Cinnamon Zone: Miscellaneous

Sunday, March 25, 2007

"There's no time"

This conversation took place at work few days ago, between me and another colleague…

N: I don't know how he does it! That man is such an encyclopedia!

O: Yeah, tells you how much we still need to learn

N: It's driving me crazy! How does he find time? I leave work at 5 and I'm finished, while he's the first to come and the last to leave. Not to mention he's pulling doubles

O: Unbelievable!

N: You know the other day I heard that Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) only slept 2 hours a day. They say the more inner peace you have, the less sleep you need.

O: Well, I do fall asleep easily when I'm feeling blue

N: seems like you have quite a bunch of skeletons in your closet!

O: Among other things…

N: Anyways, really, how does he find time?

O: This shows you that you are the master of your time

N: Right, you know Rania bought a book called time management. Says it was very good. I think we could use it

O: Again, the problem is: there's no time to read "time management" books :p

N: Not even get them!

It's a vicious circle…

[On a serious note: You can always make time when you can't find it... we all know that]

posted by Ola Eliwat, in Diaries and personals, Miscellaneous @ 9:42 PM, Email this post to friend

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Friday, March 23, 2007

Why History Won't Remember You

The other day I heard this Ad on radio, it goes like this:

بتتذكر تاني أغنى رجل في العالم؟

طبعا لأ! لأنه التاريخ بيذكر الأوائل فقط

(Do you remember the second richest man in History? Of course you don't, because History glorifies the first, not the runner up!)

Well, with all due respect but, says who? Being ranked first or second is all about comparison, and I think it's very destructive to depend on that to determine your success. Why not just do your best regardless of the rest? If you open any personal success book, the first thing you'll read is probably the definition of success, which is: there's no definition for success. Success differs according to each person's perspective, goals,, dreams and potential. I remember that bit of Top Gear, the car show, in which they receive a letter form a person challenging to drive the car in their track and record a time that overtakes the last person on the list. At first you might be like: what's the big deal? But I think you'll think differently when you know that the man was blind. And he not only overtook the last person, but the last two persons. What seemed like an easy task for any professional driver was a huge success for this man. I'm not saying we criss-cross cpmpetition and throw it out the window, it's important to hav ecompetition, but that is very differnet from envy, sour grapes and trying to imitate others and be like them. Every person is a unique being, you don't have to be compared with others in order to stand out. Not to mention than it's not always as accurate as you think, it's rather complicated. You know they say there are two ways to have the tallest building in a neighborhood: Either by building the tallest building, or demolishing all the buildings around. Constant comparisons might lead you to the latter. I think you all heard that funny story about Charlie Chaplain participating in a look-alike contest and coming in the second place! This tells you this: who decides who's first anyway?

Anyway, the aforementioned Ad reminded me of this bit I read once in a book called Tuesdays with Morrie…

"It is 1979, a basketball game in the Brandies gym. The team is doing well, and the student section begins a chant, "We're number one! We're number one!" Morrie is sitting nearby. He is puzzled by the cheer. At one point, in the midst of "We're number one!" he rises and yells, "What's wrong with being number two?"

The students look at him. They stop chanting. He sits down, smiling and triumphant."

Friday, March 09, 2007

Bits and pieces

This was written-n in a f-famous Arabic magazine, under the title "tips to come over an emotional -failure":

Don't listen to sad songs. Instead, listen to the song "Ana Haifa"...

Why would a self-respecting devastated human being listen to "Ana Haifa ana" in order to feel better? How would it possible help?!!

(2)

Nada is my best friend from school days. She's not a blogger, she probably have never read my blog and will never read this entry. Anyways...

Nada was once coming home in a taxi after applying for a job, which didn't work out. She was all devastated after having been unemployed for several months, so she called her sister and started crying and whining. To get you in the mood, the song playing in the Taxi was "elwad 2alboh byowga3oh" While Nada cried and cried...

After hanging up, the Taxi driver asked her:

- May I ask you a question?

- Go ahead

- What did you study at college?

- Political sciences

- Oh, just like me!

You can imagine Nada's reaction, while "elwad 2alboh byewga3oh" played on...

(3)

It's funny how you see teenagers throwing themselves away, emotionally I mean. Always in a rush... No matter how you tell them that it's not about making a good or bad choice, you can always end up being hurt. You might say it's ok to get hurt. Well, not always. For us, or some of us, it's ok because we reached a stage where we can get hurt while keeping our self-confidence and self-esteem. We might get sad for a while, but our basic character remains intact. As for those poor things, it could be self-destructive... But you know they won't listen, because if you were in their place, you probably wouldn't listen either!

(4)

Translation could be really funny sometimes. Haroon Al Rasheed saying: Take it easy and a Mexicano with a poncho and a large straw hat saying: لا تنفكين تفاجئينني البتة

What else?

posted by Ola Eliwat, in Funny, Miscellaneous @ 3:07 PM, Email this post to friend

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Saturday, February 24, 2007

Happy Socks Day

I was in a good mood this morning :D

Speaking of mood, I read something interesting today

"We are not our feelings. We are not our moods. We are not even our thoughts. The very fact that we can think about these things separates us from them and from the animal world"

Another interesting thing, for the first time I knew that there is a difference between liberty and freedom, summed up in these lines:

"They had more liberty; more options to choose from in their environment; but he had more freedom; more internal power to examine his options"

See, Happy Socks Day didn't turn out to be a useless futile post! Socks can put you in the mood!