Monday Morning Motivation

Encounter with the alarm clock

Rubbing my eyes, I rolled to the other side of the bed only to see that alarm clock calling me out furiously. It said, "5.45"
and I replied, "Not today."

As I forced myself out of bed to silence the alarm clock which was deliberately placed on the topmost shelf a night before, I realised how false is the concept of easily leaving your bed, early in the morning and with the kind of energy that they show in the movies.

Waking up early on a lazy Monday morning can be safely declared as one of the toughest tasks in this world. Dragging myself through routine activities, soon it was time to leave for work (with an intended delay of 5 minutes, clearly punctuality is not a habit I can boast of). 

In the metro, while switching through social media sites, it was comforting to know that I am not alone when it comes to dread these Monday mornings. There are many others, many of them. 

It was time for lunch and unlike the usual Delhi afternoons, that day had a cool and breezy one. Hence, to have my hurriedly prepared paranthas, I chose to switch from the concrete walled canteen to this small park near our office building. For the corporate elements, it was certainly not the most preferred place to be and hence remained far from the daily chaos. 

I saw a young boy there. 

Standing at the entrance to the park, he had a humble stall to himself strategically placed in the corner for no one to miss. He served tea and had a variety of snacks to go with it. It was not as poetic as I thought it would be to sit alone in that park, so I called him out to join me. He came and sat in front of me on the grass, I pointed towards the empty space next to me on the bench and asked him to sit. 

"Arrey Theek hai Didi. Neeche acha hai.", he said. 

I gave him a paratha and sat next to him on the grass. He was right, that was more comfortable. It was the first time that we were seeing each other and given my poor chatting skills, naturally, I couldn't find much to talk about.  

"Do you sit at this stall regularly?", that was my desperate attempt at breaking the silence. 

"Yes, Didi. I come here every day. My elder brother sits with me too but he has gone to our village for some work, so I am alone for this week." 

I could see the spark of excitement in his brown eyes to have lunch with a new company. With a wheatish complexion and common features, there was nothing much about his looks that I can elaborate upon. However, it was the way he talked which had a natural hint of hurry and child-like enthusiasm that grabbed my attention. 

As I finished my last piece, I could very well feel the comfort of the silence of that place was taking over. I reminded myself of the incredible task that I've performed today by waking up early for work and for which I deserved a nap. But due to the absence of the apt surroundings and also because now, I had a guest, it was better to quit the idea.

"When do you put up this stall?" 

"At 5.45 every morning Didi." 

That knocked each inch of laziness out of my body. This little boy, sitting right next to me, wakes up every morning, earlier than most of us, to set up his stall and sell tea. He told me, it is important for him to start early because only the security guards come to their stall to have tea and that is before the guards start their duty. 

Yes, we are privileged to get whatever we want and whenever we want. Waking up early is a problem to us because we are gifted enough to have choices. When more than half of this world is struggling for facilities, we have a choice between luxuries. We think of going back to sleep because we know that we do not have to sleep on an empty stomach. Our first world problems have blinded us to the point that we conveniently overlook the blessings. We rant about working hard because we have spoilt ourselves from all the comfort we're accustomed to. 

Since when did we turn so ungrateful for the life we got? 

The precious time of this human life that we've got must be utilized for the best before it is too late. If not for the betterment of the society, then for the sake of doing justice to the better opportunities that we've been gifted by the virtue of our birth in the economically sound strata of the society, we must work hard. 

That boy's story was the motivation I needed to get up early every day and work hard. Realize your true potential because this life is not meant to be wasted. Find your own little story of motivation and don't let the opportunities that have been gifted to you go in vain.