Zaid Ismail
Zaid Ismail
@zaidie@zaidismail.com

Author, life coach, and mental health activist. We need to change the narrative from disorders, illnesses, and survival to accountability, understanding, and thriving.

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  • The Value of Sanity

    One of the paths to insanity is to try to reason around someone else’s actions or behaviour by assuming that their value system is the same as yours. When you find it difficult to get through to someone, step back and consider two things. Are they genuinely interested in hearing you? Do they respect the…

  • Optimism versus Reality

    Positivity is about focusing on opportunities, not about wishing away reality. Wishing it’s a sunny day when it’s raining is not going to make the sun come out. So leaving your umbrella behind is an act of foolishness, not optimism. A positive mindset can often lead us into delusional states. When our overbearing sense of…

  • Serve a greater purpose

    We’re built to serve others. When we lose hope in being served by others, we withhold our service in protest until we convince ourselves that no one will take care of us so we must take care of ourselves. That’s when life becomes hollow because it pulls us away from our core need: To be…

  • A Beautiful Mess

    The last year has been a beautiful mess. It has been a year of pushing boundaries and testing long-held truths. People, relationships, skills, passions, and even hobbies all came under close scrutiny as I peeled away the layers of assumptions that coated them over the years to test whether they still served me well, or…

  • Smashing Writer’s Block

    We leave things behind because we find them unpleasant, not because we find them endearing or cherish-able. The same is true for relationships. Perhaps this is why it is more difficult to recall the good times when you focused on the bad times for so long. Idealism can taint judgement and spawn good intentions that…

  • Why we sometimes despise hope

    Optimism or pessimism are both choices. The trials we face can be unending or brutal with barely any space between them to just pause and take a breath, but succumbing to them is still a choice. Allowing our spirit to be broken is also a choice, even though it isn’t a choice taken lightly, nor…

  • A Contaminated Ego

    While I may not be able to resist the physical oppression that overwhelms any physical means of resistance I have at my disposal, it has never been a reason for me to remain oppressed in my mind. Far too many see the shackles on their wrists and assume that to be a denial of their…

  • Defining Moments Life Coaching

    Defining moments are those moments that mark a turning point in our lives. It’s either recalled as a moment of upliftment, or sadly too often a moment of duress. Both, however, define our lives and influences our behaviour in ways that we rarely recognise.