Definition of homework, profession & vacation

When you sit at home and worry - you call it homework
When you sit in the office and worry - you call it profession.
When you sit on the beach and worry - you call it vacation.

If you carry your worries with you all the time, your life will remain unchanged.

Right decision for the wrong reason

There were 3 persons undergoing treatment at a lunatic asylum. The doctor in charge was pretty confident that they were progressing well and would soon be cured. So after a month's treatment he called all the 3 of them in front of a large and deep empty swimming pool. He asked the 1st person to jump in the pool, who gladly did so & broke his hand. The next person also jumped, and he broke his leg. Now the doctor asked the 3rd person to jump.
"No doctor, not me".

The doctor was elated, that at least this fellow was cured.
"Good, go and fetch your things, you can go home now",the doctor told him.
"But by the way, can you tell me why you did not jump".
"I am not mad, doctor, I do not know swimming"

Don't we also sometimes do the same thing? - take a right decision for the wrong reasons, think about it!

Traffic Patient

Tune in to any radio station of UAE like 89.1 or 101.6 or 95.3 FM and you will always find people calling up the radio jockeys and informing them about traffic jams. The RJ's acknowledge these so called jam busters and advise the people on the roads to avoid a particular road. I sometimes wonder whether it really must be helping people, especially those who want to reach a particular destination and that's the only road that they can take. But yesterday, I was quite amused to listen to a lady who called up the radio jockey and described her woes of being stuck for the last 2 hours in front of a petrol station, and described herself as a "traffic patient". It seems that the people around her had given up and many had crossed the road and fetched themselves tea/ coffee and were standing on the sidewalks enjoying the view. However, more than her story, I liked the term "Traffic Patient" so much, that it compelled me to post this blog. Isn't it such an appropriate term to describe a person's condition stuck in traffic?

A traffic patient can be described as one who has the following symptoms

1. He / she always tends to get stuck in traffic for hours together.

2. He / she has pain in the right leg (feet, toe, thighs, knees) because of applying brake and accelerator after every 15 seconds and sometimes continuously for an hour or so.

3.He / she suffers from hypertension because each car seems to be trying to overtake him / her by doing some manouvres that he / she could never dream of.

4.He / she suffers from chronic headaches, eye stress etc because he / she has to concentrate on the road completely against his / her wishes.

You might have read the famous cliche "Every problem is actually an opportunity knocking at your door". So can the traffic problem also be an opportunity? Yes, if you think along these lines:

1. If you are a doctor, you can advertise that you specialise in treating traffic patients, that you have special medicines to cure headaches, eyes irritation, feet - toes-knees-thighs-aches.

2. You can open a massage parlour that specialises in giving special " anti-traffic" massage. Think of a good jingle to place an ad.

3. If you are a Toastmaster, getting stuck in traffic is the best opportunity to practice your speech. In fact, if your husband / wife dislikes you preparing a speech at home, just go out for some work in the car and prepare your speech while you are stuck in traffic. I have done that several times and no, it does not seem odd to others who look at you because they think that you are speaking to somebody on hands free.

4.Open a workshop specialising in installation of the latest DVD player with a built in 8 inch screen that can play movies of all formats mpeg, avi, flv, divx, wma etc etc. You can market this by telling people that they can gainfully use the time they waste in waiting in traffic jams, by catching up on the latest movies or serials. If priced reasonably, the demand to install these DVD players will be so high that it is an assured way to become a millionaire.

Can you think of more?

But this really - takes the cake- it is what my friend from Dubai had to say about the traffic situation in Dubai. "Sajid, these days I am spending more time in my car than with my wife, but it is difficult to say which is better".

Depriving our children

If I were to ask you – Are today's children deprived? Most of you would answer with a resounding – No. And why is that? Its because we know that we are providing our children with all the comforts imaginable, good food, airconditioned rooms & cars, the latest games and gadgets (laptops, playstations, mobiles), the best schools, good clothes, holidays overseas every year, the list is endless. We give them all this but do we give them our time? Have we sat with them even for a few minutes for a heart to heart talk about what is bothering them? what are their aspirations? are they feeling intimidated by peer pressure? there could be so many things on their mind. But we are so caught up in meeting our own deadlines – professional as well as personal, in sorting out our own priorities, that we hardly bother about this.
Children, today, are deprived not because we do not give them things, but because we do not sufficiently value what they give us. We need to be alert to welcome what children have to offer. Remember what Kahlil Gibran wrote about children,

You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

Our children are flying forward into areas we have not charted ourselves. If you want to know what the society will be like in the next twenty years, you don't need to read science fiction books, nor do you need to surf the net for articles about this topic, you simply have to go and visit any kindergarten school, you simply have to visit the homes where children between the ages 5 to 10 are living.

Are we teaching our children to be independent, to love, to respect, to laugh or are we busy in bombarding their young minds with what was handed down to us from previous generations – our concepts of right and wrong, our divisive & opinionated beliefs about why we do things the way we do them?

Flirt with Fear

Once , a disciple went running to his master.
"Master, Master, I am very afraid. I feel that I am going to die very soon. What can I do?"
The Master replied – "Don’t worry, I will solve your problem".
"But first let us have a cup of coffee."
Both of them sat and had coffee. The master then explained to the disciple that fear is just another thought; it is only in the mind. And the mysterious thing about the mind is that it can never hold on to any one thought for a long time. Not even the thought of death you can hold on to for a long time, the fear of death can be washed out simply by thinking about a cup of coffee. So you see how shallow fear is?
Have you seen a cat drinking milk? If you observe carefully, you will see that the cat always drinks or rather laps up milk with its eyes closed. Why? Because she thinks that by closing her eyes, she will be cut off from this world. We human beings also sometimes think that by choosing to ignore fear, fear will vanish. This is not possible, fear will be there whether you like it or not and the only way to counter fear is to develop the courage to fight it. Real courageous people not only fight fear they even flirt with fear.

You see, the very fact that you are alive, means that you have something to lose, and the moment you have something to lose you will always have fear & so there is no point trying to run away from fear. What you have to do is to face it, work on the causes that are creating the fear. Learn to flirt with fear.

The dark side of competition

Once upon a time there was a wicked king. He was an absolute dictator. In his kingdom there were two men, they were real good friends, and only they had the courage to oppose him, so he ordered his soldiers to catch them and he put them inside jail and sentenced them to death. Soon came the day when they were to be put to death by hanging. They both sat huddled together and the hangman called out the first person's name. "Noori". The first person walked slowly to the gallows. "You are not Noori". "Yes I am not Noori, but I love Noori so much that I want to die before him".

Yes this is real love, this is how love speaks but just think about it - what are we teaching our children? are we teaching them to love?

The answer is NO. We are teaching them competition, we are teaching them ambition, we are teaching them politics. Some of you may disagree with me, you may say that no we teach our children that they should love others. But, have you ever thought about this. The entire structure of our education system is built on competition and not on love. When one boy comes first in a class, the other boy is told that he is lagging behind and this fellow has come first. So what are you teaching him, you are teaching him to compete and get ahead? You are teaching him ego, you are telling him that one who has come first is higher, and one who is behind is lower. One who comes first is awarded gold medals and merit certificates; he is garlanded and photographed, and others, who are behind, what happens to them. They are ignored & even insulted by the system by society.

So tell me in this way when the children are trained in ego, in jealousy and in competition, how can they love?

We are all trying to push others out of our way, we all want to go ahead, and we pull others back, and this happens in case of every person, right from the peon to the president. This pushing and pulling – this is nothing but violence. Look all around you, everybody's hand is at everybody else's throat.

We say that we are teaching sympathy and generosity but how can a competitive mind be sympathetic – it cannot be – the competitive mind is always hard & selfish. Schools and universities today are indirectly teaching violence and we call it education?

The real problem is that we have made success as the center of our lives. When dishonesty increases, we go on shouting and crying that dishonesty is increasing and become unhappy. But , as long as success is the only yardstick, lies, dishonesty, thefts are bound to follow. They are shadows of success. They cannot be removed. We become so blind in becoming successful, we can do anything to achieve success. Why do you think, even the best sports people resort to drugs? They are blinded - by hook or by crook they want to win. So, everything else becomes secondary. And we have been teaching this for thousands of years. But the time has come to change our old paradigm. Success is not of any value. Success is not a matter of great respect or honor. A man must be fulfilled, not successful. Success is not a destination, it is about having fun along the journey.

Don't help others

A small child was talking to his mother, and the mother said, "Remember always to help others." And the child asked, "Then what will the others do?"Naturally the mother said, "They will help others." The child said, "This seems to be a strange scheme. Why not help yourself, why make things unnecessarily complex?"

The world is full of miserable people & they are helping other miserable people, the blind leading others who are blind. What help can you give? It is a very dangerous idea which has prevailed throughout the centuries.

In a small school the lady teacher told the boys, "At least once per week you should do a good thing." One boy asked, "Just please give us some examples of good things. We don’t know what is good.” So she said, "For example, a blind woman wants to cross the street; then help her to cross the street. This is a good job; this is virtuous."

The next week she asked, "Did any of you remember to do what I have said to you?" Three children raised their hands. She said, "This is not good – the whole class has not been following. But still, it is good that at least three boys did something good." She asked the first, "What have you done?" He said, "Exactly what you have said: One old woman who was blind, I helped her to cross the street."

She said, "That’s very good. God will bless you." She asked the second, "What have you done?" He said, "The same – a blind old woman, I helped her to cross the street." The teacher became a little puzzled – where are they finding blind old women? But it is a big city; perhaps they may have found two. She asked the third and he said, "I did exactly what they have done: helped a blind old woman cross the street."

The teacher said, "But where did you find three blind women?" They said, "You don’t understand: there were not three blind women, there was only one blind woman. And it was so hard to help her to cross the street! She was beating us and shouting and screaming, because she did not want to cross, but we were intent on doing some virtuous act. A crowd gathered, people were shouting at us, but we said, don’t be worried. We are taking her to the other side. But she never wanted to go to the other side!"

People are being told to help others, and they are empty within themselves. They are being told to love others – love your neighbors, love your friends, love your enemies – and they are never told to love themselves.

A person who hates himself cannot love anybody; he can only pretend. And this will only lead to more frustration for the one who is helping and the one who is being helped.