Journey of life

Life can be a very challenging ride at times, bumpy, quirky, jerks the car back and forth, but tends to get smoother when the road gets leveled. Despite these alternating textures, the road still goes on, and keeps following the path where the sun meets the earth. 

We call these ebbs and flows as phases of life. Different phases where our patience gets tested in the extreme ways possible and then everything untangles itself, but only if we allow it to. Realizations occur. Everything is put in perspective. Clouds break open. But this is followed by a storm through which we ought to drag ourselves on the other side. 

These phases are dealt with our attitudes through which we deal with the harsh blows sent towards us by nature. Our attitudes need to be put in different gears as the texture of the road changes along the path we follow. Needs ought to be met. Right speeds and correct gears on different parts of the road determine the safety of the people in the car. 

Our cars have to emit its toxicity in the environment and pollute the air, make random noises when something needs a fixing inside us, or just stop altogether when the battery dies. We just need to be in a very close-knit relation with ourselves to understand what it is that our car needs, and work relentlessly and brutally towards attaining it. Fuel yourself whenever you feel that you're running on fumes, shut yourself down and find fuel! It will never walk to you, you have to go find it. Find means that can help take you close to it. If the car is over-heated or out of water, let it cool down and fill the water tank with water. Take care of your cars. Find proper remedies. Don't sit and wait, and waste your precious time. 

Quality of the journey is in your hands. Your steering wheel controls where you want to lead yourself to. You learn to steer it the right way, car will drive safely in that very direction. A lot about you can be learned by how you drive your car... So drive it smoothly and safely. Follow the signs and speed limits. Stop at all the red lights. Wait for your turn. Watch out for the pedestrians, they always have the right of way, even if they're jaywalking. Go for regular oil changes. Just take care of your car. And if you do, trust me, it will get you to the other side. Very smoothly and safely.

"Life is a journey, not a destination." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Negative to positive mental state

Many hurtful things happen in life which badly hurt us, or end-up breaking us. These hurtful things or incidents can damage our personality and have many ever-lasting effects. I have learned that the key to alleviating our self from these long-lasting negative effects, is to finding the strength to cope with those events. The longer a person stays in that hurtful state, the worse it is for that person's mental and physical health. A quick transition from that hurtful and negative mental state, to a normal or positive mental state is very, very critical. Our resilience and recovery should be very speedy, and it requires strength inside us and support from our loved ones.

The issue here lies in finding the strength in that mental state, and how soon we can find that strength. We are very weak and fragile during that state, this makes our existence even more vulnerable and prone to collapsing. If the transition is not fast from negative to positive, our emotions get trained to become negative and fidgety, not only towards ourselves but with others as well. If we take a long time in recovering, and spend a lot of time in that negative state, we can easily forget to live a happy life, as we will slowly forget the meaning of being optimistic and positive.

This negative mental state is where most of the sensitive souls get stuck for long periods of times. This is the state where darkness, depression, negativity, frustration, and anger lies. We begin to complain to our selves and to our Lord. We begin to think that everything is useless and get suicidal thoughts. This very moment either breaks, or makes,  a person. That determines the type of our life, and the quality of our future.

In this type of situation, it is very important for us to get some spiritual guidance. Many people seek therapy which is also equivalent to seeking guidance and dumping our emotions out of our spirit. We then learn to train our emotions to act in a positive and healthy way which can bring us out of that negative state. We need to be prepared for these incidents. Make yourself strong and positive now, while you have the chance. Face those moments with courage and spiritual strength. Do your homework and seek spiritual guidance, even when you're not in that state, so that it prepares you to face those painful moments of transition in a healthy way.

"Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point to move forward." - C. S. Lewis.

Bottled-up Anger

Many situations, people, things, habits in life can make us angry. We let this emotion interfere with our inner peace and harmony, as we lose sight of what this emotion does to us. It is very normal for human beings to feel this negative emotion and feel hurt, betrayed, insulted, taken advantage of, etc. Many times we bottle-up this anger inside us and choose to avoid dealing with these emotions. This bottled-up anger creates bitterness and harshness in our personality. It acts like poison to our inner peace and sucks out the freshness and happiness from our life. It is alright to feel angry, but the key is to detoxify our spirit from this poison as soon as it enters our spirit.

This load of anger and bitterness is like a burden put on our spirit. We can choose to alleviate ourselves from this burden by speaking up and dealing with it. This will help us feel free. And happy! But when we choose to stay quiet after hearing or bearing something offensive, we bottle-up that bitterness inside us and then regurgitate on it for hours/days/weeks, even years. This process of regurgitating trains our emotions to become negative and bitter. We think negatively of that rude person in our mind and imagine imaginary fights. All of this negativity turns us into negative people. And we then spread this negativity by taking out our anger/frustrations on the people we are comfortable with - our loves ones. This moves us into another world of depression and complication. Our bottled-up emotions are not only detrimental to our mental health, but also for our many other precious relationships. The only solution to freeing the heart and mind from this load and depression, is to un-bottle the anger and bitterness inside us. The more we bottle it all up, the worse our mental health will get. This negative emotion and depression keeps us caged in the past. We need peace of mind to be able to live in the present. 

If we choose to take care of the anger and bitterness soon after the incident, we could free our soul from that heavy burden right away. This definitely does not mean that we put ourselves in quarrelsome situations, we just need to return the favor in a calm and polite way at the right time. That calmness and politeness help us keep our intentions pure and positive. Our goal is to deal with the anger, take care of it properly, take it out on the right people at the right time, in a calm way. It is true that calmness is probably the last thing on our mind when we are feeling angry, but training our senses to remain calm is key. When angry, get out of that situation where there is a chance that things can escalate. But do take care of the anger, soon enough after the incident. The goal is to restore our peace of mind, and limit further damage to our inner soul and positive thoughts.

Learn not to leave angry emotions open ended. Open wounds never heal. We need to let the wounds heal. The open ended-ness of emotions and anger returns to bother us and causes us emotional pain and distress. We need to comfort the anger with proper closure that allows timely healing. Seek the type of closure which helps you come to terms with the issue. Closure does not necessarily come from confrontation, because many times it is not even possible. Closure means to put the anger to rest by talking, writing, explaining, and sometimes even fighting for ourselves. We should learn to take responsibility, admit our mistakes, and change our behaviors, as these can also serve to be healthy closures. 

Be kind to yourself. Never hold a grudge and anger inside as it is not healthy for our existence, progress, future, and happiness. Treat yourself fairly and generously, with kindness and forgiveness. Always put your mental peace as your top priority. Don't feel guilty and don't feel angry. If you do, free your soul from all of these burdens by finding the proper closure to your open-ended emotions. 

I am very guilty of bottling up anger. I have learned that I need to either take it out or find a closure. I have let all that anger mess with my spirit and peace from time to time. It has made me bitter and harsh in some ways. I have learned that we find our happiness within ourselves, with our own capability, with our own effort. No one can introduce us to our own happiness. No one can provide it to us. People may become means, but whether to feel it or not is up to us. And we feel it with our own capability, hard work and success.  God has given us many senses and strengths, to use them is up to us. Do not ever rely on anyone in life to help you find your happiness. Mankind is not equipped with such power. So make a promise to yourself right now that you will find proper closures to all the open emotions and all that anger, and will put your spirit at ease.    

"Had I not created my own world, I would certainly have died in other people's." 

- Anais Nin 

Thorny people

Humans have a very deeply rooted habit of judging others with or without adequate knowledge about anyone's life, personality, problems, and circumstances. We jump to conclusions based on how our mind processes information, and based on our up-bringing and culture. 

Our sense of envy and jealousy also plays a very vital role in judging others. Many times we want to drag a person down from his/her level, to the lowest level we think is fit for that person, just so that we can satisfy our pride. We try to slander a person's reputation, so that we can uplift our malicious spirit to a level higher than the one we slandered. 

This signifies a much deeper problem of insecurity and lack of confidence in our skin. We encounter insecurity and lack of confidence at many occasions in life, e.g., when a classmate scores higher than us on a test, our colleague gets a promotion and moves to a higher position, when we watch a good looking actor on TV, etc. We try to overcome these negative and sinful emotions by "joining" them, or "leaving" them. We either try to copy them or try and enter their social sphere to feel "accepted". Or, we either "leave" them and avoid entering their circle and maintain a healthy distance and keep our ego somewhat satisfied. 

I know many people who I tend to avoid to maintain the sanity and peace of my mind. Sometimes I call it envy, but most of the time there are many under the surface bitter memories, or their prickly personalities, which are dictating my behavior towards them. In order to deal with those people around me, I have concluded to keep my interactions short and sweet. I call them 'high-five interactions' in which I have five minutes to sit down with them, catch up with them on a very high level, in high and good spirits. And as soon as the 5 minutes are up, I have to end my interaction and end it on good terms. 

The more details we try to dig with a prickly person, our relationship will end up getting more convoluted and entangled. They key is simplicity, especially with the matters we find complicated to handle. Not everything in this world is meant to be resolved. Some complicated things are there so that we can differentiate the non-complicated things from them. The bad in this world is there, so that we can identify and appreciate the good. Same is the case with those prickly people, with very insecure ego and big mouths, they exist so that we can find the wise people and enjoy their company. 

But it is also important to note that all of us have acted prickly towards someone else at some point. Some people have underlying reasons to act in such a way, but some people have a natural tendency to behave like that. We can very easily see which category we fall in. If we are aware that we have been thorny to someone, that means we did that on purpose to hurt that person to seek revenge, and that is not our natural personality. But, if we cannot identify if we have been thorny or if we have been bitter to others, then that is when our nature does not know that there is a fine line which exists to maintain harmony. And since thorny people cannot see the line, they tend to cross it back and forth frequently out of habit.

So let's analyze ourselves and see if we can admit to ourselves if we tried to be thorny to someone on purpose, just to seek revenge for a wrong they did to us, or to satisfy the envy of our malicious spirit. Once we can identify those occasions, we can work on bettering our spirit. Though it will only be easy and highly possible for people who lack the natural tendency of being thorny towards others. 

Life will start

So I had this recent epiphany that I should not be waiting for life to start after reaching a certain place or achieving a certain goal as life goes on, time passes, breaths are breathed, body ages. When I was a little girl, living my life, I was told that a girl's proper place is with her husband and that I will have more freedom when I am with my husband. I always thought that maybe, that is when life will start. When I got married, I was waiting to move to Dubai from Pakistan thinking that, that is when life will start, then when we decided to move to States, I was thinking that that is when life will start. 

Many times we think that we will start our life when this happens or when that happens, etc, but life is where the heart is beating. We have to live life wherever we are and start from wherever we are. Waiting for this or that is like considering yourself dead or mute at the moment which isn't physically possible. Humans become delusional, waiting for the right moment, finding the perfect person, settling in a good place, saving for a house, etc. 

This just means we can never fully satisfy ourselves, especially when we are young and youthful. We strive and wait for something better to call that our destination. Everything else is a resting area. We live life considering ourselves riding a bus. Enjoying and some times not enjoying the journey. But deep inside, at the back of our head, we are considering the journey to be temporary, and that the destination will be the permanent place for rest. Even though the journey is many times lived longer than the destination, but we can win the psychological war with our mind that journey is actually living life. 

Life is a set of multiple phases. We ought to spend our best and make every phase perfect according to our standards. We should spend our savings and make each phase right and perfect because that is what life is. Our heart is beating in the journey as much as it might (or might not) beat at the destination. Maybe making each phase, the best phase of our lives, should be the goal of life. Maybe life is a journey and destination is death.

Bus ride from Makkah to Medinah

So I was on a trip to Saudi Arabia and I was in a bus-ride from Makkah to Medina and wrote this entry in my diary. I can share the details of the trip in a future entry but wanted to share the experience of my conversations and observations of the surroundings.

The driver has really loud songs on with a cigarette in his mouth and he occasionally raises his hands in the air in the form of a dance move. After finishing the cigarette, he sprays on some perfume, probably to kill the smell of the cigarette, and then takes a sip of some orange juice. He races with cars that he tailgates and the cars that don't give him way.

It's very hot and humid outside but thank goodness for air conditioner in the bus. Since I'm highly allergic to the smell of the cigarette, I have a slight migraine. We are making stops after every few hours to get a bite to eat, to pray salaats, and to get refreshed. Some people are taking very long at the resting stops, at which, the bus driver honks non-stop for 3-4 minutes. Literally. Oh and the honks are about 3 times louder than usual car honks.

The behavior of the driver was inconsiderate at various occasions. I think it's quite inconsiderate to smoke frequently in the bus and risking other people's health as well. It was very inconsiderate to honk non-stop as a call to people inside the resting stations for more than 20 minutes. The passengers who had returned on time had done nothing to receive such annoyance and disturbance. But similarly, the behavior of the passengers inside the Burger King was also very inconsiderate as they took more than 20 minutes to leave the resting area. In the defense of the driver, he did start to honk mildly as an initial call to all passengers to return to the bus after 20 minutes. When the passengers still didn't return, the driver physically went inside to ask them to get back in the bus and it took an additional 10 minutes for the 5 women with kids to come back inside and get seated.

Don't we all show inconsiderate behavior towards others at several occasions. By being inconsiderate, we are losing humanity and tolerance in us for others. Many times we stand people up for meetings without a solid reason, we use harsh words/attitude to display our un-due anger on our subordinates, we leave the dishes for someone else to clean, we leave a spill on the floor for someone else to wipe and risk others to slip on it, we park outside the entrance of a grocery store for very long to pick/drop someone, we book a flight on weekdays and expect our peers to pick us up despite their work hours, we ask others to babysit our kids and delay our promised return time, we tend to cut lines, etc.

We impose ourselves on others by expression of inconsiderate behavior. This creates resentment and distance in others for us. We lose a part of ourselves in the process of doing so. We step a level down from humanity and decency, just to shed off some of our anger and selfishness on others. By being considerate, we are

Doesn't humanity also mean to consider the comfort of people around us. A healthy level of self-less and considerate behavior can result in flowers and calmness around us. Proper, due and fair consideration refines our personality and strengthens bonds.

Summary of my life

Hi folks,

First, I want to apologize for the 3-day delay in my entry. I did think about writing my post all three of these days but I was "too busy", also known as procrastinated. I am still trying to become regular so I apologize, in advance, for any highly possible future delays.

I wanted to give a brief intro of myself. I am not sure how other bloggers write about themselves in their blogs, that is, if there are any bloggers writing about their life and life lessons. So let's just dive into the almost-three-decade-long life of mine. It all started when I was born in one of the major cities of Pakistan called Lahore. It is also known as the heart of Lahore and is rich in history, traditions, culture, liveliness, and many more things. I completed my early schooling from Lahore and moved to the United States when I was 7.

Moving from Lahore to Seattle was obviously a HUGE transition, to say the least. And even my 7 year old existence felt the abrupt and major change of the shift. I can mention countless experiences which I went through and observations which I made along the years from schooling, to shopping, to working to making friends, to wearing make up, wanting to wear tank-tops, wanting to smoke to fit in, to molding and giving birth to a new identity, a new self.

My family lived in Washington for few years then, but decided to move back as my father was very concerned about upbringing his children according to the Pakistani norms and culture. We lived in Pakistan for about a year and moved back to the States. I am not sure why we moved, it was always the parents' decision. So, after living in States for about 6 months, we moved back to Pakistan and lived there for another year. And then we moved back to the States again for about 2 years. And moved back to Pakistan for 4 years. And then I moved back to the States in 2003 and lived there for 10 straight years, the longest stay in a country. I should make a graph.

And then I got married, moved to Dubai for 1.5 years, and now I'm back in the States. Yes, it's sort of crazy!

Moving back each time felt like a big change, but it was slightly easier to adjust  each time as I was becoming somewhat familiar with both of the cultures. I remember I was in Pakistan and was in 5th grade, I failed Urdu (my native language) and scored the highest in English, and I remember how all the kids in my class made fun of me for failing Urdu which is supposed to be the easier course to pass for anyone. I also remember crying going to school every single day in 5th grade because I didn't like anything or anyone in the school.

I then gradually started to realize that I had been transformed into a different person. But I have to say a flexibly weak person with very hard values. I'm not sure if it's possible for these two types to coexist, but I might be referring and discussing these types in the future posts.

FB