Reflection and an old lady

Life experiences can be a very peculiar sometimes. There are people who pretend that they are certain of their life pathways, knowing where they going how they will do things and where and when they will do this perhaps with a hint of pretending and proclaiming  to the world their assertiveness. While others innocently will openly express their anxiety of life’s uncertainties s as they see it. Many others sit in the fence of being in-beetweners that could possibly be you and I. We observe life as it happens day by day, experience its ups and downs neither do we pretend nor are we interested in an appearance of having it figured out.

At the age of 11 I one day looked out of the window as I often was seen doing just trying to be away with my thoughts to let my mind wonder with the world’s biggest questions, only to notice an old lady from the opposite window of the opposite blocks of flats. She was probably in her late 90 with a gracefully aged face that most certainly has been through decades. In a glimpse of a moment our eyes met and I probably have never forgotten the intensity of our sight of connection.  In this intense couple of seconds all I could think of was how much life this women must have had on this earth how much she had probably experienced and how life has caught up with her leaving her in a fragile state of mind and body, all I could wish for her was to hope that her long stay here was worth it! The irony is that I truly believed that her thoughts as she was staring into my youthful eyes filled with curiosity and vigour was:”I too was this young once upon a time, little girl, I know that it goes quickly time that is and if time catches up with you you too will be in my state soon, make sure that your make your stay worthwhile”! 20 years later often do I think about this lady as if I saw her today, and I think about if we had meet again today she would probably have said; “did I not tell you little girl that life would have caught up with you, so have you reflected upon your life yet? Have you lived yet? Has your life been one with dignity, duty, and perseverance for something good, have you truly spend your time wisely? Or have you just existed? Have you questioned your passions and found what you supposed to stand for or have you followed what is supposed to be and not questioned? Have you been courageous in your causes or have you crippled into a comfortable zone where pretty much the rest of us stay? Have you gone beyond the call of duty and truly felt the deepest human connection? Have you made a difference? Well little girl you still not as old as me and so if you are unable to answer any of my chanting questions you still remain on this earth and so time is still on your hands, maybe if I ever come into your mind again after sometime I am more than sure you will be able to answer much of my questions. Above all little girl think, reflect much and deep, for the best of courses of actions  comes from such activities and just let life happen, rest assure it will happen without your permission, go along with it but never lose your core sense of self in anything. Rise above any challenges, trust me that’s  what this life is but you have the freedom of thoughts and so you can rename circumstances beyond of what they appear to be no matter how horrible they feel. Never call them chances and never complain about them, they meant to be experienced for a specific purpose, face them with an assured heart and trust me that nothing will ever be lost, not your efforts, nor your struggles even if that appears the case for other. Never think about what others have to say or think, rise beyond such noises, for at end of the darkness of the day they are only frequencies of noises which disappear in the air lost amongst the galaxies not affecting any existing stars. Little girl live and experience and put the life’s puzzles together that is your life’s puzzle, your pieces are scattered on this earth, once you have completed your puzzle together everything will be much more clearer, trust me, hang on and continue, little girl.

Three decades later and some contemplations

So here I am again!

As I am contemplating a day of celebration of making it to existence for THREE decades I quickly realise that I probably have been brain washed in thinking that this is something overwhelming. I am supposed to have done x and y and achieved z along the way. This I would probably call the influence of cultural, social and environmental psychosocial realism! As if you are neither any better or wiser or more grown up if you have not done or have whoever todays society have deemed as an idol have or have done. As if this is a bench mark for success and prosper to be compared to.

However as I contemplate a bit deeper and start taking the "I" away from my thoughts and start reflecting on some worldly facts during my 3 decade existence, I quickly realise that things don't seem to be all ok around me, take a look; there are now:

1. More natural disasters than there has ever been before: earthquakes (Haiti-222, 570, South-Asian tsunami-226, 408, Kashmir-73338) floods (Mumbai-1200).

2. More wars than ever before: last decades Child victims of war include an estimated 2 million killed, 4 to 5 million disabled, 12 million left homeless, and more than 1 million orphaned.

3. More nuclear, weapons and military spending than ever before: Current global military spending has reached $781 billion annually; more than the total income of the poorest 45% of the global population. 49% of all federal tax revenues in the US go towards current or past military costs.

4. More landmine killings than ever before: between 60 and 70 million landmines are in the ground in at least 70 countries. Land mines maim or kill approximately 26,000 civilians every year.

5. More deaths from unsafe waters than ever before, children are most affected; every year, unsafe water, coupled with a lack of basic sanitation, kills at least 1.6 million children under the age of five years.

6. More continues deaths from diarrhoea, which easily treated; every year 2.2 million (HIV/AIDS, Malria and Tuberculosis remains the deadliest causes).

7.More people living in poverty (probably exacerbated by the number of wars) than ever before; 1.29 billion people is estimated by UN to live in absolute poverty defined as $1.25 per day (by World bank).

8. More people experiencing neurotic health conditions than ever before: at present 40% of disability worldwide is due to depression and anxiety.

9.  More women experiencing exploitations than anytime previously; in South Africa, a woman is killed every 6 hours by an intimate partner, In India, 22 women are killed each day dowry related, in Guatemala, two women are murdered each day by violent partner and 3 million British women experience violence every year. 80% of the estimated 800,000 people trafficked annually are women (79% for sexual purposes) and between 40 and 50 per cent of women in European Union countries experience unwanted sexual harassment at their workplace.

10. More people in debt than ever before: in Britain personal debt has reached £1.4tn – almost the same amount as Britain's national economic output.

So not much has actually changed for the better during my existence in fact if a wave of pessimism is allowed into this whole mix of facts much has become a lot worse! And the most important question which really deserves all contemplation is how has my living for 3 decades affected/impacted or contributed (positively) to lessening these dire facts? I decide to keep the answer silent for my inner thoughts but I hope that I am not alone in wanting to think about and question my stay on earth for 30 years in such fashion and what my contribution has actually been.

“Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth”

Muhammad Ali

New beginings

I just wanted to start this blog with a dear, but then quickly realised that this is not an email or I am not writing for somebody or maybe I am and I haven't caught your name yet! So I have named this post a new beginning and began thinking how many such occasions have I had now in my life. Couple of years ago I had one of those moments where you sit with yourself in deep reflection of your where your life is heading and believe it or not this happens to me more often than the average person. In my midst of reflection I made a promise that if god willed that every so often when I loose my umff of passion to just get up and look for new experiences, adventures which could possibly give a sense of personal growth and a sense of making a difference somehow. Am I making sense here. So I decided roughly I would do this every 3 years since over the years I have the pleasure of getting to know myself pretty well I quickly realised that that is the longest time I can last in an environment before I get a move on symptom and a year ago was that moment.

What happened was that upon quickly realising I needed a new start I originally applied to a position abroad and the whole process took a year or so and things were too complicated and sadly it was impossible to make a reality. However straight after this an opportunity opened up and it was not abroad but here in the UK but in a different city far from home. This meant that I had to leave my family home, start of in a new city, knowing no-one and basically getting on with it. A year on I  must say this has been the most challenging, enriching, humbling experiences I have ever had with a twist of self discovery and appreciation with a glimpse of hope, happiness and light. I therefore would like to begin my forthcoming posts with sharing my experiences of what I see, experience and learn.


So for next time..................

Peace


May these words have a positive impact on you as much as it had on me.

By Theodore Roosevelt

Peace

Nearly two and a half year ago I wrote a post title 6 months of work and it as basically listing all the relevant lesson learnt from being in the workforce during this period. I must state that I am neither an expert in such field nor have I got extended experiences to solidify my opinions. Nevertheless the other day I was reflecting upon the alteration of positions and work environment since (I am still striving for achievements) and decided to construct a refined list of lessons that I have been able to take away from each experience and that kind of became like a mission statements which could be remembered when faced with life's obstacles of all sorts and you still want to reach a particular destination. This was quite personal but I truly hope that someone somewhere may benefit from this, so here it is:

1)No one Knows YOU more than you do-Don’t let others define you and Don’t lose yourself in others definition of you
2)People who see a quality in you that they don’t have will always try to make it difficult for you, move swiftly away
3)Be confident that you have the ability to produce good work-if not then it needs a little tweaking which you have the ability to complete
4)Don’t ever EVER show signs of GIVING UP-you will allow others to take gladness of such situations and this will not serve you well.
5)If you don’t know something-learn it and move on-Einstein didn’t become Einstein in a day
6)Anyone who tries to belittle you-smile, dust it off and focus on the goal-they don’t know you
7)Be vocal-don’t allow anyone to silence you
8)Remember to try yourself in different arenas-enhance yourself in different activities to reinforce your multiple abilities and talents
9)Always stay CONFIDENT- No one will give this to you except YOURSELF
10)Don’t ever concentrate on pathetic human interactions of he-says she-says, always keep your eyes on the goal-you much wiser than this-be the example you want to see
11)Stay calm and collected and don’t allow other peoples stress to get through to you-be sure that God has already planned everything out for the best
12)Judgements are usually based on what you portray-if you think assurance-appear sure-people will think you self-assured
13) Be bold, brave and courageous-see an opportunity grab it and make use of it.
14)Ensure you able to identify you own gaps-no-one will do this favour for you –refine the gap and move on
15)Success is for seeing an unachieved achievement and achieving it coupled with focus, hard work, determination, overcoming unnecessary obstacles and patience but remember while you are on the path to experience a lot
16)Live simply, think BIG and produce beneficial outcomes
17)Drive to zero and the product would go zero too!
18)Don’t burden yourself more than you can take. Don’t be your worst enemy, but your best friend- try to smell the roses while you are on a mission!
19)Feel Happy about your past and present achievements no-matter how small-you are where you are because God believes in you to achieve
20)Live life positively physically, mentally and spiritually, live it the way it has been prescribed and don’t just exist

Lastly the most importantly is to remember that you and me are alive, breathing and hopefully physically able to plan from today, work for tomorrow and look forward to the future. peace

Last time I wrote anything here was the beginning of 2012! This comes to show how quickly time passes and that hours go by like weeks and weeks like months and months like years. Further to this in my last post I mentioned what new year means to me and its quite ironic that I am writing this just before the end of that year and the beginning of a new. Generally just before any new year you will hardly find me partying hard (as if!) nor will you find me in an exotic island having a holiday. Nope. You will most often find me by myself (if I can with such a large family but its possible)in isolation for some reflection. Funnily enough its usually also my birthday at this time of the year as well which unfortunately does not help because it adds to the thinking. Gosh I am really depressing you am I not? Hopefully you will see my point in this and hopefully I will try to make sense! What I am really trying to say is that its there are a lot of things for me to be grateful for. Looking back at 2012 I have experienced a lot, and its the only year I can truly say that I have made decisions which has which has shifted my equilibrium 360 degrees. However the decisions have been risky but has set me off in a new direction submerged in something that is completely new to me in a completely new environment. Someone ones said to me that its not your environment that will do something for you but its what you can do in the environment you are in. Certainly this quote has stayed with me for a long time and I am still trying to embody it till this day. Having said this this years reflection will involve a lot of gratefulness (as all years) that I have been able to experience lots of laughter, joy, challenges, opportunities, obstacles, spiritual growth, contentment, changes, alteration in mind-set, inner growth (and outer more grey hairs!, humility and

peacefulness. I truly whish each and everyone of us well and will leave you with another quote that I think is befitting to add on here and now: "Faith makes dreams possible, Hope makes efforts worthwhile and Joy makes any outcome beautiful". May the new year bring us all three and may we achieve more possibilities. Until next time.........

Deja Vu

Wow this blogg still exist! I have just spent sometime going through some old posts and it has brought about many memories that virtually can make me cry. I have come to appreciate the wisdom and strength in writing of ones experiences and how therapeutical it can be.

This past couple of years I have felt that life has been an uncertain roller-coaster, but I must say that looking back I have developed and grow alot as a person. I have been able to apply myself in different settings, challenge myself and make important decisions and sometimes I have had to question myself, become angry with myself, feel proud of myself and smile at myself. But one thing I have become certain about is that whatever stage of life I may find myself I am able to be me; humble, sincere, optimistic me and that will not change. This coupled with some maturity, integrity and inner strength developed through the years, VOILA I cant complain can I. Oh and a bit if grey hair.......:)

My last words for this post; its the begining of a new year, this for me means new dreams, new goals, new achievements, new knowledge and concepts to grasps, and definetly new challenges but above all aspirations for joy and happiness for all of us.

Peace