It’s so easy to be grateful when everything‘s okay. When it’s all sunshine and butterflies. When we’re content with what we have and what happens around.

Two weeks before the accident, I started a gratitude challenge on my Instagram Stories, where I decided to mention one thing I’m grateful for every day. It used to come quiet easy. Every night, I’d realize I have a long list of things I feel good about, and I’d try to choose one from among them.

Exactly 10 days before the accident, I specifically mentioned I was grateful for not having been involved in car accidents, because I used to see so many of them on the road at that time. 10 days later, it all happened to me. Exactly like I would‘ve never expected.

It started getting hard then. It started getting really hard to continue on with the gratitude challenge. Every night, I‘d lie there, stare at the ceiling, and squeeze my mind so hard for just one thing to come out. I‘d go over the details of the day, and try to find something here or there that can work.

It wasn’t that I became bitter or ungrateful. It’s just that, when one major thing goes wrong, it makes you unable to focus on anything else other than it. And only it. There can be plenty of blessings crossing your way, and your head would only choose to turn towards the absence of one.

And so it’s exactly when everything starts going wrong, that we need to hold onto that sense of gratitude more than ever. Because resentment can take us to the darkest of places. Entitlement can distort our vision and blind our hearts. Discontentment can end up taking our eyes off what really matters. But gratitude; it kind of helps slowly put things back in place.

I don’t think I’ve reached a level of being ‘grateful’ for the accident in and of itself. But right now, I know I’m grateful for what came out of it. The realizations. The connections. The words. The feelings. The tears. The shifts in perspectives. Everything. I’m truly grateful. And I’ll need to continue reminding myself of that for some time. Alhamdulillah. : )