Multiple sclerosis: The power of positive thought

The first thing I did was book an appointment with my neurologist, something I had failed to do for the past seven months, despite repeated reminders from his office. Then, because I had made this grand decision to change things and I had no idea what to do next, I decided to make a list. I wrote down every ambition that I had, however small, and as I looked at it I realised that I had managed to forget the very thing my grandfather spent so long trying to drum into my arrogant teenage head years before.

So I did what every self-respecting twenty-something does when they realise they need to change things and don’t know how to start – I called my mum. And she did exactly what I knew she would and told me to come home.

From that moment, everything changed. It began with the material things – getting my finances in order, getting a steady job – the basics needed to put my life back on the straight and narrow. But that was just the surface. My outlook on the little things in life totally changed. Suddenly all those email poems that I had dismissed as ‘sentimental rubbish’ seemed to make sense.

I cleared my life of all the excess baggage – those friendships into which I had put all the effort and received nothing in return; the projects I had started half-heartedly but was never going to finish. Instead I started to focus on what was really important to me.