What gets you out of the bed in the morning?
A question when asked, for a split second most people go blank. Some indeed think how do I answer that? Others never even thought about it. Even though this is something we do every day without thinking about why. Short answer, that’s how the world works, its part of the normal cycle we all pass through. But it’s not just that, for me, it’s a profound experience which occurred after I went through two major breakdowns in my life.
Four years ago an incident took place wherein the morning my body stopped working. It happened as soon as I woke up. Was doing my business in the restroom when one of my arms fell and could not move it. Came out of the bathroom and the other arm went dead. I became confused and sat on the couch. My wife entered the room asking what’s wrong and as soon as she said that, my whole body stopped moving including my eyes. I slurred that “Something is not right”. I was at my father’s place who is a doctor by profession, he came and with the help of my brothers picked me up to take me to the hospital. At that moment my thoughts were, my life is over, I am paralyzed. Tears were coming down my eyes, screams inside me constantly saying it’s not the time, I had so many plans so much to do. Yet I could not speak or express.
I regained the movement after some time but was diagnosed with depression. When I came out of the hospital, a week passed by and I went through another setback. I was dropping my spouse off at the school where she used to teach and out of nowhere a car came speeding and hit ours. I remember little afterward, a small crowd gathered around our car and some of them were trying to open the jammed doors to get us out. We were saved by inches somehow from the clutches of death, though both of us went to a hospital to be treated for our injuries.
These two incidents got me thinking. Thinking about life and its fragility. Anything can happen anytime, our control on ourselves and how our life unravels is so little. Yet we plan for months, years even decades not knowing what’ll happen tomorrow. I kept reflecting about it for weeks and had a realization I want to share with everyone.
What I realized is that each second and each minute in this world is a blessing, we plan so much for the future, yet we forget about the present. We have stopped living in the moment. So if you ask me what gets me out…. my family, my colleagues, my friends, people I interact with and my surroundings, they all get me up in the morning because I am alive and there is something new to be explored, learned, observed and only getting out of the bed will let me experience it.
Cherish your time on this planet, we are not here forever. Don’t wait for something to happen because it already has happened, it’s called life….Live it!
Ghazanfar is Country Head Sales at Careem (an Uber company) and co-founded AutoSahulat and was an Entrepreneur in residence at Antler. He also founded GuzPro a digital media enterprise that incorporates different online platforms to share inside-out strategies and motivational content. Mentoring and learning are what he likes the best.
Email — ghazanfar.iqbal@gmail.com
Twitter — https://twitter.com/GhazanfarIqbal
