As a part of our Social Involvement Program in college, we were supposed to work with NGO’s for about 75 hours in one semester. On the first day of work, me and my friend we entered the shelter home with little nervousness. Our supervisor had given us a list of rooms to visit. We started with 109 as suggested by our supervisor. It was the room of Joice aunty.
We knocked on her door, within few seconds she opened it. She gave us a friendly smile, well they were familiar with the social involvement program. She had short grey hair that she tied up in a tiny pony tail. She had a rusty complexion and a pair of sparkling eyes. She talked to us in a very comforting way and in that first visit only we were amazed with her spellbinding personality.
Next few months we visited other rooms as well, but made it a habit to always start with room 109. We used to talk about various topics and I must mention here she had an amazing communication skills. Any talk with her was always intriguing. She would give us small treats; bread, chips, orange juice, cake, etc. every time we visited her.
She always used to keep herself busy by indulging in little things. From her talks it was clear that she had always been a “people’s person”, A party planner; there was this one time we organized a little function for the people staying there and she helped us a lot in planning activities. She was very creative indeed. For her to stay in the shelter in my opinion could be little isolating. But she never let anyone see that side of hers; being around her pleasant personality we would often forget our worries.
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One lesson that Joice aunty ‘s personality and her life has taught me that I would never forget is, you can be happy wherever you are; all you have to do is keep yourself away from all the negativity, indulge yourself in little things that keeps you content and love yourself.
I being the one with the “over thinking” habit; had become whiny and didn’t realize I was living with all the negativity inside me. Spending time with elderly in the shelter house, I realized everyone has a story. Everyone suffers in their life; everyone goes through the hard times; but very few like Joice aunty decide to face hard times with winning smile. It is very easy to give yourself in the captivity of the negativity and lose hope. But why not keep up with the fight with calm, focused mind?
Make our personality so pleasant that no one would ever guess the hard time we are going through.
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