Rejected Article #3 - Underrated Pleasures in Life

It's all too often I turn these pages only to be disheartened by complaint after complaint. Whether it's about the various ways in which the public transport system has failed, or about how Gangnam Style is lyrically flawed; we as people are much too driven by our discontentment that we forget to see the beauty in everyday. The daily commute to work is a prime example of how we are constantly burdened by or avoiding contact with other humans. We put our bags on seats as dividing walls, we wear our earphones as do not disturb signs to the people around us. Our first reaction to a stranger asking for help is to ignore them because we are constantly suspicious. We're losing touch with one another. We're becoming less like humans and more like robots programmed to stare at a screen and seek self-satisfaction before anything else. We're so easy to take, but hesitant to give back.

I used to be okay with being like this too, until one day... it hit me - like being suddenly defibrillated I was struck and brought back to reality. Isn't it funny how the most profound of thoughts can come from the most unexpected of places?

I was having what felt like the worst day ever. My phone had broken, leaving me unable to reach someone to pick me up and when I finally got home I discovered there was a problem with the water system in our neighbourhood causing our home to lose both hot water and all water pressure in our showers for 12 hours. Like an Amish peasant, I found myself collecting cold water from the sink into a bucket and mixing it with boiling water from the kettle. After spending approximately 40 years preparing this makeshift warm shower and "bathing" in what seemed like teaspoons of water barely enough to submerge a small goldfish, I had to ask myself "Is this really my life right now?".

I later drove to McDonald's and ordered myself a meal in hopes to drown my sorrows in discouraged amounts of cholesterol. What I was expecting was a guilty-pleasure snack, but what I found was a sign that maybe there was still hope for my night. I'm one of those pedantic people who makes sure everything is as it should be, so my first instinct when I ordered my 6-pack of nuggets was to count them. 1,2,3,4,5,6.....7? Seven. Seven! They gave me 7 nuggets. I was strangely ecstatic. Most people would tell me this was an accident, a human error which was merely coincidence. I say it was a sign. A message to remind me that you win some, and you lose some. The happiness in my day was restored by the simplicity of a 6-pack of McNuggets. 

So a pay-rise may be overdue, you might be struggling to find time for yourself and you might have to deal with your personal space being invaded once in a while just so someone else can sit down on the train too. But, so what? What about those times you are momentarily happy only to forget it the next minute? When you feel like Cathy Freeman after running to make your train just in time, or when you enter a public toilet cubicle and there ISN'T urine on the seat? Life can still be beautiful if we let it. 

I don't mean to go all Mother Teresa on you, but we really should try to let our trivial problems solve themselves, and learn to appreciate the little things in life, because one day we may look back and realise... they were the big things.