Ramadan Kareem!

May this auspicious month bring loads of blessings and happiness to your home!

Be grateful for what you have. Ask for more blessings. This is the month where every good deed’s reward is multiplied! Try to spend as much time as you can in training your mind and body to bear the hardships that will be coming your way. Remember, Ramadan is just training to conquer the worldly desires…The Shaytaan (Devil) is locked up during this month.

The test will begin when Ramadan ends… and he is let out. Practice makes perfect! Goodluck!

your spare time & the real you

It is relatively easier to determine what someone else likes to do. What their personality is, or how they will react to certain situations.

On the other hand, it is extremely difficult to examine what you want your self. Mostly because you are so busy conforming to the norms of society that you sort of loose touch with your self. At least in the cases I have seen.

So I turned to good ole Google again (as I often like to do).

Leisure has been defined as a quality of experience or as free time. Free time is time spent away from business, work, job hunting, domestic chores, and education. It also excludes time spent on necessary activities such as eating and sleeping.

It is not what we do all day. It is essentially the little things we do through out the day-on the side- that define us. Like for me, I started noticing more and more that when I am on my smartphone, I like to watch makeup videos, or scroll through Insta-feed of Fashion bloggers, or make a pattern of fashion trends and guess upcoming trends. In short, it started shaping up and pointing out that I am in love with Glam! (Who isn’t?). But seriously, what you like to do in you spare time is basically what you should be doing all along.

I noticed, for example, my brother; he likes reading financial daily type magazines and he watches the stock market and he invests and he in on top of all things in financial industry. He has involved “finance” in every aspect of his life.

I for one want to leave my work behind. Don’t get me wrong, I really like my job. It is just …cumbersome for me. At the end of the day, when I am re arranging my priorities (as much as health and time allows) Office work is not exactly at the top of that list. When I am at work, I am quick n efficient. I take followups, I am self sufficient. Sometimes I do other people’s work. Because in my head, I am thinking, this is what will define ME as a person and my over all success in life. But comes 5:30 pm and Mama is OUT! I mean it is the first thing I take OFF of my plate (in a sense). My foremost priority is my son! and everything else follows.

After discussing this with my brother, he made me realize that it has not been that way all along. He has developed a consistent and deliberate habit and it was a conscious choice. Not a thing that happened by chance.

Now see, this is when I came to know:

The difference between him & I was The need. The want to be consistent. The effort you put in to make it into a habit. 

During my research I also came across a speaker called Matthew Kelly. I was instantly attracted to his P.O.V. He says:

“Everyday we make choices. Many can seem inconsequential, but one builds upon another and in the end our choices define who we become. Little choices matter because they become the foundation for bigger decisions.”

and then I read about what Jack Ma said. He says, that your time after work (after 6 to when you go to bed) is the time that truly determines your success. Not the 8 hours spent at work.

You have to be spending at least 1 hr on yourself everyday in order to grow and prosper.

So darling, What do you do in your spare time?

 

 

Unforgettable 1st Love

A 22-yr old asked me that question. Like seriously.

She asked: “Hey is it true that you never forget your 1st love?”

Tbh, my first thought was “Exactly HOW OLD does she think I AM?”

But instead I said, “Says who? The 90’s Bollywood movies? I mean no offence to SRK fans, but he single-handedly ruined the perspective of Love of our entire generation and maybe the next.”

“But that’s what they all say…”

I cut her off. “Okay think of it this way. Do you remember your first cellphone? Remember how you were sooooo eager to get one? and you were so happppy and it was the best thing you had bought/your parents had gifted you?”

“Yes but that is a THING. Not feelings towards a HUMAN BEING.”

“Hear me out. You absolutely adore your new 1st phone. And it is the best. Guess what after a few years it starts wearing off.. and then you get a new phone. But you are not quite ready… you are not ready to let go of it yet. So you safely put it away in your dresser’s top drawer…maybe even in a nice pouch. ….and maybe time to time you look at it.

Few years down the road, you may even take it out, show your friends and laugh about how pathetic it was and how your new updated Touch screen phone is so-much-better… with the larger screen and the better OS.

Eventually, you need space in that drawer. For new things. More permanent things. Things that make you happier than that dead body of a phone does. So what do you do?

You

Throw

It

Out

Trust me. You do.

And to have time on your side, after you are DONE living the clueless 20’s…I can ASSURE YOU, that the only reason it may seems impossible is cause you are in the midst of it. Eventually you will be OUT OF IT. And it won’t be such an end of the world.

And being in a desi culture, of course she replied with

“It’s okay I was just WONDERING. I wasn’t asking for myself”.

Of course honey. I was just saying.

 

 

 

Lost hope, Lost Love

My mamma used to tell me “Beta har cheez jannay ki zaroorat nahi” in short that translates to “Ignorance is a bliss”. And boy was she right; in some cases.

When you are starting to freshly experience life as a young adult everything is about the NEW and EXCITEMENT. Things are either Black or White. There is rarely any grey area. I meet girls who are desperate to get married or very much against marriage. When asked about the reason why they feel a certain way they mostly point to instances that have taken place in their personal life, or in their circle (family or friends). They are missing the spark of hope. Hope for happiness, hope for feeling deserving of attention and love.

What I have been noticing in “early to  mid 20s” lot lately is that their idea of life and love and reality is very obscure. Is it the fact that too much knowledge is at hand now for these young women? Are they finding out unnecessary information that really is no business to a girl in her 20’s? all the instagramming and facebooking screwing up perspectives of life. Life doesn’t come with Filters honey, you have to create what you can with what you have available.

They have initially set super high expectations of the way life SHOULD be, and then they feel its too ideal and unrealistic. Something that, the chances of which are very minimal.

I used to feel the same way, and eventually I discovered something. At the turn of ‘adulthood’ I was finally starting to realize the difference. I knew that falling in love (crush) came with a thrill; an unknown…short term relationships were experimental and involved late night chats and shallow promises.

but LOVING continuously was a chore.. (in a good way). In order to love your partner the same amount as yesterday or more you had to struggle every day. every. day.

It is human nature; we tend to start taking things for granted after a while. In a long term relationship …in marriage you have to constantly remind your self of the first few moments of feelings that brought you here in the first place. You have to remind yourself day and night. When you feel down, when you feel like something is not right…

it is like you are planting a seed… and your hands are muddy… and you are sweating… and it is so!much! work! But you have ultimate hope in your heart that it will, in the end, bloom into a beautiful flower… 🙂

So what I am saying is that, happiness in a relationship is not attained in isolation. The daily aspects of “planting a seed of love and effort” are necessary for your input to grow and flourish.

At this point so many girls have said to me “IT is not a one-way traffic. There should be some sort of response from the other party as well”. Yes, you are right, but don’t you think the other person is thinking the same thing? At least start doing something nice, and you will see results…and have hope girls. Have hope. The Universe provides.