You Can’t Always Win

Sometimes in life you need to sit down and accept defeat. I’ve always been a supporter of persistence, grit, whatever you want to call it, putting your eye on the prize and keep moving towards it until you reach there. But to be wise is also to know the optimum conditions at which to throw in the towel, hang the boot and call it quits. Especially when you realize that the price that you are paying for a rerun – the emotional and psychological price – is much higher than the benefit you could gain out of the prize.
And also, don’t forget that in some cases it never really is about the prize as much as it is about the journey. The lessons you might have learnt from the failures could be priceless and applied elsewhere. It’s what Randy Pausch called a “head fake” or “indirect learning in his Last Lecture. When he was talking about how he dreamt of playing in the National Football League, but did not make it, he said,” but I probably got more from that dream and not accomplishing it than I got from any of the ones that I did accomplish. When we send our kids out to play football, we actually don’t want our kids to learn football, we send our kids out to learn much more important things. Teamwork, sportsmanship, perseverance. And these kinds of head fake learning are absolutely important. And you should keep your eye out for them because they’re everywhere.”

Negative Space

Love is neither appreciated in its complete presence

Nor complete absence

But rather in its lack of presence

The empty slot in the shelf full of books

The clean square in a thick layer of dust

Where a photograph once was

The empty vase where once stood a rose

That drooped and wilted with time

It’s ironic that the ones who appreciate love the most

Are those who have just lost it

Image credit: TF

P.S. According to Wikipedia Negative Space in art, is the space around and between the subject(s) of an image.

Marriages that don’t last

So lately I’ve been hearing a lot of sad news about people whose marriages have ended. The most recent story had the marriage last for two weeks before it was over. I have to admit that being the selfish person that I am, the first thing that comes to mind when I hear of a divorce of a couple whose wedding I had attended, I think, “I shouldn’t have wasted my night going. I could have read a good book.”

But oh well. What to do?

Most people don’t enter a marriage with the intention of getting a divorce. But sometimes relationships reach a stage where even the engineering simulation program Aspen can describe…

“Unreconcible”

And both sides have to go their separate ways.

The sad thing is divorces are becoming really common nowadays and as usual society always blames the woman.

In the past, no matter how abusive the husband is, the woman would stay put for the children or for having nobody else to support her financially ….but nowadays more women are able to catalyze a divorce because they have a way to support themselves and their children. So of course society would blame the woman for having an exit strategy. But would they blame the man for being abusive?

I was reading the book Emotional Intelligence and the author, Daniel Goleman, writes about how many marriages break down due to lack of finesse when it comes to facing conflicts. Basically, the main point he was trying to make was that it’s not that healthy couples do not face conflicts, but they know how to face those conflicts. Lets take a case where the man always forgets to take out the trash. Instead of commenting on what he did – or did not do – she would attack his character, “You’re always irresponsible.”

Now of course, anybody could tell you that it would be normal for the male ego to respond and turn a small comment to a shouting match. So Goleman advised said to, “Tell them what they did wrong, just don’t attack their character.”

So there’s one nugget of information to take today in hopes that the divorce rate would go down in our society, because a divorce = 2 possible weddings down the road and that’s one equation I can do without since I’d rather be reading a book.

(c) Jaspal

If Every Action has an Opposite Reaction

In physics, one common question is, If every action has an equal and opposite reaction why don’t they cancel out? The main reason is because they are acting on two different objects.
In social dynamics, every action does not necessary have an equal and opposite reaction in the first place and even if it did exist they are both related to different people so the action (or reaction) force gets amplified or diminished based on individual factors like the person’s background, personality, etc…
For instance, you do something nice for somebody (action). You expect them to thank you at the same magnitude of the thing you did for them (reaction). But they don’t because of some reason, maybe they are not used to show gratitude or maybe they think whatever you did was their right. Whatever the reason does that mean that due to the lack of reaction you should stop doing the action?
Not necessary since your action should really be independent of their reaction (the two forces act on different objects or in this case- differpeople). Basically you’ll be held accountable by Allah (SWT) for your own actions, and not other people’s.

Photo credit; Newton’s Cradle by hellolapomme on Flickr

Broken Promises

When I was in high school, I had a friend who told me, “Promise me that we’ll always keep in touch.”
My answer was pretty blunt and frank,” I don’t make promises.”
I think she got pissed off but I told her not to take it personally, it was a general rule I didn’t break back then. I didn’t make promises in fear of one day having to break them. And I’m glad I didn’t promise her because we grew up and grew apart, and oh well, that’s life.

It’s amazing the effect that broken promises have on children. Some grow up to believe that promises are made to be broken,while others grow up with such personal rules; not making promises lest they have to break them. It’s like they may have adults around them telling them, “We will,” and “okay, insha’Allah,” and “I promise you that…”

Then nothing materializes, and the adult hopes that the child forgets, when sometimes the child doesn’t really forget, but they find themselves continuously  in a series of daydreams taking pictures with mickeymouse by their side because of the parent’s promise to take them to DisneyLand. Then when it doesn’t happen, the disappointment is so immense that they turn into teenagers and stop trusting their parents or other adults in their lives.

But then again broken promises don’t end at childhood. They continue well towards young adulthood, especially when guys promise girls they’ll marry them only to bolt out the door at the closest exit sign, thinking that the girls should have seen it coming anyway. Then if asked, “why did you make such a promise?” They would justify it by saying, “I was just telling her what she wanted to hear.”

Then they grow up, and get married, and the husband promises to love, cherish and never cheat, blah blah blah, then one of them gets the shock of their lives when the vows get thrown into the garbage disposer because situations change, they’re always fighting over money issues or children issues, and they end up going their separate ways.

So basically, situations might change and people tend to break promises, because they make the promise at a mindset that is different from the mindset at which the promise is broken. So sometimes the best thing that somebody can do for you is not make you a promise. They’re guarding your heart from future pain and disappointment because they know that situations might change, and breaking the promise would be inevitable, so they’d rather not make it. They’re not really being cynical but realistic (but don’t all cynics say that anyway *hehehe*). Especially when they have a lifetime experience of broken promises and having to carry the broken wings of a fallen bird called Hope, trying to nurse it into health only to discover that it was actually dead.

 

• Hadeeth of the Day

• Narrated by Ibn Aamir: My mother called me once, whilst the Prophet (peace be upon him)
  was at our home and she said, “Come here, I will give you something.”  Thereupon the Prophet (peace be upon
  him) asked,  ”What did you want to give to him?”  She replied, “Dates.”  The Prophet then
  said, “Had you not given him anything, it would have been recorded as a lie.”
  دعتْني أُمي يومًا ورسولُ اللهِ صلى اللهُ عليه وسلم قاعدٌ في بيتِنا
  فقالتْ: ها تعالَ أُعطيكَ فقال لها رسولُ اللهِ صلَّى اللهُ عليهِ وسلَّمَ وما أردتِ أنْ تعطيهِ ؟
  قالتْ : أُعطيهِ تمرًا، فقال لها رسولُ اللهِ صلَّى اللهُ عليهِ وسلَّمَ :
  أما إنك لو لمْ تُعطيهِ شيئًا كُتبتْ عليكِ كَذِبةٌ
  الراوي: عبدالله بن عامر بن ربيعة المحدث:الألباني -
  المصدر: صحيح أبي داود – الصفحة أو الرقم: 4991
  خلاصة حكم المحدث: حسن

What Happens?

My blogger friend wrote What Happens? about how friendships can go sour and she asks the question, what happens?
Being the expert on the topic I couldn’t help but write about it as well. The thing is, change is inevitable and not all relationships can weather the storms of change in terms of geographical distance and lack of communications, and so the two people may just lose touch with each other. So basically, the first answer to what happens? Is that “Change happens.”
But sometimes it’s deeper than that as two best friends who are working together or a married couple living together become estranged because of something that one of them did; an act that causes the other person so much pain it’s like they walk around with a heart in a clutch so tight it’s like those footballs that are made out of plastic bags in Africa (the ones that have to be made tight otherwise it loses the qualities of a ball). So when the hurtful event occurs, be it cheating or lying or having their trust broken, turning away from the person becomes a matter of self-preservation because they can’t have their hearts go through that again. And that’s when a change in the relationship takes place because they say that trust is like a glass that can’t be pieced together into its original form once shattered.
So sometimes it’s a matter of two people growing apart and sometimes it’s a hurtful event that changes the relationship and sometimes it’s just a dose of reality because one realizes that they gave a relationship more value than it is worth. Take for instance a maslaha friend, one who only calls up when they need something. You might consider them a close friend while they are only using you for money or something that you have, so what happens is that you wake up to the fact that the friend is nothing but a maslaha friend and that’s when you might try to stay away, i.e. you give the friendship its true realistic value after being deceived for so long.
But you know everybody in your life is there for a reason, some will break your heart, others will open your mind, and some will do both; it’s all part of coloring your life’s experiences. And what else to say but c’est la vie.

How a broken heart can sometimes feel (Image from Ecostreet.com)

Dear Single ladies – part 2

A friend of mine was talking about how lonely she is for being 29 and still single in a society where you turn into a spinster by age 23. She ended her post by saying,
“Everything is in Allah’s will, I understand but I can’t run away from the lonely feelings, the need to be cared for. Am still a human, and still a woman – I can’t run away from my hopeless feelings. I just hurt- and hide behind the masked face of being empowered.”

The words were really powerful but they really made me think of people who are at the other end of the spectrum, those who got married young and have half a dozen kids to take care for. Though I do not have direct quotes, but when they speak, they speak of not having any “me” time, of how they can’t do what they like to do because of a domineering guy, of how their movements and day plans are controlled by someone other than themselves.
So while the author of castle of words says she wants to share the long walks on the beach with someone she calls her husband, what if she got someone who doesn’t even like to take a walk (let alone take a walk at the beach) because their feet keep on sinking in the sand. I’ve seen women whose personalities have been shredded because of their husbands so they can’t even recognize who they are anymore, and there are those who are just sooooo tired of things demanding their attention that they just want to crawl into a hole somewhere and disappear. There are those who are going through the pain of discovering that their beloved husbands had been sooo loving, his love encompassed more than one wife, and there are those who don’t know how to talk to their children about a separation looming around the corner, and there are those who fall victim of domestic violence and there are those who are stuck in a loveless marriage just for the children, and there are those who had to bury their children because of a madman who entered a school with a gun or a mad president who just doesn’t want to let go of his chair (Syria).
So yeah, when you start looking at things in perspective, what single women go through isn’t so bad. Single women can take the edge off the pain of loneliness with a list of achievements that sees us move forward. I learnt all that by watching my single friends who yearn companionship as much as any other girl, but know better than to sit in bed, crying in self pity over romance movies while wolfing down a gallon of Baskin Robbins; young women who launched home businesses and keep on taking it to the next level, young women who volunteer to help orphans, those taking lessons to learn new skills and languages, those taking care of elderly parents and those who utilize their time to meet new people and go new places.

Sorry for the second post today but I couldn’t help responding to Castle of Word’s post, which I can’t link right now considering that I’m posting this through my phone.

Wedding Season

So it’s the peak of the wedding season, and I was stuck in yet another wedding this weekend if you’ve been following my twitter timeline. Nowadays I started to make use of weddings as they provide me with deep insight into the social behavior of people. Besides the fact that I utilize the time to get in touch with people through whatsapp (used to be bbm before I got rid of it). So this weekend the clamor from the stereo was too loud, I refrained from communicating verbally with anybody (I was on the ‘smile and nod’ mode). The thing is, I hate having to scream over the noise to be heard, let alone screaming under the noise because chances of that occurring were pretty high.
Anyhow, so I sat around watching how people were actually ‘talking to each other’ and it was quite fascinating. It made me think, how can they even hear each other speak? Until it dawned on me; maybe they don’t hear each other speak.

I mean, think about it, most people would rather talk than listen, and this is the perfect opportunity for them to talk without having to listen to what the other was saying because it was just too noisy.

So anyhow, this wedding was perfect because by 10.30 pm we were out the door (actually, to be more accurate, “We were out the tent flap.” )People who organize weddings in this part of the world need to do that more often; release people by 10.30 by feeding them earlier. Some weddings go all the way to midnight, and organizers need to consider that people still need to drive for 30 minutes to 2 hours if they live in another emirate. Plus they also need to think about how difficult it is to find parking at night. What saves us sometimes is that we live next to a hotel that has parking space, so we could get parking space that was emptied at about the same time by someone who was attending (yet another) wedding in that hotel.

Some people might say, “But it’s just one night when you’re going to reach home late.”

But this ‘just one night’ would get translated to a 100 nights per year considering how complex our society’s connections are. In some cultures, wedding attendees go up to 200. In our culture, it goes upto a 1000 because friends of family, family of friends, neighbors of family, family of neighbors, and just about any combination of “friends, family and neighbors” you can possibly think of. Plus we run in a lot of circles that are not only limited to Kemenies but can extend to Yemenis and Emiratis.

Fa khudlak.

If you’ve been following this blog for long enough you probably would know that I am not a big fan of weddings. Being an introvert, I hate the crowd, the noise, and just about everything about it. I feel people put so much attention into the details of the wedding, they stop focusing on the marriage itself.

I wonder what the results would be if somebody conducted a study to know how much people waste annually to attend and arrange for weddings, by considering the cost of dresses that would be worn only once, the time wasted driving to and from the place, the food that would go to waste…among other things.

That’s it for today

Just Checkin’

It is known that in general, girls tend to be more emotional than guys. Actually, some guys have what Hermione Granger would call “the emotional range of a teaspoon” so they can be pretty insensitive to what girls  feel. It partially explains why guys have a higher tendency to play girls than the other way round. They exploit the fact that girls would believe the three-word lies they throw, and then when confronted the guy could say, “Why do girls take everything seriously?”

Well, why do guys turn everything into a game?

One thing I personally like about engineering is how sometimes when you’re given  a problem to solve, you would also be given “another way to check your solution is correct.” So while answering a problem some people end it with a “Check” section, where they take the other method and confirm their answer is correct without having to go through all the steps of their calculations. The purpose of the “Check” section is to help you zoom out and look at the big picture, look at your overall answer, and try to figure out,”Does it make sense?”

So if we’re going to put the two ideas together, girls sometimes need to dissociate themselves from the emotions that drive their actions, and look at something with a level head and an objective mind, “Does it make sense? Is it logical?” Sometimes time would help with the dissociation process but not always. Sometimes the girl will remain biased as long as she is in the situation, which is where family and friends come in. They can sometimes provide a non-biased overview of the whole situation, remove the girl’s rosy shades, and let her look at the situation in all its beautiful – and ugly – colors.

So in other words, we sometimes need a “Check” section while facing the problems in our lives, where a third party provides input and answers questions such as, “Does it make sense? It is logical? How can I know?”

And this note is what happens when I am supposed to be studying for a final exam tomorrow.

Idea that inspired the post

The Road Less Traveled

Growing up, it took me a long time to become comfortable in my skin. I grew up with people calling me abnormal because I didn’t exactly conform to our society’s definition of normal. I used to write in my diaries because nobody was there to listen and even if there was somebody, they probably didn’t make the effort to understand. Sometimes people don’t have to say a word for you to know that they are judging. Silent looks can tell a lot if you learn to read them. So people judged. A lot. And talked. A lot.

The silver lining in that dark cloud was that it taught me the skill of turning “people’s talk” into white noise. It is actually like vapor; if you come across it, it will just go around you, disperse and disappear, without affecting you much.

It’s sad when you see people’s judgments and talks start to change someone in ways that they wouldn’t have if it weren’t for this “peer pressure.” People find themselves in careers they don’t like, with spouses they can’t stand, and leading lifestyles chained in debt, only because they need to satisfy this ever-hungry need to “fit in.”

But in the end of the day, do we ask ourselves, “Why are we trying to fit in? Would those people who talk about us today help us tomorrow if we fall? For example, would they pay off those debts we got into to impress them?”

Besides one thing I figured out, especially with non-friend acquaintances is how much they like you is directly proportional to how much you can benefit them.  You want someone to like you? Benefit them with something and they’ll start paying attention to you. Also, it’s very easy to keep people under control when #1 you make them owe you, and #2 you know their deepest secrets. Doesn’t mean you should blackmail them or anything. But just in case, they are out to destroy you, you always have to be ready for betrayal. In Swahili I think it’s called “akiba ya maneno.”

The more time one takes to understand their self-worth, the more they’ll realize that it’s not measured by the BMW they may drive, the size of clothes they wear, or the mansion at the top of the hill, and the millions of fake friends who smile at them at all the ‘right’ parties. Instead, it’s about the good deeds you’re preparing to meet your Creator with, your love for your family and closest friends, your ethics and integrity at work, your ability to give to the needy even when you barely have enough to survive. And if people are still busy blabbering about you, close your ears, and focus on your achievements. You might not be able to stop them, but you can stop listening to them and taking their words to heart. There’s another Swahili saying that goes like, “ watasema mchana na usiku watalala.” (They’ll speak in the morning, and at night they’ll sleep) 

Also remember, Robert Frost wrote in “The Road Not Taken”,

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”