Irina woke up. Early. Or late — it no longer mattered. Her body was here, but her soul was somewhere far away. Everything was as usual: a heavy emptiness inside. Darkness in her mind. Tasks, duties, but it all felt like it wasn’t her life. Just day after day — and no strength to change anything. No reason, no one to do it for.
Then there was Olivia. A colleague she had worked with for several years. Olivia was quiet, unlike the others. She didn’t join conversations but was always nearby. Not immediately, but she noticed something was wrong. Irina thought no one saw it. But Olivia approached her in the hallway, looked into her eyes, and asked:
— How are you?
— Fine.
A lie, as always. But her colleague didn’t believe her.
— Have you tried developing positive thinking? — she asked with a slight smile.
Irina didn’t know how to answer. Positive thinking? That phrase cut through her. Olivia spoke as if it were simple. But how could one be positive when struggling to breathe? When every day felt like a battle with oneself?
— Are you seriously telling me this now? I don’t believe it, — Irina replied. Inside, she felt anger and hurt. How could anyone suggest something like that to her?
Her colleague just nodded and continued:
— Positive thinking isn’t about ignoring pain. It’s about holding the light inside, even when it’s dark around you.
Irina couldn’t understand how that was possible. It felt like trying to survive in a void when all her strength was gone.
Time passed. Irina didn’t want to, but she thought more and more about Olivia’s words. Not immediately. But one day, sitting in a room, she noticed warm light filtering through the window. A small spark amid endless fog. An inner voice said, “You can see it.” But what did that mean? Positivity? Was it real?
More time passed. She kept searching for that light — first with skepticism, then with a flicker of hope. A glance at the morning rain. The warmth of coffee. Faces she knew, faces that weren’t strangers. Slowly, too slowly, Irina started to see it — how those little things, the ones she had ignored for so long, began to ease something deep inside. It wasn’t magic, no. It was a choice — a messy, imperfect choice — to look for light, even when the world felt like it was drowning in darkness.
Olivia had once said to her:
— You can’t light a lamp in someone else’s house if your flame is out.
It clicked for Irina. She didn’t need to change everything overnight. What mattered was finding that faint glow inside her, protecting it. No matter how dark it got around her, she just had to hold on to that small light she could carry within.
She started developing positive thinking. Not for some fleeting joy, no. It wasn’t about happiness. It was about survival. It was about not getting swallowed whole. And though the questions still clung to her like shadows, she began to see the world differently. A crack in the wall. She understood now. Positive thinking wasn’t magic. It wasn’t a spell you cast to make everything sparkle. It was a choice — damn hard, but it was hers to make. A choice that, somehow, let her breathe. Even when everything around her seemed like an endless void.