Inspiration that is right in front of you

I have always been a pessimist. One of the ideas that has always been in my mind is that I don’t have the power to change the world around me or to change my life. Have you ever felt like dramatic changes in yourself or in your life are unreal? That significant changes can be in anyone’s life but not in yours?

Even after I had moved countries and had flown thousands of kilometres away from everything and everyone I know, I was still not satisfied with my abilities to influence my life.

My dad has always been my role model – from the earliest age when I wished I wore glasses and was the smartest person in the world. And for the most of the time that I know him he has been obese. I remember the difficulties that our family faced to shop for his clothes because, for some reason, XXL size is rare.

Another flow that I didn’t want to copy was smoking. He could easily smoke a pack a day and couldn’t do without it.

All of a sudden, in December 2015 my dad decided: “New Year-New Life”. He decided to quit smoking and to lose weight. And he did it.

He started going to the gym every day and from January 2016 he has never taken a cigarette in his mouth. At first it was difficult to believe that twenty years of a lethal addiction and complete absence of any physical activity can be erased and that life of an adult man can start from a new page.

After just 4 months, when I came back home for my Easter holidays, it was a shock.

From XXL and sometimes even XXXL my dad had to switch his size to M. Instead of going to the balcony every half an hour he went to the gym every single day. My brain couldn’t process it- every time he came home from work my eyes just couldn’t adjust to what they saw. I had to forget that for the last twenty years my dad was big soft pillow and that he is now a healthy man looking younger than his age so that some people believe that I am his wife, not daughter.

This has taught me something. You have the power to change yourself and the world around you and to shape anything you want. Every little effort of every day that probably nobody even you pays attention to adds up and becomes the dramatic change that everyone admires and that makes everyone think:

I wish that was the story of my life, I wish I could do that