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 Iceberg Effect
Resilience is obstinacy in the face of adversity. It relates to our ability to resist being overwhelmed even when we face the storm alone. Facing storms alone is so much more fun anyway. It tests our limits of perseverance in ways that reveal our true strength, or at least it hints at what we are…
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Taken for Granted
It’s not always a bad thing to be taken for granted. It really all depends on who is taking you for granted, doesn’t it? When we incline towards selflessness, being taken for granted is comforting. It means that those around us find us to be dependable for what it is that they need from us.…
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Self-serving Subservience
There’s a natural assumption that suggests that those that serve others are selfless in their intentions. It’s not an unfair assumption either, because the visible actions of people lead us to judge the way we wish we would be judged under similar circumstances. It’s that age old wisdom of seeing our faults in others. But…
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Stark Reality
There is a starkness that stares you in the face as you see the distractions for what they are. Looking to the future with great expectations, I always found myself pushing the boundaries within which I operated. It was never about what is, but instead, was always about what could be, what is possible, and…
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Sensible Emotional Investment
That’s an oxymoron of note, I guess. Emotions generally take us on a journey of reckless abandon, even if that abandon is just the unrealistic expectations that the emotional highs spawn in us. One of the downsides of living with conviction is that you easily become emotionally invested in almost any objective that you set out…
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When Understanding Goes Too Far
I sometimes watch the wayward behaviour of some while observing the contempt of others that are watching it play out, and wonder who between the two are less aware of their actions or motivations to behave that way. The ones among us that are of a softer nature will look on and seek to understand why someone…
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That Half Full Glass
Do relationships end because people change, or because they finally realise who they’re with? Or is it closer to going in with a belief that growth is possible, only to discover that their partner was uninterested in growth? Or maybe the possibility of growth spawned an immature competition between the two, and they grew apart…
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Firefighter Syndrome
I’ve heard this term firefighter syndrome used loosely over the years, most often referring to people that have a tendency to want to rush in and fix things without thinking it through. Not suggesting that firefighters don’t think things through, but I’m sure you get the picture. You know, like the saying that if all…