Sonrisa

You can say that what happens around you doesn’t affect you a bit, but we’re all affected somehow by every experience, every person we interact with, every word we hear and see, every soundbite we watch on TV. We are all affected somehow. Whether the effect is positive or negative, it doesn’t matter. How many people have we run into who changed the course of our lives? Some people beautify the landscapes of our lives, while others ruin it. Then there are those who don’t influence it much. Until they’re gone and we realize how subtle their contributions actually were.
If there’s something I learned in my life is never to get attached. To people, to places, to lifestyles. Don’t get attached, because life can change in a second. And don’t be too picky about making plans because plans are perfect until the time comes for you to execute them.
Sometimes Kid President’s words make sense especially when he says that sometimes you need to give yourself a high-five just for getting out of bed. Go through the motions and focus on making it through the day, from sunrise to sunset, and be grateful to God when you do.
It’s very easy for us to live in our own bubbles, heads hung over our smartphone screens, shutting out the world around us. It’s very easy to imagine that our personal problems are the biggest problems on Earth. Whether to it’s trying to figure out where today’s dinner is going to come from, or whether you have wi-fi coverage where you are; whether it’s a third world problem or a first world problem…it’s very easy to think we’ve got it worse than others.
But everybody’s got problems, everybody’s worried about something, everybody’s got secrets. So don’t go wishing you’re living someone else’s life just because they appear to have no problems. Appearances can be deceiving. It’s like the Swahili saying that crudely translates to “Walls have hidden many secrets”.
You know they say that, “If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.” We realize that maybe our problems are manageable. Maybe our problems are unique to us because we’ve got the tool to handle them. Maybe we’re the only ones who can make turn a difficulty into a triumph.
And finally, take a lesson from the page of that poor, barefoot, five-year-old African boy in the dirty tattered clothes who, even though he doesn’t have much, he’s still got a reason to wear a sonrisa on his face…maybe because as long as the sun rises, he still got a reason to smile.
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P.S. Image used for illustrative purposes only