smoked to the rim. I look vacantly at him, holding on for 5 seconds… My heart skips a beat then back at my phone. How does one indulge in such activity when he knows that there’s no hope in igniting those cigarettes? Maybe I need to be in his head, maybe he has more hope and faith than I do that he actually believes that he can bring these cigarettes back to life. What if there was a way? What if he only knew a way but didn’t have the tools to carry out his work of magic?
The mind’s powerful and so is he, he’s motivating me to think just like him, have faith just like him, in believing that I can achieve whatever I want in life and so should you. I put my phone back in my pocket because it wasn’t doing me any justice but, this guy was, and watching him walk up and down just made me think how strong he is. The energy he had to keep on asking and all I could say to myself was, “Really? All this guy wants is some change and cigarettes?” I’m beginning to think, what’s his purpose? Is it that he had one and scrapped it? Or was he destined to provide help for someone else? Something that we cannot see, that he cannot understand himself. How can life be so bad? Or is it that it’s not that bad to him? And that his mind only comprehends that it’s normal because that’s what he’s use to.
I turn my back towards him and take a deep breath, a thought instantly crosses my mind, “I should be grateful, look at my life, he’s grinning and I’m not, he’s winning…” I turn back, he’s gone. Where did he disappear to? I don’t know but… What if he’s God sent? To turn my frown upside down and appreciate my life, the one that he possibly never got to live, a life he would happen to die for. So I took that as a reminder of the great things I have in my world: family, friends, even associates which he may not have, and smiled at the wonderful atmosphere that life had to offer me.
I guess he was a powerful tool after all and that you should never underestimate the power of another person’s struggle. Perhaps he’s far more resilient than an ordinary everyday individual that he doesn’t see the downside of any situation. Just make sure that you open those eyes whenever you feel that they’re covered by a veil because, one day, you may be blinded by the sight of a great day that feels deficient.
Now that’s what I call inspiring.
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