497 
This day can’t get any worse, but it is just 9 am, he thought to himself as he reversed the car out of the driveway and accelerated down the road.
His head was splitting after the early morning fight with his wife over the credit card bill. Add to it, the pressure of an extremely important presentation he had at office. I hate this day, I hate my life, he said out aloud before stepping on the brakes at the red light.
As he sat there cribbing, something outside caught his gaze. Sitting on the sidewalk was an old woman with no legs. He hated beggars because he didn’t believe in bad circumstances, he believed in hard work. But this sight made him uneasy. The woman was frail and handicapped–she couldn’t work even if she wanted to. To make it worse, it looked like she hadn’t eaten in days.
Moved by her plight, he got out of the car and walked up to her. He handed her the sandwich that he had packed for lunch and was about to turn back when the old woman tapped him on the legs. He grew uncomfortable, he was in no mood to be embarrassed. He contemplated if he should just walk away.
Reluctantly, he turned. The woman was smiling and holding one half of the sandwich. She said, “You look hungry son. Let’s share.”
The light turned green, back on the road he realised his headache was gone. He saw his face in the rear view mirror–he was grinning from ear to ear. It was 9:30 am and the day had turned around.
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Mary Chelladurai
October 14, 2017 at 12:10 pmThis is a well-meaning story but I would like to take this a little forward………..All of us have a choice to get upset or not. Most of the time we loose control of our emotions …. mostly because we are self immersed with Me, myself and my ego,this is the cruz of our existence, We declare that we have a right to our feelings, If the feelings are good and positive then we have every right to be happy and make our environment happy but can we allow to thrust our ill-feelings on someone else. Have we the right to influence the feelings of the others for the worst. Let us introspect ourselves … are we looking for what we want all the time and the right to get what we want, here, i mean the response to our words and feelings , we expect tailor made response to our moods and our ego. We can get easliy ruffled if anyone negates our moods or our behavior. All this means, we have to season our thoughts and emotions and get control over our inner most self. We all attribute our anger to someone else’s action, never once would we like to think what we did to make the other person react in a negative way. We are all concerned about our own feelings and want the world to accept us with all our misgivings, but we want everyone to change to make us happy, for we are self-seeking and selfish and give priority to our own happiness.. To make us comfortable and happy the world has to change but we will remain the waywe are with our ego, anger and a mind filled with jealously and hatred,. as we have a right to be what we are. For a moment let us reflect and speak to our conscience and seek the answer. We have to give to get, if we give love and happiness to others this will be reciprocated. Let us not wait for others to make us happy, let us begin to make others happy. The story of this poor women and her concern for this young angry man, gives enough evidence to prove that our talk, our smile , our concern can touch lives and make this world a beautiful place for each of us. Let me end with this words of Abraham Lincoln “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be happiness” is within us, let us discover ourselves and make happiness our path of life. Mary Chelladurai