Yet another epiphany… About an hour ago, drifted as usual in my own thoughts, I came to one sweet realization, something I knew subconsciously but now came face to face with it. A thought led to a thought, and that led to another, and eventually I found myself saying: I have everything I want at this point in my life. Well, I’m not going to count my possessions, name all the people I’m thankful to have in my life or make a list of the things I do to keep me busy and entertained. But I assure you, I’m thankful for every one of those things and more than happy to have them. Yet, this wasn’t the only thing that occurred to me in that mental inventory; for I came to another realization. The thing is, I’ve been living with the attitude of: “I can’t do this until I’m done with that”. I mean, there’s always something on hold, something I want to do but feel like I need to clarify my mind first by finishing up with other things. Yet, each time I do finish that thing I want to finish, the same feeling persists, and I start, even if unconsciously, to look for the things I want to finish. But, in fact, there’s nothing that needs to be finished first, and there’s never been. What I realized is that, the more materialistic things you have, the more materialistic things you achieve, the more you realize, or feel, that life is not about that. Now I know these are important things that make life easier and better on some level, but then, why don’t we ever feel we have enough? Why do we always want to meet new people or go to new places? Why do we keep complaining of being bored, tired and in need for change? I think all of this can be summed up in one question: “What’s next?” and when you fail to find much to expect further, that’s when you start to look for what you really, really want. I haven’t posted anything about Ramadan this year. Yet, this Ramadan has been a great eye-opening experience for me. Many things have been going in my life; many things happened this Ramadan, new things, new experiences, new people, closures, etc. The thing is, each of those things wasn’t something to dwell on, but rather a new way to see things and to aspire for other things. Thankfully, having all these things happening particularly in Ramdan, it opened my eyes to what really counts; because, at the end of each day and despite being exceptionally happy about this or that, I didn’t feel whole until I did the prayers and read from the Quran as I planned to do during the month of Ramdan. Without that, everything else seemed blank and had no purpose. You know when life gets too busy that you get consumed by work and social life, and you think that you have no time to spend alone and have some peace of mind, think again. It’s like eating carbs and greasy food for two days, then having a healthy meal with different kinds of vegetables. You feel like your body is being cleaned from the inside. That’s exactly how your soul needs to be cleansed. We might have different ways of doing it, be that writing, reading, composing poems, volunteering for different causes, etc. But at the end, we all need the same thing… So, what about you, how do you clear your mind and cleanse your soul?
Due to the a mix of disappointments, confusion, pressure nad other possible elements I may not know of, I've been reiterating this theory in the last couple of days...
"At the end, we all are going to die and be eaten by the worms, so why take life too seriously?"
This might be in contradiction with my long and deeply held belief that one should not leave this world without leaving a footprint. Well, I still stand by that, but let's say I like to think of being eaten by the worms when it comes to the less important yet frustrating things.
What made me review these "principles" if I may call them so, is a piece of news I just read on the net. Professor Randy Pausch has died of cancer at the age of 47.
If you think of it, 47 is a relatively young age to die, but think of what this man has done just before he passed away. This man inspired millions of people, in less than a year he did what many people fail to do in a lifetime. He left his footprint.
This makes me think, is there any difference between living 80 years or 30 years if you basically did the same things? What makes the difference? will you be someone who left the world a better place or just another corpse for the worms to chew on?
Last night I had a sudden notion of redemption, you may say it was some sort of an epiphany, but not quite exactly. It was something I realized was happening gradually but it's reached the peak just then. It was like knowing that something was fading away little by little, and I was aware of it, but at that particular moment, I felt I was free. It's the blessing of moving on, of letting go, of getting over something. It was like something I waited for but half-heartedly wanted. Why? I asked myself that question. Well, I realized that it may have come just now because it was now that I felt the need to it. Before, I knew I had to do it, but I didn't really want it, or maybe felt it wasn't doing much harm. I found that, being a drama junkie, I have to have something to mope about in my life. I have to be obsessed with something. I need to be preoccupied or else things could get really dull for me. But why now? Maybe because I felt harm was eminent, and it's really time to let go. Maybe because I have more things to worry about now. So, let me just ask the question: Do we often cling to the past and let it haunt us because it makes the present more thrilling? Do we ever fail to let go when we really want to? Do we ever know what we really want? Or, in other words, do we ever do something unless we really want to do it? I think that even when you're forced to do something, you don't do it unless you want to. For example, suppose you hate your job and say that you do it because you have to do it not because you want to. But in fact, you want to do it, because by doing it you're making money to do other things you want to do, so at the end of the day what have to do it really means is: You choose to do it so you make yourself do it whether you like it or not. Even of someone forced you to do something, you actually choose to do it because you know that if you choose otherwise things might not work the way you want, so basically you're doing what you want to do because you want to bring about other things or to avoid things that might happen. Thus, you're never forced to do anything; you're just weighing your choices and choosing the option with better advantages or maybe the lesser of two evils, at least from your own point of view. Having lived by this paradigm for sometime now I found that it worked really fine with me. It results in not blaming anyone for what happens to you but yourself, and the secret why this brings me happiness is that when I blame it on myself I know I can do something about it because, you know, you have a better shot at changing yourself than you have at trying to change others. Well, maybe I'm being too philosophical. Anyway, I have other fish to fry for the time being; don't know if I'll miss the drama anytime soon. But here's a piece of advice for all drama fans: If you want to have drama in your life, do it in an environment friendly way and don't take it out on others; let it only involve you and yourself. It's nobody's fault you turned out this way. No, not even your parents. Knock yourself out...
Is it only me or does this question sound awkward? I mean, is it something you decide? You know one fine morning you wake up and say to yourself: “What a lovely day to get married!” Then you call a friend and ask her if she would spare some time to go groom-shopping with you… Why do you always have to decide that you want to marry then find the person? Can't you just come across someone that makes you actually want to tie the knot? I also don’t understand why some people refuse to believe or just marvel at the thought of having to be “mentally prepared” for getting married. I thought I was out of question, an unspoken perquisite… I mean hello! If you’re not going to be mentally prepared for sharing your life with someone then when else are you going to do some serious introspection? No wonder divorce rates are hitting the roof. Some people call this irony. Just a quick thought. Still have much to say about this, with bonus tips on how to stop spam questions... Stay tuned
From time to time, I try to spare sometime to restore my Bandicoot powers by playing some video games. You know, Family Game back in my day was much more fun that Play Station now. Really, I love Crash Team Racing but not as much as I was fond of Super Mario, I could never get enough of that. I think there must be a reason, it just doesn't make sense. So, my brothers told me that they've got a new Tom & Jerry game. They said it was very fun, so I decided to try it. I told my little brother to put the CD for me and do all the necessary stuff, for when it comes to playing video games I like to grab the joy stick and get on with the game, I pretend I don't know how to do the wiring, and I prefer not to bother with as much as putting the CD in the driver. I think it's obvious since I suppose I'm not even using the right terms. Anyway, the game started with a selection. You have to choose either Tom or Jerry to be your player. I don’t remember how I made the choice, but I went with Tom. As I started the game, my little brother who's always an eager-beaver whenever one of us shows interests in his video games, asks me this: So, his question about Tom & Jerry wasn't any less puzzling for me. It got me thinking: Really, why is Jerry the good guy by default? Why does he always win? Let's try to set the record straight here: Maybe I'm being very philosophical here, but go ahead, ask yourself the question: Tom or Jerry? As for me, I don't think I have to make up my mind about that. All I know is that when I was playing that game, it felt SO GOOD mashing Jerry's skull. 
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