Life and its lessons (6)

Life and its lessons (6)
Entebbe, Uganda, 2018

Life and its lessons (6)

Trust: The word” trust” or statements associated with it are often used to express feelings of excitements and frustrations. How does trust happen? Grow? Break? - Through listening, talks, discussions, experiences and stories I understood trust happens incrementally as most things in life - it’s a process just like a growth process of a tree. In the usual calm, low voice - Our instincts, inner voices, surroundings and behaviors give us hints along the way but most times we ignore them trying to put up explanations and justification. My lesson, in life if we want to live a full life we must trust and trust often - it’s not wrong to trust people and situations but when that trust is broken, remember you are not at fault. Don’t burden yourself. People choose to treat people because of who “they” are not because of who “you” are. Let’s learn to listen to our calming inner voices that give us clues along the way. Like I mentioned in my previous lessons post (4) we don’t have control over what people do but we are definitely in control of what we choose to do – to learn and put into use that learning - not to stop trusting but to trust wiser.

Travels: “Traveling; it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller" - Ibn Battuta Writing this post as I travel makes me think of the benefits, insights and hikmah(wisdom) behind this beautiful blessing. Travel to me is a time of self-reflection – a moment to pull myself out from the routine, observe my surroundings, to see things and people differently. In travels I grow, one conversation - mistake - observation at a time. My lesson; take up the opportunity to travel by planes, buses, boats, bikes or walk. Travel to explore and reflect on nature, people and to know oneself better. May Allah give me and you more chances to travel to see the beautiful and break the unseen mental chains we have put up.

Fake: Fake news - beauty - bags - smiles - suits - people - life. These days it seems that we are re-discovering the word fake as it is becoming a routine word in our vocabulary. I think its people that have changed and not so much the news or items. We have changed in our standards and patience. We prefer the fake friends instead of building stronger bonds as the later requires us to be vulnerable and deep. We take one picture 5 times to get that perfect smile-lightening-background as the picture is no more only to capture the real moment. We have idealistic versions of what a friend, wife, husband, work and beauty look like and these short-term gains we surround ourselves with have made many things fake. My lesson; real is hard but it is worth it. Don’t choose the easy/fake way – look for credible news, make real friends, choose experience rather than only photos, live conversations and travels that I don’t post about - live real.

Being quite: I love a quote that says “I was quite but I was not blind” people consider people who are not aggressive enough or does not say a lot when angry to be naive, timid, does not get anger. But I wonder maybe they are the stronger ones as they remain quite when a lot can be said. Maybe they are the ones that look at the long term and minimize damage, maybe they are the ones who care more……. Maybe just Maybe they are right in not saying much. My lesson as Islam teaches us if you don’t have anything good to say it’s good to keep quiet. In a world that rewards anger, loud, noise and domination being quite can be a threat. Let our words be precious and used to bring smiles to people, solve conflicts and bring solutions.

Inspirations: This posts inspiration section comes from a Hindi movie called Kal ho na ho – loosely translated as; tomorrow might not come ----------- “Aaj ... Aaj ek hasi aur baant lo ... Aaj ek dua aur maang lo ... Aaj ek ansoon aur pee lo ... Aaj ek zindagi aur jee lo ... Aaj ek sapna aur dekh lo ... Aaj ... Kya Pata, Kal Ho Naa Ho” / “Today … today share a smile … make a Dua … Shed one more tear … Live a life … dream … We never know if tomorrow might not come

”Until next time Insha'Allah – Cya

#my_one_step_at_a_time

Zuhur Yasin :)