The Alarm Clock

I read a Facebook post a few weeks ago and it’s stuck with me for a while now, more than anything else really has. It was written by a 27-year-old woman from Australia who was in the final stages of terminal cancer. She was preparing to die and she wrote a post about how it felt, about what she was reflecting on as a beautiful young woman about to leave everything she’s ever known and enter the afterlife.

While most of what she wrote is redundant of what you’re told in stories and romantic comedies – it was so incredibly powerful to know that it’s all true. That in the end, you can’t take the money you’re slaving for, you don’t give a shit what size your jeans are, you don’t care if you’re broke or  In fact, she was left with money in her bank account and she didn’t know how to spend it – because she was dying. All those times she spent panicking about material things and the opinions of others – none of it mattered anymore. She just wanted to breathe and she would soon lose that ability.

All of those mornings you wake up and immediately sigh, punch the pillow, grunt around because you’re late to work and don’t have time to stop for coffee – you don’t even take a moment to acknowledge that you just woke up. You were just granted another day on earth. I say granted because at that same moment you woke up to a blaring alarm in your ear, another person didn’t.

It’s SO incredibly hard to have gratitude these days but I’m challenging myself to exercise it as much as I humanly can so that every person who is begging to see another day isn’t doing so in vain.

You might be struggling to pay bills, but at least you woke up with your alarm clock today. You might be tired and overworked, but at least you woke up with your alarm clock today. You might be an addict, you might be at an unhealthy weight, you might be broke, you might be in a bad relationship, you might be stressed out, unemployed, sick, stretched to your limits – but at least you woke up with your alarm clock today.

I think we all know our time is limited here but I don’t think we believe it. If we did, we’d live differently.