First Saturday, Not In Hostel

 

It's day 361 of documenting 2025.

4 days to 2026!

Is it me, or is today feeling nothing like a Saturday?

Maybe it's because my phone is mostly off, and there's no sense of time over here.

Because how did one week just pass by? 

Well, it's Saturday.

And quite different from a Saturday at the hostel. It wasn't as sunny, but twas definitely breezy. So breezy that I took a nap out on the veranda.

Today, I woke up with severe tummy trouble...stomach growling and all. Probably because of the soft drink I took after dinner or the snacks I took before then.

(I don't listen, do I? 😒)

I vomited all I ate last night, at the same time I was stooling.

Is this diarrhea?

Maybe not.

You know why I say so?

Because I felt better afterwards.

Probably a stomach bug....and I haven't taken any drugs for it yet.

The thing is, I haven't told my aunt what's going on with me yet.

I will let her know...eventually.

(More like when I can't handle it myself anymore...😐)

That aside, I was able to finish up my chores for the morning....still feeling relieved.

I also drank warm water several times, because I felt like ordinary water wouldn't do. I was actually right.

For breakfast, we had to cook beans and yam. After cooking, I took enough food but not too much.

(This condition be working on my self-control towards food 😅)

As I ate, I watched to see if my stomach would react. It didn't.

Even after eating.

My aunt, who went out before we started cooking, came back with some snacks and a local delicacy we call okpa.

I shared the snacks and didn't take any...making up my mind to not take anything sweet.

I took the okpa instead.

When it was lunch time, I ate more beans and yam. Later on, I ate groundnuts and a little bit of fried chin-chin.

That's basically all I ate today.

Since morning, I've only gone to the restroom once.

And my stomach is still growling, but not as much.

I didn't go anywhere today....just ate, read, cooked and lived.

One of those days....

Alright, let's see if today's highlights are going to be more interesting than how my day went.

365 Days With Self-discipline

📌 On Smiling 

"If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. 

If we really know how to live, what better way to start the day than with a smile? 

Our smile affirms our awareness and determination to live in peace and joy. 

The source of a true smile is an awakened mind."

Quote by Thich Nhat Hanh

Smiling is one of the easiest, and one of the hardest things to do. It’s natural to smile when you’re happy and feel good, and almost impossible when you’re in pain or feeling unwell.

With increased self-control, your ability to do things in spite of what you feel like doing increases. Smiling can be an excellent exercise in this practice.

I don’t want to downplay the negative things that may be happening in your or anyone else’s life. 

However, the truth is that we often resort to scowling, crying, worrying, and radiating negativity when we experience negative emotions, just because this state is easier to access than the positive one.

When you think about it logically, it makes no sense to further ruin your mood after experiencing something negative. 

If you have a cold, you don’t go out naked in the middle of the winter to catch pneumonia, too. 

Yet, that’s pretty much what we’re doing anytime we decide to humor negative emotions instead of smiling despite them, or at least trying to lift our spirits a little.

Obviously, it’s easy to say that.

Some negative events are such that they can destroy a person from the inside out, and telling them to smile would be ridiculous. Apply this advice primarily to the small everyday struggles you encounter, where your negative reaction isn’t necessary.

For the next week, try to handle every difficulty with a smile on your face. It doesn’t matter if your smile isn’t entirely genuine. 

The point is to make an effort in overcoming your default reaction of feeling negative and replace it with a more positive attitude.

Even if you fail to maintain a better mood for more than a couple of minutes, the exercise in itself will help you better control your impulses and might even lift your spirits slightly. 

And if you repeat it often enough, your brain’s pathways will change and make you more capable of feeling positive, even when bad things happen; and that’s not a bad ability to have, is it?

It's definitely not a bad ability to have 😌

Smiling despite the difficulties is something I don't do often, but I'm going to learn. For me, I smile when I think beautiful, happy thoughts or memories.

I didn't really smile much today, probably because of how dull the day was....but I saw today's highlights and decided to smile. Because, why not? ☺️

So, let me talk about a particular coursemate of mine.

Let's call him Os.

You know what he calls himself on WhatsApp?

"It's a mistake if I smile".

That's it!

First thought is, this guy doesn't smile much. And I decided to chat him up, and then discovered that his outlook on life is pretty gloomy.

He has less than a few friends and believes in staying alone.

I engaged him in several chats, encouraging him to open himself up and draw closer to God.

Turns out, he's a pretty interesting guy who's still stuck in the past.

According to him, certain experiences have prevented him from taking certain actions. In my opinion, he's allowing his past to hold him back.

I'll keep encouraging him.

I'll keep engaging him in chats and I definitely hope to meet him in person for a conversation.

Someone like Os has a lot of potential, if only he would leave his past behind 😌

There will be more tales....and I'll probably talk about all my coursemates in a special post.

My thoughts about them, and how relating with them has been so far.

I may be wrong, I may be right...but it's just the early perceptions I want to capture.

In one of the upcoming posts ✍️

That would be all for today's post.

Thanks for reading 🎀

It wasn't as long, because today was one of those days...coupled with the fact that I didn't go online today because of the light issue. I hope it gets better.

See you in the next post 💜