Just like any other person, Riya finds it hard to get up in the morning. One day, Riya begins her day with feelings of negativity that has an adverse effect on her day, leading to many unfortunate events. She ends up ruining a lot of things due to her pessimistic temperament. Will she get a second chance to fix everything? The story is about starting the day off with positive thoughts, and about being grateful about the opportunities life provides us.

At the start of every day, each of us is given a choice. We can choose to be negative, and dread the day ahead of us. Or, we can be grateful for the life given to us, and the opportunities it provides. The first thirty minutes of our morning are like the golden half-hour of our day. Surprisingly, our mindset during this time acts as a base to our mood and thoughts throughout the day. The story makes an attempt to teach us that we should think of each day as a new opportunity to live our life to the fullest!

 

Just like any other person, Riya finds it hard to get up in the morning. One day, Riya begins her day with feelings of negativity that has an adverse effect on her day, leading to many unfortunate events. She ends up ruining a lot of things due to her pessimistic temperament. Will she get a second chance to fix everything? The story is about starting the day off with positive thoughts, and about being grateful about the opportunities life provides us.

The alarm blared into the silence of the morning, indicating that it was time to get up. The clock showed the time and date as 6:00 am, the sixth of February. Taking immense efforts to open her eyes, Riya felt for the clock on the table, and on finding it, slammed her hand on the snooze button. In the process of doing so, she accidently knocked down a small ceramic teddy bear placed on her side table. Her sister’s gift to her, she valued it dearly. A hundred pieces of terracotta lay scattered on the floor. Grumbling at the damage done, Riya thought to herself, “I’ll deal with it when I get up. A horrible start to another boring day.”

In what seemed like a moment’s passing, the alarm started ringing again. After a few more instances of hitting the snooze button, Riya finally got up. Grumbling to herself, Riya forced herself to sit up straight. “Alarms should be banned,” She thought to herself. With that thought, she cleaned up the mess and unwillingly got ready to go to work.

   As Riya was getting into her car, she looked up at the livid sky. Dark gray clouds seemed to have suddenly appeared over the city, and it seemed as if the sun refused to shine that day.

It normally took her around 45 minutes to go to work. Yet on this fateful day, 30 minutes had passed and Riya had not even gotten half-way to the place. To add to her woes, she was forced to navigate through a jam-packed road. “Perfect! Just what I needed. I’m already late for work, and now this traffic! What a great start to my day,” Riya sarcastically thought to herself. She honked at the car in front of hers to urge it to go faster, but to no avail. Feeling exasperated, she gave up, and had no choice but to go along at a sluggish speed.

At one point along the road, a pitiable vagrant, lame in one leg, limped towards Riya’s car. He had tattered clothes, and from his emaciated demeanour, one could guess that he hadn’t eaten properly in days. He feebly knocked on the window of Riya’s car, and extended his hand, begging for alms. This irritated Riya immensely, who then rolled down the window, and shouted at the beggar, “Go away! I don’t have anything to give you.” This was a clear lie, as Riya had quite a lot of money in her purse. With tears in his eyes, the disappointed man limped towards the car behind hers.

When she finally reached her destination, Riya couldn’t find a parking spot for a long time. She was harshly reprimanded by her boss for coming late, and was later assigned a large amount of work to do. On the plus side, a colleague of hers got her a coffee in a disposable cup. Instead of thanking him, after taking a sip, Riya complained about the lack of sugar in it. Being naturally clumsy, she knocked down the cup on the important documents she was working on. To her horror, the situation escalated to such an extent that Riya was fired from the job.

When Riya got home from work later that day, she felt so disheartened and miserable that she decided to skip dinner. She changed hastily and went to bed early. Lying in bed, she thought to herself, “Life is so unfair! I wish I could go through today’s day all over again.” That night, Riya cried herself to sleep.

“Beep! Beep! Beep!” The alarm sounded loud and clear. Riya slowly opened her eyes and glanced at the clock on her side table. 6:00 am, the sixth of February, the clock displayed. Next to the clock was placed a small ceramic teddy bear Feeling incredulous, Riya rubbed her eyes and looked at it again.

“Is this really happening?” Riya thought, and pinched herself. “Ouch! So I’m not dreaming after all!”

Riya jumped out of bed feeling a mixture of ecstasy and nervousness. With a sudden surge of energy, she got ready quickly. Humming to herself, Riya made herself a bread butter sandwich and washed it down with orange juice, her quotidian meal at this time of the day. She even had time to read the newspaper.

Stepping out of her home, she looked up to find that the sun was shining brightly. “I’m going to make this the best day of my life!” She thought to herself. With a huge smile on her face, she got into her car to travel to work. She checked her watch, and to her delight, realized that she had more than an hour to get to work. At a point along the way, Riya had to stop at a red signal. A homeless man, who looked miserable, limped towards her car. To her amazement, it was the same man that had approached her the previous day.

Even before the man could plead for money, Riya rolled down her car’s window, and offered the man a 100-rupee note.

The man couldn’t believe his eyes! He would finally have enough money to eat a proper meal. He again had tears in his eyes, but this time, accompanied by a smile.

Feeling good about herself, Riya continued onwards. On reaching her workplace, she had no problem finding a parking spot. Riya was still assigned a huge task, but completed it assiduously and reported to her boss. Just when Riya thought her day couldn’t get any better, the boss offered her a promotion! As Riya sat at her desk, elated, the same colleague that had offered her the black coffee the previous day approached her with it again. Riya accepted the coffee and took a sip. To her dismay, the coffee still lacked sugar. Instead of complaining as she had done before, Riya said to her colleague, “You know what? I’m going to have sugar-free black coffee today. Too much sugar isn’t good for the health anyway.”

At that moment, Riya thought to herself, “Everyone is given one life. It’s up to us to make every day wonderful!”

At the start of every day, each of us is given a choice. We can choose to be negative, and dread the day ahead of us. Or, we can be grateful for the life given to us, and the opportunities it provides. The first thirty minutes of our morning are like the golden half-hour of our day. Surprisingly, our mindset during this time acts as a base to our mood and thoughts throughout the day. We should think of each day as a new opportunity to live our life to the fullest!