When we internalise our struggle to the point of believing it to be so unique that it cannot possibly be grasped by anyone else, we give it a power of magnitude beyond the experience itself.
Misery intensifies the more we dwell on it.
When we live inside our heads, we convince ourselves that our struggle and our pain defines our courage because if only ‘they’ knew what we were dealing with while still showing up, they wouldn’t judge us the way that they do.
We judge ourselves harshly long before we give the world an opportunity to judge us.
We then take that self-judgement and treat it as a truth of what we think others think of us.
Then we treat others based on that assumption that we made from the self-judgement while blaming them for judging us.
Crazy, right?
That’s what holding on to pain or misery does.
It distorts our grasp on reality because we only find what we’re looking for, while we ignore or dismiss anything that conflicts with that.
It’s not as confusing as it may sound.
If you go to the grocery cupboard looking for a can of tuna, you’re not going to notice if you have enough rice left, because you weren’t looking for rice, you were looking for tuna.
Same with life.
What you focus on is what you’ll find, and that’s why you won’t see what others see if you’re busy judging yourself or waiting for justice, because they’re looking at your life very differently.
That’s how we create self-fulfilling prophecies in relationships, or we create anxiety about what we need to deal with in life.
Step back.
Take a deep breath.
Break the routine.
And surround yourself with people or an environment that helps you to regain perspective beyond what is weighing you down.
That’s how we reconnect with hope and with joy in life.
It always starts with you.
#joy #pain #misery #selfpity #courage #life #ownyourlife #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthrecovery #selfworth #selflove #selfawareness #selfrespect #companionship #love #understanding #lifecoaching #zaidismail
Category: Life
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Judging self into misery
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Who do you think you are?
We self-loathe when we assume what we think others think of us, and then use that to justify why we should not serve them.
It’s an irony that is intended to voice to the world our dissatisfaction at how we’re being treated, while contributing towards the very reason why the world treats us that way to begin with.
Just like darkness is the absence of light, misery and harshness is the absence of kindness and generosity of spirit.
The moment we trade our ability to be kind or generous in favour of being harsh or selfish, we deny ourselves the fulfilment that none other can provide because it is a fulfilment experienced in being able to uplift, not in being uplifted.
The misery that we feel when we do that to ourselves is then projected on those we wish would treat us better, while not realising that we’re competing with the same demons that have already overwhelmed or distracted them.
It would be quite comical if it wasn’t so destructive.
The only time we should withhold our generosity or support is when it enables another to oppress others, or us.
And even then, we need to be measured in our response by ensuring that we don’t dish out harshness or cruelty to fight oppression.
At the most, we should simply disengage so that we’re no longer available to enable such bad behaviour.
If we’re mindful of the value of who we are, self-loathing will feel uncomfortably lacking in authenticity as we try to convince ourselves that we’re worthless while we know with absolute conviction that we are capable of doing more.
Self-loathing is the ultimate middle finger to ourselves and does nothing to improve the state in which we find ourselves.
So if you find yourself self-loathing, ask yourself, “Is this truly all I’m capable of?”
It always starts with you.
#hope #expectation #sincerity #selfworth #selfawareness #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #lifecoaching #zaidismail #theegosystem #ownyourlife -
Own your failure, own your growth
Why do we feel accomplished and proud of our efforts when things work out, but we blame fate or taqdeer when we encounter trials or failure?
The reality is, given our ability to reason and to choose how we respond to what we are faced with, both good and bad, we’ll never have certainty as to what was destined versus what is up to us to determine.
If everything was destined, despite our best efforts or no efforts, there would be no reason for accountability, either in this world to our fellow humans, or in the Hereafter when we are taken to account in front of the Almighty.
Regardless of your spiritual beliefs, the fact that we can choose, and that those choices have very real consequences that we cannot wish away, means that the sooner we take accountability for those consequences, the sooner we’ll be able to learn from it and do better.
When we convince ourselves that it wasn’t in our destiny to have something, we’re simply protecting our ego from having to accept that we failed at something important to us.
Failure is OK. It means that you had the courage to believe in something enough to try to achieve it.
What you do with the information that you acquired through failing determines whether you’re a failure or whether you’re still learning.
And we’re all still learning.
Right until the day we die, we’re still learning.
You wanna know why? Because every new moment in our life is a moment that we didn’t live before.
We were never 20, or 30, or 50 years old before. We were never parenting a 5 or 10 or 20 year old before.
And we were never parents, grandparents, or whatever role we play at THIS point in our lives before.
So stop blaming destiny or taqdeer and own your life.
If not, those who own theirs will own yours as well.
It always starts with you.
#hope #expectation #sincerity #selfworth #selfawareness #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #lifecoaching #zaidismail #theegosystem #ownyourlife #destiny #taqdeer -
The courage to own your life
The courage to own your life will pay dividends long after you’re gone. It’s an investment in the generations to come.
In the same way that we look back on our predecessors or great grandparents and feel a sense of awe about their achievements, or their way of life, generations from now, someone may be doing the same about us.
That’s why it’s important to get over our insecurities and act with purpose and conviction.
No legacy worth leaving was ever created by focusing on what others might say.
If nothing else, worrying about what people may say is the very root of the fear that prevents us from sharing with this world what it desperately needs.
Authenticity.
When we operate from a place of fear, we step into survival mode.
We’re prone to protect what we have or what we’ve inherited, rather than growing because of it.
That fear then makes us aggressive towards those who don’t deserve it, and it convinces us that what we have is all we’ll ever be capable of achieving.
Courage results from believing in the value of what we are capable of creating, and pursuing it as if our life will remain incomplete without it.
But that assumes that you haven’t already surrendered to your fears and embraced the probability of amounting to very little by the time of your death.
Don’t wait until your final sleep arrives before realising that you prevented yourself from living.
Your past only defines the experience and skill that you acquired to navigate your future. It doesn’t, and never will define your future.
It always starts with you.
#hope #expectation #sincerity #selfworth #selfawareness #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthrecovery #theegosystem #ownyourlife #lifecoaching #zaidismail #fear #courage #conviction -
The death of critical thinkers
Critical thinking is lost when we strive to belong at all costs.
When our need for inclusion overwhelms our objectivity, we give up what we stand for in favour of what the group stands for.
If that group is driven by a collective victim mindset, we’ll buy into it while finding strength in being around others who share our struggle for significance.
The more their views resonate with our emotional needs, the more the pervasive ignorance that drives their behaviour will appear as collective wisdom to us.
The only antidote to such sways of emotion is to have a healthy self esteem.
A healthy self esteem is developed when we hold ourselves accountable for what we stand for, rather than reassuring ourselves that we’re correct because others agree with us.
But that means that our need to stand up for what we believe in is grounded in a value system that we consciously subscribe to, and not one that we blindly inherited because we found our predecessors doing it that way.
And that is where critical thinking is either adopted or abandoned.
When we’re faced with honouring traditions that have long since outgrown our reality, or honouring customs that were developed out of ignorance and are now harmful to the progress of society, we become blind followers who create harm while having good intentions.
Our value system must be grounded in something greater than our opinion of how life works, or what celebrated individuals may think.
It must be grounded in a credible source that is above reproach not because we’re not allowed to question it, but because when scrutinised for credibility, it withstands the test of integrity.
The greatest threat to mankind is the absence of critical thinking, because it places the accountability of the individual in the hands of leaders who may be driven by selfish goals.
Thus, society is corrupted, and religion becomes a tool for control rather than harmonious social bonds.
The greatest gift that you can give to this world is to raise a critical thinker, not a blind follower.
#selfworth #selfawareness #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #lifecoaching #zaidismail #theegosystem #ownyourlife #criticalthinking #victimmindset -
Knowing your place
Understanding where you fit into the strategy of the lives of your significant others will save you a lot of disappointment and even pain. More than this, understanding where you reside in the totem pole of their priorities is essential if you hope to maintain your sanity. If you are not aware of these two simple points, you’ll assume that the value system by which you embrace them is the value system by which they’ll embrace you. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
When every ideal of yours is shattered by those in whom you tirelessly invest the moments of your life, you’re left contemplating who you are and what you stand for in the face of an abhorrent rejection. To claim grace and dignity in that moment when the audacity of ingratitude bears down on you without shame, becomes the battle that will determine whether you lose yourself to rage or do you hold on to the remnants of the self-respect that allowed you to invest tirelessly to begin with.
Creating spaces for a life filled with love always seems like an amazing way to spend your life, until those spaces are neglected by the loves with whom you hoped to share it. The hand that gives is greater than the hand that receives because the hand that receives rarely understands what it takes to be able to give of that which you sacrifice much to earn a little. Receiving bears the threat of entitlement, while giving, the threat of arrogance. Lose sight of yourself in either, and you’ll become one with the ingrates who trade with entitlement and arrogance.
Of course, this means that you must have first claimed yourself to begin with. Most have not. Most are defined by what they want to be seen as. They want to be seen as glorious, but offer only vainglorious ethics. They want to be seen as generous, but they trade with ingratitude. They want to change the world, but truly, they only mean to claim more from it for themselves. And if you grow up believing that you must take what you need in life, you’ll have no reason to consider the hands that toiled to create what you have available to take. Hence the ingratitude with which you are bound to operate.
But giving while trusting that you will have what you need when you need it requires a trust that is scarce. When we realise that the values by which we live is not the values by which we are received, that trust in humanity, or even in our circle of endearment becomes a hot coal that we juggle in our hands, burning ourselves out while not having the heart to discard it because we know what it’s like to be discarded by those who don’t have it. For anyone looking on without appreciation for why that hot coal must not be abandoned, we appear as nothing more than a dancing madman persisting in self-harm while everyone else is self-preserving.
Perhaps that is the place of the insane, whom, by the standards of the society around them, remain the only hope to retain some humanness where there now appears only a desert of isolation. In that desert we reach out to each other with tentacles of materialism while yearning for a warmly touch from living flesh, but incapable of receiving it with gentleness when it is offered, because we feel entitled to its offering because of our assumed place on the totem pole.
When you step away from the system that depletes your dignity, you need a resolve that holds you steady as you navigate the darkness that remains in the spaces outside of that system. A cryptic life leads to a cryptic mind of cryptic thoughts that deepens the isolation of spirit, and increases the takers who reach out with those tentacles demanding a piece of your soul while reciprocating with a shallow smile and a goodly sentiment. But no warm embrace.
Know your place.
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Getting it wrong
Life has never been simple, and only threatens to become more complicated with each day that passes.
Sometimes I flirt with the idea that perhaps I was destined to struggle with so much so that I can learn the lessons that need to be learnt to share them with others.
But my gut says that is not true.
“Whatever ill you experience is sent forth by your own hands.”
A verse from the Qur’an that is always a stark reminder that life is always more difficult when you are unaware of the full breadth of the consequences of your choices and decisions.
The less wisdom you have about life when you set out to create one from very little at your disposal, the more mistakes you must make to acquire the wisdom that others simply inherited from a wholesome upbringing.
Comparing notes is forever an indulgence in self-pity. That’s why I never compare notes.
Whenever I find myself on the wrong end of the life that I thought i was creating, I take a moment to pause.
To reflect.
To catch my breath.
To understand.
Then I shrug off the self-pity and forge ahead once more.
If the best efforts of my life will result in nothing more than misery, then I want to be damn certain that it’s a misery that I choose and not one imposed by others.
And in the process, I’ll laugh heartily and mock cynically at my repeated attempts to figure things out by myself.
Because when you don’t have a gentle hand guiding you through life, you need to brace yourself for colourful experiences.
The moment you stop to lament the absence of that gentle hand, you’ll lose yourself to its absence, and become one with the harshness of the world that has no place for innocent mistakes.
You don’t need others to be kind to you before you learn how to be kind to yourself.
Nor do you need others to be supportive before you believe, with conviction, in what is important to you.
Any excuse about not pursuing the life that you want because of the absence of support from others is nothing but an excuse that denies you the value of who you are.
The trials that we face are the unintended consequences of the decisions that others have made, while the ill that we experience is the unintended consequences of our own poorly informed decisions.
Strive towards not being a trial for others by being more mindful and diligent about the decisions that you make for yourself.
And when you get it wrong, allow yourself to be human, own your mistakes, and try again.
Life was never designed to be mastered on the first attempt.
Where would be the fun in that? -
What I wish I knew…
What advice would you give to your teenage self?
Response to writing prompt from WordPress- Any knowledge acquired in school has severely diminishing returns in terms of practical life the more you progress beyond the 8th grade
- Completing school is not a reflection of your self-worth or your accomplishment as a human being
- If you are taught religious beliefs through the fear of the consequences of not practicing those beliefs, it will turn you into a shitty person that judges everyone else if they don’t comply with your beliefs
- Your body doesn’t have a mind of its own no matter what people with medical degrees want you to believe
- If you’re at peace with yourself, your body will be at peace with you
- Don’t let the demons of others define your self-worth
- People who bully you are only doing it because they’re jealous of you, and not because there is something wrong with you
- Don’t trust every person who appears to be sincere in advising you. Many just want to be heard without trying to understand what’s important to you.
- Dabble and experiment in everything that piques your interest about the world, but don’t lose yourself to dabbling, especially when it comes to relationships
- Your parents are not the same as your sibling’s parents, because your parents had a different reality before and after you came along. Each sibling changed their reality, each life experience changed their character, and they reacted differently to each of your siblings and you because they were different people at each stage of their lives. Not because they meant harm, or because you weren’t enough.
- Success is loving what you do. It’s not having a good job because you’re afraid of being poor or unsuccessful
- You treat others the way you feel about yourself, not the way they deserve to be treated. So be kind to yourself and learn to understand why you are who you are.
- Every life stage will cause you to instinctively respond in the way you saw your parents or significant others dealing with that life stage when you were little. It’s your only point of reference about how life works. Allow yourself to get it wrong, but own it when you do.
- Don’t stop at judging yourself or others. Instead, let judgement be your first step, and let compassion and understanding drive what you do with that judgement.
- There are too many variables in life for any single way of living to be the only way to live. Understand the wisdom behind the traditions that shape your teachings so that you can implement the wisdom in your life with understanding, rather than blindly following the tradition with fear.
- Just like you’re not raising yourself, your parents didn’t raise themselves, so allow them to be human in the same way that you want others to create space for you being human.
- Be consciously responsible with your heart, so that you’re not reckless with the hearts of others.
- Embrace life, don’t fear what the future may hold, and don’t let the past contaminate the present moment beyond the lesson that needs to be learnt from the past.
- Don’t just survive. LIVE!
