The Habit That Saved Me

I was drowning, and nobody could see it.

On the outside, I looked fine. I showed up to work. I smiled at the right moments. I responded to texts with the appropriate emojis. But inside, I was barely hanging on.

It started slowly—the kind of slow that tricks you into thinking you're still okay. First, I stopped exercising. Then I started ordering takeout every night because cooking felt impossible. Sleep became either too much or not enough. My apartment turned into a mess I couldn't face.

The worst part? I didn't know how to ask for help. How do you explain to someone that you're drowning in your own life when there's no obvious crisis? No tragedy. No dramatic event. Just a slow, suffocating fade into numbness.

Then came the Thursday morning I couldn't get out of bed.

Not because I was physically sick. But because the weight of existing felt heavier than I could lift. I called in sick to work, pulled the covers over my head, and cried until I had nothing left.

That's when my phone buzzed. A text from my friend Elena: "Write down three things you're grateful for today. Just three. I'm doing it too."

I almost ignored it. Gratitude felt insulting when I could barely breathe. But Elena had been through her own darkness, and something in her message made me pause.

So I grabbed my phone and typed: "My bed is warm. The sun is shining through my window. Elena cares about me."

Three small things. Nothing profound. Nothing life-changing.

Except it was.

The Beginning of Everything

The next morning, Elena texted again: "Three things. Go."

This time, I noticed I was looking for them. "Coffee tastes good. My neighbor's cat sat on my windowsill. I took a shower."

Day three. Day four. Day five.

Every morning, Elena would text. Every morning, I'd respond with three things. Some days they were beautiful. Some days they were pathetically small. But I showed up for it.

Something started shifting around week two. I began noticing things throughout the day, storing them in my mind like treasures. "That can be one of my three things tomorrow," I'd think when a song I loved came on the radio or when a stranger held the door for me.

My brain, which had spent months only seeing what was wrong, was slowly learning to notice what was right.

The Transformation I Didn't See Coming

By week four, I wasn't just listing things. I was feeling them.

"The way morning light hits my kitchen counter" wasn't just words. It was a moment I'd actually stopped to appreciate. "My coworker made me laugh today" wasn't just an observation. It was a connection I'd been present for instead of sleepwalking through.

The habit didn't fix everything. I still had hard days. But now I had an anchor. A small, daily practice that reminded me there was still good in the world, even when I couldn't feel it.

Three months in, I realized I was cooking again. Not because I forced myself, but because I'd written "The smell of garlic cooking" as one of my three things and actually wanted to experience it again.

I was taking walks. Calling friends back. Cleaning my apartment one corner at a time. Small actions that felt impossible before were becoming possible again.

What I Know Now

A year later, I still write my three things every morning. Not because I'm still drowning, but because this habit taught me something profound: transformation doesn't require dramatic gestures. It requires small, consistent acts of noticing the light.

On my darkest days, when getting out of bed felt impossible, those three things were all I could manage. And somehow, they were enough. They kept me tethered to the world when I wanted to disappear from it.

The habit saved me not by solving all my problems, but by teaching me to look for evidence that life was still worth living. And once I started looking, I found it everywhere.

If you're in that dark place right now—where existing feels too heavy and nothing makes sense—I want you to know something. You don't need to fix everything today. You don't need a complete transformation or a perfect solution.

You just need three things.

Three small observations. Three tiny pieces of light. Three reasons to show up again tomorrow.

Start there. Write them down. Notice them. Let them accumulate like pennies in a jar until one day you look up and realize you're not just surviving anymore.

You're living again.

And it all started with three small things that reminded you the world still had beauty in it, even when you couldn't see it clearly.

Your three things are waiting. Go find them.

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Thank you for reading...

Regards: Fazal Hadi