Yet another Resolution..

Today I decided to write in roman Urdu. In fact I have decided to write my thoughts as they come, as I speak, same as I communicate with my friends in mix Urdu and English. Shayed is terhan I start writing blogs frequenting. I don't have any followers I mean blog followers. so aik bat zehan mai arahi thi kay whats the motivation behind writing a post when there is nobody to read. Then I had a look on my Blog stats, though it was not that attractive but again 450 something blog views.. well it wasn't in a day or month. its total blog views.. around 450 people viewed my blog so far in these 2-3 years.. I have YouTube channel as well so when my page crossed 1000 views my friends asked how many times I viewed my channel. That was so foolish, of course I couldn't view my channel 1000 times. Now I should read articles on how to increase viewership and readership. Since I don't post an updated content so I shouldn't expect to have good readership. Today is again a day of resolution. I have decided to write blogs regularly, take pictures and make videos in order to make use of my Canon 12 mega pixel camera (which hasn't been used since it was purchased 7 months back). Now I have to see if I materialize this thought. You will get to know this very soon. Simply by receiving updated posts on blog but I'm not sure whether you exist in some part of the world or not. I just noticed I broke my prior decision of talking in roman Urdu, well may be some other time.

Veronika Decides to Die

 I just finished reading a Paulo Coelho’s book “Veronika Decides to Die” yesterday. The author beautifully told a story of a young 24 year old girl, Veronika; who was pretty, had a steady job, boyfriends, loving parents, thus everything that one could wish for to be happy. But she was not happy and she didn’t know why. Failing to recognize the reason for unhappiness, she decided to die and took over dose of sleeping pills. She was taken to hospital – rather a mental hospital where she was told that she was suffering from a cardiac disease and just had a week more to live. That was her life changing moment. She took pills because she wanted to die at once but now she had to live for six or seven more days and she knew that waiting for death is more painful than actual death.

She was given sedatives and other drugs via injections so initially she could not retain her consciousness for very long. She met with few people in asylum – Villete: Zedka who was suffering from depression, Mari, who was a lawyer, had panic attacks which Doc Igor referred as ‘fear’ and finally Eduard – the schizophrenic with whom Veronika fell in eternal love later on.

She met with Zedka and asked “what is mad”. Zedka explained her that mad person is the one who is different from others. He tends to deviate from the set norms or so called practices of society. Because most of us don’t have courage to act differently, therefore we don’t accept change. She gave examples of great scientists like Albert Einstein and Newton and philosophers who discovered hidden truth about life and this world. They were not the normal people. They were extra ordinary and thus changed the world from their knowledge. Zedka made sense to Veronika and she thought she should not have been admitted into mental hospital.

Veronika started feeling dull and lost interest in life, in fact few remaining days of life. She wanted to die but she didn’t know how to materialize her wish in a mental hospital where she was kept under observation all the time. She had enough time to think about her past. What she had and what she did in these twenty four years of life. Her past flashed back into her mind. She did a good university degree in law but ended up doing a job as librarian. She spent half of her life in eating sandwiches as a part of her set routine. Got back from work, rush into the bar, then to lover’s bed and finally hit her bed to sleep. She didn’t want to sleep in someone else’s bed. She was following this routine since long and thus left charm in life. She was scared of trying new exciting things. She probably didn’t know how to add colors to her life. At Villete, she tried few new things, like slapping to a Fraternity member was something she never thought of doing in public. She began playing piano. It was something she always wanted to do but couldn’t make it. There, she met with Eduard – schizophrenic who was living in his own world with a ‘Vision of Paradise’ in mind. He didn’t talk to Veronika but always asked her to play pianao in moonlight. Veronika started enjoying doing it for somebody she didn’t know.

At last, they both fell in love. Eduard told her his story what brought him into Villete. He wanted to be a painter but his family wanted him to pursue a career as diplomat. He indulged himself in abstract painting and envisioned to create a series of “Vision of Paradise”. His parents were frightened of losing him and he thought he had discovered himself. Upon negating his passion on the wish of his parents, he lost the interest in ‘real’ world and went into a ‘virtual’ world of his own imagination. When he was brought into Villete, he was diagnosed as mild schizophrenia.

Veronika was getting passionate about Eduard and frightened to lose everything soon. Because she was dying and it was her own wish.  Now she had just 24 more hours to live. She decided to make most of her every moment. She told Dr Igor that she wanted to go out and do things which she never did. She wanted to tell her mother that she love her. She wanted to explore the world. But now it was too late.

Same day Eduard and Veronika escaped from the Villete. They went to the most expensive restaurant, got drunk and started talking non sense. They laughed out loud and the restaurant manager had to ask them to leave without clearing the bills. They went to the castle at the top of hill and Vernokia asked him to paint herself after her death. She made him promise that he would continue painting because this is his passion.

Veronika didn’t die.

Dr Igor was successful in controlling Vitriol (Bitterness) in Veronika. He created ‘awareness of living’ by creating ‘awareness of death’. And it worked in case of Veronika. She had every reason to be happy but she tried to commit suicide. She could change her life by doing what she actually wanted. If she could please herself rather than pleasing others she might not have thought about taking her life. Interestingly, now when she knew she is alive only for few days, she got enough time to visualize and evaluate her past and look at the mistakes she did or the mistakes she never did. She had encountered the love of life at the most crucial stage. This is point when she realized that life is worth living.

  

Review by:

Muhammad Umair Raheel    

Short Keys to Unlock Happiness

Happiness is not very expensive even in this era of social frustration. In most of the cases, we have to pay the cost of everything which we wish to bring in our acquisition. As they say, there is nothing like Free Lunch in this world. Similarly, Happiness has a cost too. But this cost is not paid in cash or through your credit card. You might be thinking about your new house in a posh area or your luxurious car or branded clothes which you recently bought for yourself, for which you have paid a handsome amount and feel so much happy about this asset. Is the material acquisition of goods enough to make a person happy and satisfied? NO. If goods could make you happy; then the elite women would not have to fix appointments with a psychiatrist for their mental peace.

There is no specific formula for happiness or inner peace. However, I figured out some common cognitive attributes which may be helpful in releasing depression and accelerate positivity in your thoughts.

Value Yourself: The first very important point which leads towards happiness is to value yourself. Don’t think that you are worthless creature. Allah (s.w.t) has created every living being with a purpose and none of His creation is useless. Start analyzing yourself by pointing out your strengths and solution for your weaknesses. Think about your achievements and feel good about them. With a low level of self esteem; you should not expect to live a happy life.

Your are Not Here to Please Everybody: Most of the times we do things to make others happy: our bosses, management, husband, wife, friend etc. I’m not asking you to annoy them but at least stop killing yourself to meet their expectations. You are a Human who has his own life, likes and dislikes, dreams. You should do things which make you happy and of course which do not deviate from your code of ethics and moral standards. If an evening walk makes your mind fresh then go for it; don’t wait for a friend to accompany you. If you feel like having an ice cream; don’t beg your brother or husband to get it for yourself. Make a wish list and start following.

Ignore the phrase “Log Kia Kahengay” : Usually before doing something of our interest, the first phrase which strikes our mind or mom says is “Log Kia Kahengay” (what would people say). Just remember people are here to talk. They would comment or rather criticize even on your positive behavior. So just ignore them and judge your actions on your own parameters. You are intelligent enough to weigh the impact of your action on you and others. If something, according to you, is fine then its fine.

Worries about materialistic acquisition: Today, we live in a capitalist world where the purpose of living is to make as much money as we could in order to consume ‘Everything’ which others have. Being Muslims, its our faith to believe in the power of Almighty Allah. I heard a very deep thought sentence from a friend that “Naseeb se ziada aur waqt se pehlay kisi ko kuch nahi milta” (You cannot get more than your destiny and before time). It is not in our hands but to work hard with honestly, is surely within our reach. So we should play our part and leave rest to Him who plans better than us.

Praise people who deserve: Sharing happiness of others inculcates positivity in our thought and attitude. If your friend gets a position in exam; you must congratulate him on his success and share his happiness. Similarly, your colleague who gets a promotion deserves your honest wishes on his achievement. Be the part of your closed ones on the occasion of happiness and grief. This will make your heart kind and tender and you would start taking things positively.

Child Abuse Cases in Pakistan Rose in 2011 - Report by Express Tribune

Source:
http://express.com.pk:88/DisplayDetails.aspx?ENI_ID=11201202010184&EN_ID=11201202010114&EMID=11201202010011

Does Your Past Hurt?

"If you are carrying strong feelings about something that happened in your past, they may hinder your ability to live in the present." -- Les Brown

I totally agree with the view point of L. Brown regarding the worse effects of our past on the present. From the time, I became capable of developing my consciousness; I began being the proponent of the fact that what we do in our present would restore as the ‘memory’ in our brain (sometime in our unconscious) which would dominate our thinking and perception in future as the past. Precisely, what we do today or what happen to us remains in our consciousness for some time and after that thoughts of new incidents replace the memory; which would then probably restore in our unconsciousness as a past memory in future. And any event can trigger these restored bad memories.

I’m among those who have a very strong memory because of that; I forgive people but don’t forget incidents, experiences and words of others. I believe there are many people around me who have such attributes. One thing which you would also agree with is the fact that this kind of behavior is very painful for a person having high level of emotions and sensitivity.

People, who do not forget their memories, always live in the past and those memories keep hurting them throughout their life. Any person, behavior or incident which may relate to some bad memory, refreshes the scene of the past which may trigger depression. In such scenario the person overlook the countless blessing of Almighty and start complaining about life, world and people around him.

Barbara De Angelis said, "The more anger towards the past you carry in your heart, the less capable you are of loving in the present."

Sometimes it happens that the most pleasurable and pleasant experiences and incidents of past hurt us in future. We become sad when we miss those moments that we spent with our loved ones who could not get along with us for some reason. Such memories make us depress but along with this, there are some memories which make us annoyed. Barbara De Angelis refers to such memories that make us angry. In the result of which we start hating ourselves sometimes and mostly blame others. This hatred not only give pain to the person but also restrict him to enjoy other pleasant memories and positive current happenings.

Memories whether good or bad, are the part of past which has gone so I think blaming ourselves or others, making them responsible and burning ourselves in the fire of anger and hatred is worthless and useless; because such memories can’t give us anything except the pain and tears. And something which produce hindrance in the way of our happiness; the sane attitude is to throw it away and start loving yourself and your life for the sake of countless blessings that God has showered upon us. Life is beautiful; so don’t live it as a burden. We have got millions of reasons to be happy.. Can’t we just find one?

VAGUENESS - the unavoidable element in our ultimate perception of reality.

Upon resuming my office seat today; I start thinking for topics for today’s blog. The topic hunt ended with nothing in mind while hands were getting anxious to hit the keyboard keys. Then, I decided to write about ‘Nothing.’ Strange.. isn’t it? Yeah, because I got nothing in the result of my brain storming for the topic. Well, again, it’s a great difficultly. Nothing has a very vast horizon and having so many implications and dimensions. Somehow, I got blocked for innovative ideas, felt so empty.

Sometimes, upon putting much of the effort, we get nothing at the end. Here, I did not mean effort in some concrete work. Rather, I’m referring to the mental effort and energy that we put in thinking about something or discovering some reality. Although, we are able to understand some of the parts but a certain area remains vacuous. In my dictionary, this emptiness is known as ‘Vagueness.’ Every person has his own dictionary where he assigns certain meaning to certain words on the basis on his own choice or experience. Sometimes he borrows a meaning from other person’s dictionary and more often he disseminate his reference meanings to others, if he is a writer

My dictionary defines ‘Vagueness’ as, “The unavoidable element in our ultimate perception of reality.” Let’s expand the explanation.

There are two basic parts highlighted in the word’s explanation:

One, it is the unavoidable element – meaning we can not avoid or restrict it by any means. It will always be there with your perception of something (later referred as reality).

Two, in our ultimate perception of reality – This is somewhat complicated. Reality itself is very vague; it varies from individual to individual. So, just to understand the definition, let’s suppose ‘reality is absolute’, for a while. Perception of reality refers to image of reality in our minds. What’s real for us or to be more accurate, what we regard as real in our mind or our own insight about something which makes it the Truth for us.

Finally, the word ultimate refers to the final and decisive version. As most of us would agree, we form many opinions in our thought process, at the end of which, we reject all of our opinions and stick to the final opinion or decision.

I think this elusiveness that reflects from our thoughts and decisions actually lie inside us. All these grey-undefined areas actually represent the emptiness of our inner selves. Every time when we find some unaddressed or unprocessed idea; it implies that we are deficient and incapable of many things. Thus, this vagueness in our perceptions and thoughts actually refers to the foremost reality that we all are curtailed by nature and the humanistic capabilities are also restricted.