Sunday night I say my prayers, set my intentions, I feel good and I go to sleep.

Before 8 am this morning, I had 2 unexpected things pop up with a promise to throw me off track.

I say to myself ‘It’ll be fine, I’ll handle it’.

I jump in the shower and as I scrub myself I suddenly remember one of the intentions I had set the night before: ‘I want to strengthen my mind (positively)…’. It dawns on me that those 2 “pop ups” were a part of my “mind strengthening training”. I laugh at the physical representations of it and mentally accept the challenge.

What is the challenge? Don’t lose my shit, maintain a good attitude and alter the way I do and respond to things to further develop my character.

Anyway, I have work to get to and I must be there for 9 am. One of the managers is up my crack and onto me and I’m never one to fall back from a challenge and I like to prove points, so like I said I must be on time.

I leave out and I’m doing okay for time. I arrive at the closest underground station to me and there’s 100’s of people at the top of the escalators. The Jubilee Line has a fault. Now if you know me, you know commuting is one of my least favourite things. I think I vocally complain about it at least once a week so this is not good and like I said I HAVE A POINT TO PROVE (wtf is the universe ignoring me?). We’re all hanging around waiting to be told that service will resume. It doesn’t. Instead they tell us the line has been suspended both ways. Feck.

By this point I am teetering on resorting back to my usual reaction to situations like this. I can feel the urge coming up from my stomach creeping up on me, but I utter no words for fear of undoing my efforts. I won’t go out like that. I plan another route to get to work.

Upon arriving at the alternative route, I walk down the stairs looking towards the platform to see if the train has arrived as it’s due now. I see the train is there, but it hasn’t quite pulled up to the full length of the platform yet. That’s odd. I overhear a bystander tell someone something about the train but I only caught bits of it, so I asked her what she had just said.

‘A person has jumped in front of the train’. What?! Okay, this is too much mental strength training for me in one morning. You mean to tell me a likely dead body is somewhere underneath this very train I am looking at? It deeply saddens me and my eyes well. Whoever they were, was in so much mental turmoil and pain that they couldn’t bear the thought of living another day. If you’ve ever been depressed or suicidal you know just how much of a battle it is.

I attempt to say a prayer for them ‘I hope they have peac…’. I don’t quite finish the sentence or really know what to say. Can a person who took their own life have peace in death? What about the afterlife? Is there really an afterlife? Too much to think about. There goes my morale.

I eventually make it into work 2 hours and 50 minutes after I left my house, for what usually is a 1 hour journey door to door. Time: 10:50 am. Oh, have I mentioned I’m a contractor so every hour counts…fun.

Don’t get me wrong I know some of the above pales in comparison to things others have to deal with, but this is what’s mine.

I share of all of that to say this: Be aware of what you are asking for and what you want.

You usually hear be careful what you ask for, but I think it’s equally important to be aware of it, because whatever you want or ask for, you will be tested by it and if you are unable to recognise it when it comes, you’ll abuse and lose it.

Being aware puts you in a better position to readily succeed at, improve and appreciate the thing that you have asked for. It also helps to manage your expectations. For example, some women want husbands that are rich. Nothing wrong with that right? Except the reality of that might look like him working long hours, travelling the world, being available to his work responsibilities 24/7, missing important dates, forgetting important dates, and so on. Being wealthy usually comes with huge responsibilities and yes the payoff is nice but at what price?

You want to be a world class athlete? That’ll mean changing your diet, knowing every single ingredient in your food and its properties, being disciplined, limiting social outings, training every single day, and the list goes on.

Get my drift?

I wanted to reinforce my mind to be steadily positive and what I have been faced with are things to build more of a resistance to negativity or things not going as planned and because I am aware of this, I can effectively adjust to meet this need. Will I always do right? Um no. But I can always do better.

So, what have you asked for? Is it here? And how are you rising to the occasion?

Xo

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