Happiness Is

Happiness: Forgiving your self for being human.

Sean, this one simple statement on your SAA post changed my life forever.

We have no idea how much power or influence we have when it comes to impacting someone’s life. I know for a fact, that Sean had no idea when he added that simple phrase on his name that he would be changing my life forever. I have spent my whole life hating the person that Ankylosing Spondylitis created. I was not the person that I wanted to be.

I struggled to try to keep Cookie alive while this disease destroyed her. What Ankylosing Spondylitis didn’t destroy my body, my self-hatred destroyed my soul. Then one day when I signed on the SAA to visit with people who understood me. I read that.

HAPPINESS: FORGIVING 

YOUR SELF FOR BEING HUMAN

I didn’t have to be super woman. I didn’t have to be perfect. I didn’t have to be a hero. I didn’t have to be the protector. I didn’t have to be destroyed.

I just had to be forgiving. I find it ironic that I have the ability to forgive people for hurting me but I can’t forgive my self for something I can’t control. I remind my self daily, sometimes hourly. It is all right Cookie you are only human. I have learned from this statement to live my life to the best ability I can at the moment in which I am living.

Today I may be able to walk up the stairs; tomorrow I may not be able to, but that is all right. I am human. I am forgiven.

People are so careful with weapons because of the power they have to change a life, same is true for your words and actions.

So remember that no act of kindness, no matter how small is ever wasted. People will soon forget what you said, people will soon forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment or the smallest act of caring. All of which has the potential to turn a life around. Sean’s simple words did for me.