“Cynicism, I have found, is a shortcut to intelligence. Or at least the appearance of it. We bitch and moan and groan like we’re trying to pass a stone. The world is a terrible place, and the people in it more so. Movies are bad, politics is depressing, can’t watch a cricket match because it maybe fixed. A constant drone of negativity is the background music to our lives.”

Aisha Chaudhary had more to be gloomy about than most of us. She had to look at the world and see all the things she couldn’t do. The simplest of things, like breathing without pain. But she kept trying to be happy. In My Little Epiphanies, she shows us the way.

“If emotions are bags, I’ve gone so far through the sadness bag, that I ripped a hole at the bottom of it.”

“What is living if I can’t breathe?”

Aisha was not without anger or sadness or frustration. She just chose not to use these as a crutch. She gets pissed at the world, and then she tries to see the other side. Like what she had, not what she didn’t. She had a loving family, and friends. She could write and draw and paint. And she had her dogs, who could make most things bearable.

“They are watching me like I am some TV show”

“Being depressed just means that I am under repair”

Most of all, My Little Epiphanies is deeply honest. Aisha didn’t try to make herself look like a saint. She just showed us what she was thinking. And she has managed to leave behind a cheat-code for life.

Aisha was born with Severe Combined Immune Deficiency (SCID). She had a bone marrow transplant when she was 6 months old. A few years later, she was diagnosed with Pulmonary Fibrosis. Her lungs were hardening, making it difficult for her to breathe. Aisha saw the final version of her book just hours before she passed away.

Watch her final interview here: http://goo.gl/nMqd5U