Patience is the essence of a soul

Once I read about a lad who had intentions to determine how much pain humans can sustain at maximum. He thought when a person dies; it is the most painful stage of that person’s life. So to get an idea of that extent of pain and He took various chances to kill himself. Every time, he committed a suicide, he survived somehow. Thus, he was exhausted by his failing efforts. He took his one last chance to take his life away to get his answer. Yet he survived again but this time, he was kidnapped by few people who tied him up in a jungle with a tree and took away his cloths and mobile phone away. He was left to die with hunger in coming days. It was that time when he realized that it was not the death that gave him the pain but the feeling of death coming every second before it was actually going to come.

I believe that there is nothing in life that gives us ultimate pain or happiness. It is our psychological setup in our minds which we create by allowing our surrounding i.e. people, environment, present and past experiences to affect our life. For instance, if something we believe is going to give us ultimate happiness. Believe me, even if you get what you want. This happy feeling will not last longer like other feelings as well. Sometimes, we are sad and frustrated for some logical reasons but no matter how logical and realistic those realities sound but it will be over soon as well. There is nothing ultimate and forever. Only if we understand this, we will better able to understand that we can control how we feel and act. We can have more patience and can be more productive as we know what our mind is doing to our emotions and we do not let these emotions to drive our life. This is SOUL!

Following up on story about that man and what he concluded; He felt that feeling of dying slowly and slowly and being helpless, exposed his inner fear and gave him scares of death which was ultimately painful. This was ultimate pain for him. Your ultimate pain may be different depending on how you feel different things. His ultimate pain of dying slowly may not cause you any problem if you face the similar problem. The way we feel depends on our surrounding like people around us, our present and past experiences and many other factors and it complicates our lives. It tries to drive our life in direction of our emotions. But if you understand the psychological setup in your head, you may realize that every action is controllable.

If you are angry at something, be quiet and try not to talk much into it with anyone until you feel normal back again. If you are under stress and not able to control thinking about how the situation will be any better, just take breathe and think how good the weather is and people around you. If there are people around you who do not appreciate your opinion and attitude in a work place, try to keep people around you who can lift your morale and gives you their honest opinion for better assessment. If you are happy and someone around you isn’t in mood to celebrate and acts a bit weird, let them be away until they are ok. There are always solutions available. It takes patience to keep our psychological setup to stay up to the mark. It’s just that when we want something, nature seems to be in different mood like all I mentioned and we get a lot negative. So things back fires!

Feelings are sacred. Don’t spoil them. Make better use of them and put them in place where they deserve J

Edhi’s ingredients for WORTHY LIFE!

We all enter into a phase of life where we start picturing our future followed by a driving force within which keeps asking us some questions what are my passions? What are my needs? What skills do i have? What options do i have? Should I go for higher studies or continue with whatever job i get first. Our mind is buzzing with unexplored ideas all night long with days passing by so fast that you feel insecure that you got to do something and this time thing...It keeps moving…but you don’t. You are just planning . . . That’s life after graduation for you Ladies and Gentlemen.

Just like all of us, Edhi had also these decisions to make in his life though it was never his graduation point specifically because he didn’t follow the common trend of society of education and then job which people normally does but he had his own vision even very different than his own brother. His whole life from the start had decisions to make till the last of his breathe. He made decisions once every time and not even a single thing shattered his confidence and belief his whole life. His vision stayed clear for whole life what he wanted. Its kind of belief i didn’t witness in Jack Ma, Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg because Edhi’s vocation was not meant to be for the sake of money. He never wanted money. Whatever he earned, he didn’t take it as a profit or reinvested it for the sake of bigger profit. He kept utilizing it for the benefit of people. His only concern was to utilize all his resources for the service of Humanity. I want to be social entrepreneur and I believe no example could be as good as Edhi’s. One needs to have a belief that does not get shattered by few ounces of failure when piles of success after those failures could weigh more in future. It does not matter that you follow the common trends of society. It just does not matter. You got to follow what is inside you, asking you to just to do no matter what if it does not pay you back . . .

Talking about his decisions about his career choices in his whole life, he could have gone the other way many times in his vocation but he choose to connect his dots incredibly well despite those. Let’s start to connect Elizabeth’s idea of hobby/Job/Career/Vocation to Edhi’s decision making. At age of 5, he had a decision to make when her mother gave him 2 paisas, it was onto him whether he enjoys a 2 paisa treat or really does what gives him inner peace. One could argue that it was what her mother drilled into him. But that’s fine too.

He helped people voluntarily even in his teen age. He tried schools and working at shop both but made a choice to work at shop because that made more sense to him that time. Then sold pencils and match boxes in market. That is not what children of that age group didn’t do even in those years. He made a choice. He never thought he learnt so much from the school master than a beggar who he helped for 21 days and disappeared. He kept equipping himself with knowledge despite having no regular schooling with reading newspaper about injustice, revolutionary personalities and the world. Those were decisions that he made and depicted well practically in his confidence when he worked at medical dispensary of his own community first time but witnessed many unjust values in their culture so he stood tall against them. He gathered all his courage alone. This served as a foundation for Edhi foundation. It all started when he took up a job as a Paan shop and then again hawking and selling match box, pencils and towels. Despite facing severe threats, he chose to keep doing the good work and set up his own medical dispensary when there was enough money and for not only his community but for the people of all communities rich or poor. He worked 24/7 to serve people better. And It kept going . . . He chose different jobs in his life big or small but never left kept him away from human service that was his vocation. I would conclude by one of the finest words he spoke to his friends when they called him a big dreamer in his teen age:

“ I could begin small but why should I think small” I would say the same that “the beginning does not matter but the ending does”

It's a sin to be a dreamer

There are a thousand things that run in my mind every second and I believe if I ever express it, people would pretend that I am extremely negative person because people wants to believe in positivity and pretend to be saints while they are anticipating the negativity themselves and they don’t even see it. Actually, they kill their own dreams all the time.

I have seen people that do horrible things in life and they don’t even know it. Like for instance, Parents in society allow their children to become liberal and open mind when we watch all sort of stuff on TV without considering how does it affect our under age children at home. And after all the years of training with these TV and Social media, it turns out that parents get surprised when their children become modernized and open minded. When those adults start believing in dreams like if it’s a girl who watches TV and movies regularly in her teen age, decides to become a singer or an actor in later stage of her life. It’s at that stage when she is told that it’s against our norms then she is enforced to follow it. It is hypocrisy at its peak. We watch other women do the singing, dancing and acting on TV at our comfort but to show the world their daughters or wives as great artist seems unethical and against the norms. We have to be at least logical in our approach. Make a choice and keep it for the rest of our life. A choice, that you can be proud of and have positive consequences. If there is something that is contrary to our norms, we should not follow them from the start. Otherwise, it’s not bad to go here and there meaninglessly like animals.

I personally believe in gut feelings that guide us in our lives. I always believe those feelings are for greater purpose. It may or may not be right all the time. Maybe, it would be wrong most of the times but it will take you to the right place after sometime; that’s why I insist on going with my gut feeling despite my own failures. At least, when you try your gut desires and it does not work out, it’s easier to move on to next thing in life than just regret the whole life for not doing the right thing at right time. These are the decisions like choosing to become a doctor or engineer, cricket or artist, love marriage or arranged marriage, living with luxury or modesty. First, Society shows us how great it is to have what we want to have. For example, if a girl wants to be a female artist, people love them as long as they are on TV, movies, singers as others daughters and wives etc. but when it comes to allowing their daughter or wife; it’s a straight no due to norms. While society also leads them to believe how great it is to be a female artist and then tells them they can’t have it most specifically in the name of norms. 

Another fact is that the love marriages look good in movies but in real life, you don’t actually get to make a choice because it is disrespectful to our elders. We talk religion all the time and teach everyone on social media that what is haram and halal. While on Eid-ul-Adha, Fills our stomach with BBQ’s and fridges with meat for next 6 months but who thinks for the poors. What hypocrisy! That’s ok.

I believe there is time for you to make a choice. Make it or don’t make it. It certainly is going to have consequences either way. You may not be able to have control over those consequences. So control what is in there to be controlled.  YOUR ACTIONS TODAY!

Own Your Decisions and Embrace them!

Everyone has desires and dreams in their childhood of what they want to be in future but above that, when they get to know the theory the choices get narrow down. But the irony is it is not only our choice to choose what we want to be in our lives but what others want us to be, or how they want us to do that. We spend most of the time of this life and our youth making others satisfied of our career and other choices we made but what about us? We get frustrated and shallow inside. We feel the work load and furious over times.

On the other hand, if we chose what we actually want to be regardless of what other want us to be, we will own our choices. We might earn lower than many of our peers but we will not be frustrated. I believe that there will be more chances to grow and be more productive.

For instance, I have always done what I wanted for but that was not the case with my very own brother. When he was doing his matriculation, he used to abscond from the academy on Friday and Saturday and it turned out that he had joined vocalist sessions at Alhamra Art Council. My father was so upset and he was not allowed to complete that session. He did what my parents wanted him to be, an engineer. He could not score extremely well in FSc so he got admission in BS (CS) at a private institute. It has been said quite right that where there is a will, there is a way. He managed to join the music society at his university and made his university won battle of bands more than twice. On the other side, he got frustrating grades in CS. All in all, it ended up in the way that he took a stand, faced extremely serious warnings by my parents, zero financial support by parents and emotional support by peers and much more. He was determined and he owned his decision of not continuing CS at all and he also expressed his interest in Mass communication. To the surprise, he did not only succeed in securing admission in Mass com but he got full scholarship for his 4 years and he has officially launched his first song by now that has been bought by one of the top production house.

Now what the scenario is, my parents are not offended any more. Instead, they believe him that he will do great with himself. He is not frustrated anymore about the grades and his career. He can study and work day and night now, because he is doing what he loves the most. Now, they understand the fact, and "You" also need to understand it; 

 "To own a decision requires courage that only comes with passion and determination to do something and the fire within to prove yourself. It is in there all of us, we just need to dig it out and own it before it gets even too late to regret."

Behind the story: A Friend!