Category: Life

  • Avoiding life is waiting for death

    Avoiding life is waiting for death

    Sometimes, avoiding drama seems like the only possibility of experiencing peace.

    But, that’s like saying that as long as we’re not sad, we must be happy.

    We know that’s not true.

    The absence of unpleasant events in our life may give us reason to be grateful for not having them, but it doesn’t mean that we’ll feel fulfilled or content with the life that we have.

    That lack of contentment is what leaves us feeling uneasy or restless, knowing that we should be grateful that it could be worse, but also knowing that there must be more to life than just the avoidance of drama, or the fulfilment of responsibility.

    We weren’t created to maintain a status quo.

    Since birth, we were driven towards progress and improvement, and stagnation felt like a threat to the joy of life.

    Because it is.

    Stagnation kills our spirit and convinces us that there is nothing much to look forward to.

    If every day seems like a repeat of the day before, what then becomes the purpose or reason to want to rise to a new day?

    Avoiding unpleasant outcomes is only enough to avoid unnecessary trouble, but it doesn’t mean growth or fulfilment.

    If you want to experience the sweetness of life, you need to go beyond avoiding things, and instead, start embracing new experiences, new ideas, and new concepts.

    You must be improving the quality of life of those around you, and not just your own.

    Fulfilment and joy is experienced from seeing the face of another light up because of your contribution towards their life, it’s not through seeing an extra digit on your bank balance.

    That bank balance means nothing if it doesn’t bring joy or upliftment to those around you.

    And not having someone to share your joy with is like witnessing a beautiful sunset, by yourself, each day, every day, until witnessing the sunset by yourself feels inconsequential.

    That’s what the absence of drama is like.

    It feels empty and pointless, because there is no point to a life of stagnation.

    Own Your life.

  • Celebrate the victim, destroy the human

    Celebrate the victim, destroy the human

    What we take from a traumatic event is infinitely more important than the event itself.

    It’s how we feel about what we experienced that weighs down on us more than the experience itself.

    The more it shakes our confidence, the greater our need for reassurance and support.

    While it’s entirely understandable to be overwhelmed in the aftermath of a terrible experience, it’s entirely avoidable to become defined by that experience.

    That’s when we need to be careful about celebrating or revering the experience of the victim to the point of not building them up to rise above it.

    Rising above the horrors of life doesn’t mean carrying a badge of honour to let the world know what you survived.

    That’s honouring the victim.

    Rising above it means seeing the experience for what it was, recognising what you didn’t know or couldn’t have controlled, and most importantly, remedying your trust that was broken in that moment of upheaval.

    Because that is what is lost when we experience a traumatic event.

    Our trust with the world is broken, leaving us gripped with fear because of the uncertainty of everything that we once embraced as our safe space.

    When we celebrate the victim, we redirect their trust to be placed in their support structures and safe spaces, rather than rebuilding their trust in themselves so that they don’t carry that experience as a dark shadow for the rest of their lives.

    This is not victim blaming. It’s destroying the impact of the aggressor beyond the moment of aggression.

    Own Your Life.



  • Conviction or distraction?

    Conviction or distraction?

    From The Egosystem, a reminder that when you are pursuing something new, don’t expect the people around you to understand or to buy into why you are passionate about it.

    Most of us are surrounded by people who live safely. Who fit in as best as they can.

    When you threaten to disrupt that safe space by going against the grain, you’ll get reactions that are more about their insecurity than it is about how they feel about you.

    One of our biggest mistakes is that we don’t pay attention to what we represent to others, because we’re so focused on what we think they think of us.

    Most people are too distracted to have an informed opinion of who you are, but their defences make them vocal about what they think you should do.

    That’s why mindfulness and self-awareness are critical if you hope to break the hold that your environment or your past has on you.

    If you don’t believe, with conviction, in the value of what you want to achieve, you’ll be distracted by every naysayer that crosses your path.

    Some of them will be really sincere in their concern for you and your quality of life, but their concern does not mean that they’re right. It just means that they care.

    Striking a balance between appreciating their concern, maintaining a healthy tone to that relationship, and still pursuing your dreams with vigour is probably the greatest challenge in pursuing something new.

    Focus on the value that you want to create, and trust that when they’ve had an opportunity to experience that value, those who matter will be by your side, and those who don’t will reveal themselves for the distractions that they are in your life

    Own Your Life.

  • Selective inheritance

    Selective inheritance

    Our relationship with our parents, whether they were present or absent, wholesome or abusive, will have a distinct impact on how we shape our character through life.

    Not only will we develop our sense of self based on how we felt in their presence, but they are also our main point of reference in how to raise children, or show up as a partner to our spouse.

    Whether you actively adopt or actively reject what you experienced with them, that becomes the grounding point that informs your decisions about what is or isn’t acceptable in your future relationships, and specially in your parenting style.

    Judgement has nothing to do with it because knowing right from wrong or good from bad is easy.

    There is no shortage of material and advisors to point out what or who is right or wrong.

    Unfortunately, there’s a critical shortage of advisors to help us to understand why, despite knowing what’s right, so many of us struggle to do what’s right. Including our parents.

    Connecting with the human behind the role, both in your parents and in yourself or your partner, reignites the empathy and compassion that judgement kills within us.

    It is judgement that makes us harsh and rigid towards each other, while understanding breeds appreciation and compassion, if not affection.

    Join me with panelists Hana Haths and Dineo Nomayeza Sibuyi on Saturday, 29 October 2022 at 2pm for an in depth discussion about this and other topics related to the gender wars that prevail in the SA Muslim community.

    Tickets available at zaidismail.com at a nominal charge of R100 for in-person attendance and R60 for Zoom participation if you’re not in the Johannesburg area.

    Refreshments will be provided.

    Limited seating available so book now before the last minute rush.

  • Recycling generational trauma

    Recycling generational trauma

    One of the biggest mistakes in trying to break the generational trauma cycle is that we focus on NOT wanting to be like our parents.

    All that allows us to do is figure out what we don’t want for ourselves and our children.

    While that might seem like enough, it also means that we will only become aware of our own unhealthy traits that we’re passing onto our children through trial and error.

    Remember that knowing what you don’t want doesn’t mean that you know what is good or healthy. It means that you only know what of the unhealthy stuff you don’t want, but it doesn’t mean that you know what other unhealthy stuff awaits you.

    Trial and error is a very painful and exhausting way to figure out how to build healthy relationships with our children, or with our parents, and by extension, with our partners.

    By focusing on what we don’t want in life, we go through life in defence mode because we’re constantly protecting ourselves from the threats that may lead to a repeat of our experiences in our childhood or past relationships.

    Thus, we risk replacing one cycle of generational trauma with another.

    Seeking to understand why our parents may not have been capable of more than what we got from them is key to breaking the cycle.

    But, we don’t know what we don’t know. That’s why fresh perspectives are needed in our efforts to unravel these difficult experiences of life.

    This will be one of the key discussion points at the next event on Gender Wars on 29 October 2022.

    If you haven’t booked your ticket yet, do so now at zaidismail.com.

    Zoom tickets also available.


  • If you think you can’t, then you won’t…

    If you think you can’t, then you won’t…

    Archive Post… I can’t count how often I’ve been told, “Not everyone is like you!”

    That comment was usually in response to me encouraging them to do better or to rise above what was troubling them.

    You see, the assumption that a weak person makes is that some people are gifted to be more successful than others.

    The reality though, is that we all have the same potential.

    Some just realise that waiting for permission to be capable in their own right is a waste of life. So they own their contribution towards what they want to achieve.

    Unfortunately, too many convince themselves that they’re not built that way. That they’re not as gifted or that no one understands what they’re going through.

    But, like Henry Ford said, “If you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.”

    Sadly, too many think that they can’t, and then blame the world for the state in which they find themselves.

    We place limitations on ourselves most often out of spite, rather than because we truly believe we’re limited in some way.

    Do you know why spite? Because there are too many that will refuse to do something for themselves just because someone they don’t like, or don’t respect suggested that they should do it.

    It’s a result of a low self-worth car causes us to focus more on what others may think of us, than what we think of ourselves.

    That’s why emotional maturity is so important, and emotional maturity is impossible without self-awareness.

    Worrying about what others think of you is a distraction from self-awareness.

    With so many people distracted, it’s little wonder that most don’t know how to own their life.

    It always starts with you.

  • Burn yourself, why don’t you.

    Burn yourself, why don’t you.

    Anger always claims a higher price from ourselves than it ever will from the people on whom we project it.

    And before you assume that to be false because of the lasting impact that it has on its victims, understand that that lasting impact is because of their anger at the one who was taking out their anger on them.

    When we carry the impact of such anger for long after the incident has passed, it’s because we cannot make peace with what was done to us, while waiting anxiously for our pain or suffering to be acknowledged, and the perpetrator to be given a taste of justice.

    No matter the circumstances, our anger is because of our feelings of insignificance or dry the hands of those who treated us badly.

    What we hold onto them keeps us on high alert for any signs of anyone else treating us in that way.

    That’s why innocent gestures from others will trigger us, because it feels like those experiences that still haunts us.

    Anger is our demand for significance from the world, especially from significant others.

    Anger is always expressed in a space where we have no fear of repercussions, but is kept at bay when we have reason to fear the consequences of our angry expression.

    The one who is angry is the one whose self-worth is low in that moment of anger.

    Therefore, as long as you hold onto anger, you diminish your self-worth.

    For this reason, we must own our anger, and we must recognise the source of the anger from those around us.

    The moment we react in free, we become a willing participant in their war, while believing that we are justified in giving them a taste of their own medicine.

    The question is, at what price do we lose ourselves to anger in our fight for justice or in our efforts to correct the wrongs around us?

    Anger is not needed for firm and resolute action against injustice.

    If anything, it distracts us from our purpose and causes us to become oppressors, just like the ones who oppressed us.

  • Trading the future for the past

    Trading the future for the past

    Sometimes, we lose ourselves in the struggle to build the future that we want, while forgetting that it’s a struggle because we’re still living in the past.

    Our expectations about what opportunities lie ahead, or what we believe we’re capable of achieving, are defined by what we believe to be true about the events that got us to the present moment.

    It is the betrayals, the disappointments, the failures, and the downright bad luck that we may have experienced before, that weigh us down in the present.

    Unless we see it for what it was, we’ll believe that we’re striving for the future, while not realising that all we’re doing is trying to avoid a repeat of the past.

    That’s how the present moment is lost.

    And it’s the present moment that shapes the future, never the past.

    Recognising what was out of our control, or what was a result of the demons that others were fighting, and especially recognising why it was impossible for us to have known better at that time, is what breaks the emotional choke hold of the past, so that we may be able to reclaim the present.

    Even if you chose to ignore good advice, in that moment, the reasons for your emotions pulling you towards ignoring it needs to be understood if you ever hope to be more mindful about such opportunities in future.

    Judging ourselves, or others, only ever has relevance at the time of trying to figure out what our contribution was towards that unpleasant outcome.

    The moment we accept that contribution, judgement no longer has any place in what shapes our decisions for the future.

    If you want your future to be worth looking forward to, you need to reclaim the present moment by making peace with your past, no matter how bitter or painful the impact of it may be.

    If not, you trade your future for that same bitter past, while blaming others for denying you your happiness.

    It always starts with you.