Sometimes you feel like nothing can stop you; as if you’re riding a cloud, your heart pounding with exhilliration, with excitement, with sheer, unadulterated happiness. You’re proud of every step you take. Everything you do is a reminder of what you can accomplish, how lucky you are, how blessed your existence is.
Life is good. Life is great. Nothing can bring you down because, dammit, you’re invincible! You love the world, you love yourself, you love everything.
You’re lightfooted Hermes, you’re irresistable Aphrodite, you’re beautiful Narcissus, you’re Helen of Troy and you could make cities collapse at your feet. Most of all, you’re Athena and Apollo, intelligence and charisma.
Who would lift a finger against you?
Well. There’s a mirror in the room.
And suddenly there’s that moment when you come off your high. Your stomach tightens with envy, with self-disgust, with inadequecy.
You get goosebumps; you feel like a failure, and then you immediately feel like the most selfish wretch to grace the earth because what are your stupid problems compared to the rest of the world? What significance do YOU, a single person in a population of 7 billion, hold unto the rest of the universe?
The continent?
The country?
Heck, your family?
The cycle continues and you feel yourself in the throes of numbness. You’re exhausted by the self-loathing. You’re too tired to care about your shortcomings so you go early to bed and sleep away the night.
The next day, you forget it all. A new slate. A different disposition. Another sequence of events. Things to dread and things to look forward to.
But you’re not insignificant, NEVER insignificant. In the vast cosmos of space, you are one of 7 billion humans, and really? Against the universe, 7 billion is a miniscule number. There’s stars, planets, asteroids, nebulae, entire symphonies of clockwork galaxies and solar systems that stretch an amount we can’t even begin to comprehend, that continues to grow and evolve and CHANGE-
And yet you’re one of just 7 billon humans in the universe.
If only it was that easy to remember when you need the reminder most.
Neiha Lasharie 