Have you ever heard of ‘The Secret’? Seen it, or even read about it, perhaps? The Secret is basically, in its bare form, a motivational or inspirational book, and more recently a movie, which tells us to be grateful for what we have and to see the good things that we experience in life. No matter how hard life may seem at times, just as the English saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining.

I’m sure that there are some days where we will simply wake up feeling agitated, irritated, angry, and so on. It is such a common occurrence that there exists the phrase ‘getting up on the wrong side of bed’ to describe this situation. Even though it is so common, I believe that we should do all that we can to leave this state, as being in a bad mood can be detrimental not only to our health but also to our relationships, studies, or activities. Now, our mind is made to work in such a way that once we start thinking and focusing on something bad that had happened to us, we will continue to bring up more and more bad experiences and then we will feel more and more bitter. Simple things like getting scolded by a teacher, being annoyed by siblings, or even getting advised by our parents are the small things that can start the ball rolling that will lead us to imagine bad things that have not even happened to us yet. When we are in this condition, we will see a glass that is half filled as half empty. What I mean is that, we will start thinking negatively.

To get out of such a state, you need to first consciously control your mind to stop thinking about all those bad memories. Although this will be very hard to do, you need to keep focusing on stopping your mind from staying on the track of negativity and going to the track of positive thinking. Once you can stop thinking negatively, and then start thinking of all the good things. You will probably find that the amount of good things that happen to you is scarce but always remember that we need to start from the basics. Try asking yourself; Am I alive? You will soon realize that you are, and that is a good thing already. Next, you can start asking yourself about how you live. Do I have proper clothes to wear? Do I have enough food to eat? Do I have a fatal disease? You will find out that your life isn’t as bad as a lot of peoples’ lives. Then you can start branching out further and asking yourself questions like did I get to go to school? Do I have friends? You can then ask yourself; what do I want out of today? Normally, once you are already on this track of positive thinking, it will become increasingly easier to think of the next good thing that happened to us.

We need to remember all our enjoyable and life-enriching experiences and most importantly we need to be grateful for all the things that happened to us before. Although we must not mope on the bad incidents, we must not forget about them. We need to make the best of these experiences and learn from them. Our lives can be drastically changed just by being grateful for the little things that happen to us, but you need to focus on the good things everyday, not just once in a blue moon. Every morning, try and take five minutes of your time to think of the things that you can be grateful for, and keep thinking about them, focusing on them. Sooner or later, you will be able to see the glass as half full again, and not half empty. You will be able to see life from another aspect and in a much better light.