Your Day is Always Special!

If you think of it, everyday is special in a certain way. For example, today we woke up to find that the town had frozen during the night. Wivenhoe Park was white as if it had snowed; the trees and the grass were covered with a layer of frost.

Then we went to the lake but we stood far near the library. A male and a female duck came towards us, expecting us to have some food to give them. My husband tossed them some small pieces of the carrot cake we had just bought and the two birds snatched them in such unbelievable speed. We left the two ducks some little pieces and walked away, but when we turned back, we found out that the seagulls, the crows and the other ducks found out that there was food offered there and a funny fight started among them on some food that was gone long ago. On the way back to our flat, a group of young kids accompanied by some adults were coming back from Wivenhoe House. They seemed to have attended a Christmas event held there. They had small paper bags with Wivenhoe House logos on them. A small boy approached us with great enthusiasm in his eyes and cried with joy: I got two cakes!

Doesn't all this make the day special? I believe it does. So you too, think back of what happened today and discover the beauty hidden in the small details of your day.

In God's Own Image!!

Looking at what the human race had been doing to this planet and is still doing to it, I get disgusted and I feel ashamed and trapped, trapped in this human body that I'm not proud of being in it, I feel like I want to escape from it and be anything else but human, perhaps be a cat ran over by some crazy driver in a hurry for a gluttonous dinner or an important meeting where he sucks up to his boss to get a raise or in a hurry to go back home to his wife before she suspects that he was hooking up with his mistress! at least I'll be a cat that lived like a cat and did all that cats naturally do and died with dignity and so innocently without ever harming anyone or causing this planet any damage!!

Thinking of the polluted air and seas, of global warming and the melting down poles with poor polar bears and penguins trapped on melting ice bergs in the middle of the ocean, thinking of seals beaten up to death by the big fishing ships as they get trapped in their huge fishing nets just because they were after their natural food that they even led the ships to which is fish, of animals maimed and injured by the increasing farming lands that replace their natural homes in the wilderness, of animals abused and hunted for their fur and ivory in the most inhuman and painful ways, of creatures captured and abused for fun and of those rain forests that we continuously cut down to fill our stomach and mostly fulfill our greed for things we don't really need, when I think of the crazy life we're leading, of how ugly, savage, greedy, blood thirsty, arrogant, lustful and sick predators we are, I feel ashamed of being human and I think:

if Darwin's theory is true then nature had made a big mistake when it created us and if the religious stories are true and God made us in His own image then as Voltaire said "we have certainly returned the compliment."

That was so Funny!

It happens a lot in life that we experience anxiety, fear and worry because we think that something very bad or dangerous has happened or is going to happen. However, when later the truth is revealed and we realize that our fear or anxiety was absolutely unreasonable because ,in fact, what has happened or was going to happen was the complete opposite of what we expected, we recall our moments of fear and anxiety and describe them saying "Oh my God! That was so funny". If we reflect on these words for a while, we find that there is nothing funny about that churning feeling of fear and anxiety that we had, and we definitely weren't having any fun at that time.  Yet, we call that experience funny and it does sound funny because by then we know the truth of the things we were worried about and we know how meaningless, unreasonable and useless our worries were, besides, we are just happy that things turned out to be much better than what we thought.  Thus, it's not the fears or worries that are funny but rather their absurdity in the light of the facts and truths we become aware of later. This can be applied to the short-term worries or fears one may experience sometimes, such as when your spouse or friends start to act weirdly; they seem to be hiding something from you or be plotting against you while later you find out that they have been planning to throw you a surprise birthday party. Nonetheless, why can't this same rule be applied to the long-term worries, anxieties and fears we all experience throughout our lives such as worrying that we may not find a good job or may lose the one we already have, worrying that we may not find our other half or may lose the one we have, worrying that we may not be able to raise our children in a proper way or maybe they will still screw up no matter what we do and the list continues, these worries are time and energy consuming and when they don't turn out to be true, which is usually the case, we don't refer to them, to these long term fears and worries as funny but we rather hold regrets towards them and we wish we hadn't wasted so much precious time on them. But, the truth is, we can also describe these worries as funny, because they share both main points with the short-term worries, first, they are unreasonable and second they are probably not true. Still, since the idea of describing the fears and anxieties that have been eating us up for years and years as "funny", doesn’t sound any cool, why don't we start doing this now? If you take one minutes to think of the fact that there are no facts or tangible proofs to base your fears and anxieties upon, you realize how ridiculous and unreasonable your fears are and when you also think of how things may end up being so different from what you expected, you realize how funny and ridiculous these fears are.

Yes, we are still human and therefore we still can't control having certain fears and worries, and these are actually useful ones because they help us to be more cautious and more aware of ourselves and our actions as well as our surroundings. However, it is the energy and time consuming worries which distract us and hold us back that we need to control, but the good news is that these can be controlled and prevented through the very simple act of rational thinking. Therefore, we can say that there are two ways to deal with our fears and worries that have no real basis, one is to let them occupy and consume us till the day comes when the truth is finally unveiled and we find out how wrong we were and then we say "If I only knew how things were going to be I wouldn't have/would have….", the other way is to think of and visualize how everything we worry about is probably going to turn up to be different from what we think and shake those fears and worries off and say: Oh my God! This is so funny!

Break the Pattern or don't Start it

Some days, without knowing how or why, everything seems to be going wrong and we face one little annoying incident, argument and misunderstanding after another; we lose our temper or people lose theirs with us and everything is messed up and at a complete chaos. We usually call those days bad days or rough days or "One of those days" and yet we never exactly understand how it all started and who the one to blame is. Some find it easy to blame fate or God while others remain patient and say that they are simply being tested. But the truth is, these days always remain as a mystery, especially when you at the end of the day come to update your facebook, twitter...etc status and you say: I had a bad day or the worst day in my life (if you like to exaggerate) and suddenly you find many friends commenting "me too" or you may even find many other friends complaining about their day too in different ways, so what really happened? Did the whole town have a bad day or what!? The truth is, yes, don't be surprised if I say that almost the whole town had a bad day and don't be shocked if I say that all this was caused by one person and this person can be anyone of us, including YOU!

Here is how it goes, when something negative happens the moment you start your day, if you let that negativity really get to you and affect your mood and psychological or spiritual status, then just like a contagious disease it will be transmitted to everything you do and encounter that day and thus the negativity and bad mood will accompany you all the day and because likes attract likes, like a magnet you will even attract more negative situations and therefore you end up with having that horrible day. Yet, it doesn't stop at that, this negative energy is a parasite and it will need more people and more peace of mind to ruin to make sure that it prevails, therefore, your bad mood and negative attitude are going to affect other people around you who may naturally take it very personally and make it their own state of mind for that day and as a result allow it to control the course of their day which will not be any happier than yours.

To make it simpler, let's imagine this situation: a man wakes up late because for some reason his alarm didn't go off. He's furious and nervous because he is going to be late for work, he fights with his wife and blames her because she didn’t wake him up, he yells at his kids, he's so nervous and in such a hurry that he gets very clumsy, he buttons his shirt in the wrong way, he spills his tea on his shirt then he leaves home after already creating enough disturbance to make his wife and kids' day go wrong too. Then on the way to work he curses and yells at other drivers, he fights with a few of them and gives them a bad start for their day too. Then when he arrives at work, he is reproached by his boss and he takes that very personally too and he fights with his coworkers, juniors or seniors and he's rude to a customer who is going to complain him to his supervisor and again he is reproached and he receives a warning. He makes a lot of mistakes and he has to do each task twice because he's so stressed out and distracted. Then he rushes home and fights with a few other drivers who are by now more violent because they had their share of a bad day already. Finally he's home to find his wife's cooking as bad as it had never been because he gave her a negative start for her day, so he's going to complain about that too and an argument is going to take place. His kids did bad at school or had a fight with a friend or they may had beaten up some kid because the negative energy they received form their father and finally everyone whom the father encountered and gave a hard time for that day are also going to give others hard times that in the end everyone's day for some "Unknown" reason was simply a bad day.

With the scenario given, it's easy to say that the guy who got up late is the one to blame for everyone's bad day but this isn't true at all. The man started the pattern, but it could have been stopped immediately by the very first people he encountered, his wife for instance could have tried to calm him down, she shouldn't have been so sensitive to his bad temper and take it so personally, she could have tried not to react to it and give him a chance to calm down. If she failed then the first driver he fought with could have been so nice and polite that his rage would have calmed down immediately and the negative energy would have worn out little by little. However, unfortunately, we embrace negative energy and run towards it and claim it once we see it as if it is some precious treasure, therefore, we all react negatively to it, make it our own personal issue and allow it to consume all our liveliness and positive energy within seconds. As a result, whenever you encounter someone in a bad mood who is looking for a fight, don't react to him at all, don't show annoyance or sympathy or anything at all and keep a positive smile and say the right polite words to calm him down in case he was so violent and keep in mind that whatever he is saying or doing is because he's having a bad day and none of it is your problem so you don't need to make it yours and keep that negative pattern going. On the other hand, if it was you who started their day with an unpleasant occurrence, try to keep your focus away from it, don't put any energy into it by simply taking it as it is and then letting it slide by thinking of anything positive awaiting you that day or even future or past events that are always capable of bringing you back into the right mood or you can simply listen to your favorite music, play with your pet or kid, think of someone you love or any other thing that you think it can make you happy again and you can actually try more than one thing at a time. Finally, next time some negative incident happens, watch your attitude towards it because you never know, it may actually be you who is going to control everyone's mood for that day and you may become the reason behind all the negative status updates for that day!

You Forgive them because…

The different beliefs and spiritual teachings tell us much about forgiving those who harm us, those who wrong us, those who backstab us and those who cheat us. Yet, no matter how profound these word sound and what calming effects they have, we always find ourselves caught in the traps of the same question "But how can we forgive someone who caused us all that pain?" that's a very reasonable question indeed but it has an answer that can apply to all of us.

When someone lies to you, cheats you, wrongs you and is unkind to you, we feel pain and we even sometimes say that our heart is broken, but we shouldn't because this is not the truth. When they break your heart, it's not your heart that they break but theirs. When they wrong you, they wrong no one but themselves, when they lie, cheat and back-stab you, they lie to no one, they cheat no one and backstab no one but themselves because the bad guy here is not you, you remain true and faithful, you did nothing wrong and hurt no one, so it's not your karma that is ruined, it's not your path that is lost, it's not your good angel that has fallen and it's not you who shall reap evil because it wasn't you who sow it in the first place, it was all they, so any harm they do you is a harm they do themselves and you can actually just get up, shake the dust off and leave with your dignity, your good nature and your integrity remaining intact. You will be able to move on and all you will be taking with you is the lesson that you learned from the whole experience, it is they who will be left with their shame, their mistakes and the poisonous fruit they planted. As a result, the pain you feel, don't make it yours, don't take it personally because it isn't yours, it's theirs, your only pain is actually the pain of seeing and knowing what those wretched ones brought onto themselves, what bad karma they brought themselves, what misfortunes they will have to deal with, your pain is nothing but feeling sorry for them. Therefore, when you see this, when you see how ruined they are, when you see that with or without your grudge they are doomed and they will have to reap one by one the evil they sow, it becomes so easy to forgive them and walk away because your paths have parted now; you are the honest and they are the liar, you are the kind and they are the cruel, you are the loyal and they are the cheater and thus you are now heading towards two different destinations. If they try hard, if they face the consequences of their bad actions bravely and learn from them, your paths may cross again but until then, you bear no grudge and you feel no pain because all that had happened stopped being your problem because it was never yours. It was theirs and it will always be.

I Miss Us

I don't feel like I know You very well, although I am supposed to. I pray each day, even when sometimes I force myself to. I read Your words, I read for You and read about You, but sometimes the more I read, the more distant You get. And when I think of You, I seem to know You very well, but when the heart thinks instead, things just get absurd and then there's a great divide between what I know about You and how I know You, between how I think of You and how I feel You, and then I just say that I don't know You, are You the one I've always known or You are the one I am supposed to know!

Tell me how am I supposed to know You, when I want to love You but they say I should fear You. How am I supposed to know You when I feel You do feel pain with our pain, You do cry when we cry and You do get worried and disturbed when our world, Your precious stone, is all disturbed and falling apart, and yet I have to know You as the One who feels no pain, no anxiety and never cries and our worries don't concern Him because He was always there without us and will always be without us and we are all simply dispensable. Tell me how I can feel You as an endless love, an ever-beating sympathetic compassionate heart, a sweet tear and eternal peace when they say I must know You as the gigantic brutal powerful revengeful wrathful and full of pride One!

I don't know much, but I know one thing, I can't know You with two faces, I can't love You with two faces, You are either the One they tell me You are or You are the One I feel You are. I was born and soon I lost my father, so I called You my father, but they say You can have no children and what I say is a sin. I sometimes talk to You and make some sarcastic comments but they say You are too serious to joke with You. I sometimes get angry and complain to You but they say I must always be too grateful to ever complain about anything to You in a grumpy mood. Sometimes I talk to You while I'm lying down. Sometimes I do that in funny places. But they say I've got to do that in the prayer time and prayer posture, but I don't remember all that talk when prayer time comes and honestly that is a painful uncomfortable posture for my long long conversations with You. I think You accept me the way I am and You are there for me the way I am, maybe it's not the best place to talk to You, maybe it's not the best time or posture, maybe I'm not in the best mood, but c'mon! I need You and I thought You can be my father, my old experienced friend, but they say You're too much above that and I am nothing but a worthless mean slave of Yours, well, I'm o.k. with that, I am that much mean and worthless but that gives me more reason to need You, but all the rules they have set, rules about how I should address You and when and how I talk to You make me stop talking to You, stop addressing You and little by little they deepen the gap between us, although we talk everyday but we don't seem to talk, we don't seem to be in touch and not to cross my lines, not to make You angry, I don't say anything to You except what they say I should and I don't share with You all the things that I wish I could share. The distance grows further and I miss You, I can't love You like this when You are that far and although I'm a "better"  and closer worshiper to You now, but I don’t feel that close or good. So tell me, is it You the one I worship now and make contact with in the "proper" way or the One I miss, the One I need and don't dare to address like the old days, I really don't know but if that old One was You too, I must admit, I preferred our old relationship and I wonder why my old ways to approach You should be wrong? Why there should be only one right ways to worship You, why I can't do it in both ways? Why can't love be the real bond between me and You? I really don't know but I miss us!

The Absurdity of Pride

You may be now a very successful person who made some really great achievements in their life. You may be very proud of yourself now and say "yes! I did it!" and I think you are right, you did it and you have all the right to be proud of yourself; you went through a lot of difficulties and challenges before you finally achieved this so yes, you did it! And yet no, YOU didn't do it! It makes sense to be proud of yourself now and  to be exultant, but if you are filled with pride, if you think yourself the centre of universe then NO, you have no right to feel so because it's not you alone who did it.

Let's suppose that you are a very famous singer with the best hits ever; people shout out your name in hysteria when you're on stage; they ask for your autographs; they are ready to sell their souls to the devil to have a chance and say hi to you. Boy! This sounds so tempting! Who could have survived this without growing a very strong sense of self-importance?! Actually, anyone can be in that position and yet remain as humble and genuine as anyone who had never been exposed to all that fame. How? Because if you think of all the people who made it possible for you to reach that fame, you understand that you are just a normal person who did their part of the job successfully, which was in this case performing your songs with that good voice you were given, besides being committed to your job and doing all the things that help you maintain your voice and your fans, otherwise, you did nothing else that was so special or impossible, because without your manger, your agent, the people back stage, those responsible for the lighting or the sound at the concert hall, the backing group, the musicians, your song writers, those who pick your out-fits for you and those who arrange your interviews…etc you wouldn't have come so far and if you remove all those people from the picture, you are left alone with no fame, no money and no achievements. This may sound cliché as we all have seen Grammy Award winners thanking their fans and their whole crew when they receive the award saying "I wouldn't have made it without you" yes, many of them just memorize these words and say them to appear polite, but you can think of these words, visualize them, and really mean them when you say them letting the words give you that feeling of humility as you realize the great role everyone had played in making you the person you are now, only then will you find out that it makes no sense to be conceited and full of air.

We only mentioned people who directly took part in helping you realize your dreams, but there are also millions of people of whom you know nothing and to whom you owe everything, even your life. But before this, let's mention one of the greatest factors that lead to pride: sense of complete independence. Successful people who have made piles of achievements go around with this feeling of independence; they think that they are very powerful beings who managed to achieve a lot in a very short time, this makes them believe that they are very special and they own super powers that others lack which is a reason why they look down on other people who are not as "independent" as they are and who struggle hard to achieve very little in life. Actually, this can't be any further from the truth, the truth is: each one of us is a very dependant creature that cannot survive one day on their own. Starting from your family who may have encouraged you to stick to your dreams, to a person whom you never met, all participate in one way or another in the process of making you the person you are. You may have had a dysfunctional family, yet, your primary school teacher who was the first one to recognize your talent and give you some boost, a friend, a complete stranger, a producer, an agent…etc any of these played essential roles in helping you make your achievements. No matter what your achievements are, many people, even those who harmed you and made you make some extra effort or learn some life lessons, helped you to a very large extent. Yet, there are many others you don't know about, so who are they?  You are a human being who needs certain foods, clothes and shelter besides many other materials that you use in your daily life; so, guess what? All these haven't come into existence by themselves or through you. Millions of people worked to let them finally reach you. Think of the farmers who plant your food or the materials used in your clothes, think of those who work in the industry of making the heavy machinery used in planting and harvesting those crops, then think of the factory workers who process that food and prepare it to be used, think of the drivers who deliver them to the shops or pick them from the factories, then think of those who distribute these materials to the different shops, and let's not even talk about the bank employees who help you with the financial part that lets you be able to use money to buy the things you need and those who make the money in the first place. you see, if you think of it, you find that your life is completely dependent on others, and if you believe in God, you also know that you are all dependant on Him too, whatever your beliefs are, it's so easy to realize that without others, without farmers, factory workers, school teachers…etc you wouldn't even have survived your childhood.  As a result, after you see that you are not that independent after all and you actually are going to die without others, doesn't pride seem such a silly thing? Isn't it then so absurd to have pride and look down on others while your own life depends on them?

So, if you are standing in front of a big crowd that is shouting out your name as you play your biggest hit, or if you are standing before a hushed audience ready to give a speech because you are their worshiped leader. Or if you are looking at the U.S Box Office charts and see that your movie is still number one for the sixth week, or if you are looking at New York Time's list of best selling books and see your book there, or if you are looking around a filled up gallery and see your paintings proudly exhibited, when you are living that glorious moment, before you wear that boastful smile, before you are overwhelmed by how bright you shine, remember that this light is not only yours, it's actually a reflection of the light of all the people who touched your life in one way or another. So, take a moment and think of all of them, of all the known and unknown people who helped you reach this ,and only then turn that smile of pride into a smile full of humility, love, appreciation and compassion towards all humanity because no, you didn't do it alone.