Blog

  • Is cabin fever getting to you?

    Is cabin fever getting to you?

    Is cabin fever catching up?

    Need a sounding board that won’t make things worse?

    Or maybe you realised that now is the perfect time to invest in your personal development as you gear up for life after Corona.

    Whatever your reason is, take advantage of these lock down specials.

    International clients are welcome. Multiple video calling platforms supported. Online payment facilities available on my website at zaidismail.com.



    #cabinfever

  • Choose your reality

    Choose your reality

    When our circumstances appear unchangeable, we must change our perspective. If we don’t, neither will change.

    Perception shapes our reality, because we can always create an alternate reality, but we can never change reality itself.

    When we look at something and feel overwhelmed by it, we generally find ourselves choosing between two things.

    We either try to find someone to blame for it and hope that we’ll be miraculously saved in the process, or we’ll try to understand it better so that we can identify a way to overcome it.

    The former is a victim mindset. The latter is simply being sensible.

    We need more sensible people. And sensible people are those who are aware of their contribution towards the outcomes that they experience in life.

    Sensibility starts with self awareness, and emotional mindfulness is at the heart of it all.

    #21daystolive #coronavirusmemes

  • Don’t just stay home – introspect

    Don’t just stay home – introspect

    It’s a time to rediscover what we lost when we were taking ourselves for granted.

    This might sound weird, but consider for a second that it’s in taking ourselves for granted that we find reason to take others for granted.

    In doing so, we take things around us for granted and end up committing excesses that harm us, and the environment around us.

    And then we look everywhere else but within ourselves to understand what went wrong.

    Let your lock down period be time to reconnect with what you once appreciated about yourself, and then use that as a reminder to appreciate what you once loved about others around you.

    The world is struggling because of the harshness that exists between us, long before it is impacted by how that harshness plays out in what we take without giving back.

    Start here. Treat yourself kindly, but with good reason. You’ll only discover that good reason when you seek to understand before you judge. Yourself, and others.

    #stayhome #healtheworld

  • What is it about toilet paper?

    Hype aside, I thought of a few sobering thoughts that may be worth sharing. If for no other reason but comic relief…perhaps. A tragic comedy, that is…

    1. Why hasn’t anyone taken the gap to produce a disinfectant to disinfect the bottles of the disinfectant that we use to disinfect our hands? I mean, we’re touching the bottles with potentially infected hands, not so? Or are disinfectant bottles self-disinfecting?
    2. I still don’t get the toilet paper thing. But more importantly, all the reports about mad shopping sprees, at least here in South Africa, seem to be from areas of affluence. Are the rich more paranoid than the poor? Or do the poor see this as yet another onslaught that they simply have to grin and bear because they have no option?
    3. The faith-based responses are the most curious for me. Every disaster is an opportunity to proclaim the superiority of our faith. But every opportunity to serve those less fortunate than us is an excuse to encourage them to have more faith. Actually practicing our faith is somehow never as important as preaching it. Like hoarding toilet paper instead of sharing disinfectant.
    4. Conspiracies abound. However, only to demonstrate how supposedly ‘woke’ we are about the underhandedness of our governments and the New World Order. But we happily indulge in the materialism spawned by those deviant masters. Remember that toilet paper binge?
    5. Blame it on the bat-eating Chinese. Because, you know, the way to combat that is to buy toilet paper. Although there is more and more evidence accumulating pointing to this being a manufactured virus, with a carefully orchestrated response. But, I’m not woke like you guys, so I’ll stay out of the conspiracy theory space. Where’s my toilet paper?
    6. Public gatherings. Hehehe. A sad joke. Those that have a safe space discourage it, and those that don’t, look on with curiosity wondering what the fuss is all about. Curiously though, the demographic of the victims of this virus are largely those from affluent backgrounds or so-called non-shithole countries. Perhaps a decrepid lifestyle in a crowded informal settlement is healthier than the self-indulgent lifestyles of the oblivious and wealthy? Perhaps that is why they need all that toilet paper. After all this time, they’ve lost sight of the difference between their rectum and their mouths. (I kept it decent, so don’t raise your eyebrow at me).
    7. The idealists are possibly the most refreshing of the lot. Believing somehow that this mass hysteria is suddenly going to imbue us with a collective conscience so that our excessive ways that are apparently killing the planet will suddenly be transformed into Kumbaya. Ummm, remember that toilet paper run on the markets? (all puns intended)
    8. Oh, the economy. How can we forget the focus on the billionaires that are sadly no longer billionaires and have fallen from grace because their stocks crashed? Perhaps they need more toilet paper because they’re crapping themselves?
    9. But government cares, right? Just like how they care about the poverty and long-drop toilets the rest of the year. Oh, wait, poverty and long-drop toilets are fodder for campaigning among the masses that keep them in power. But this horrid virus that threatens to affect their own kind is suddenly a national disaster. Is it a national disaster? Absolutely. But not any more of a disaster than the disastrous leadership that created the overcrowded settlements and decrepit public health system that is now grossly inadequate to deal with this disaster. But the fools with hoards of toilet paper are suddenly celebrating the show of leadership in dealing so decisively with this pandemic. The only pandemic we have is gross ignorance coupled with arrogance. But I’m probably just talking crap because I have toilet paper envy, or something like that.

    We lost our humanity long before Corona. And if our response and attitude towards each other during this crisis is anything to go by, we won’t re-find our humanity anytime soon either. But social media makes us feel better about our empty lives and our need to gather in meaningless social traditions that serve none other than our own need for validation about the success we have achieved within the systems created by the ones that we choose to hate, while wearing religion on our sleeves, and reminding people of the end times.

    We’ve lost our way. And Corona is not about to help us find it.

  • Be lazy

    Be lazy

    We need more lazy people.

    People too lazy to be insincere.

    Too lazy to be fake.

    Too lazy to be attention whores.

    Too lazy to live double lives.

    Too lazy to be angry.

    Because face it. All of that requires a whole lot more effort than the alternative.

    Imagine what life would be like if we put all that energy for fakeness into something that actually brings us true joy?

    Not sure where to start? Let’s chat about a coaching approach that is affordable and works for you.

    I do in-person and virtual consultations, so it doesn’t matter where in the world you are. From only US$30 per session, it’s more affordable than you thought.

  • Escaping emotionally abusive homes

    Escaping emotionally abusive homes

    Trigger warning. Unpopular opinion. Tough love ahead.

    It’s not drugs that steal our children from us. Like us, they also need to feel significant.

    Taking drugs is not just a bad habit. It’s a means to escape what we don’t want to deal with in the world around us.

    Is it a bad decision? Absolutely. Because escaping something never resolves it, it only defers it to a later time.

    But, we cannot give what we don’t have. So we can’t give understanding if we don’t understand ourselves.

    Escapism is the pastime of the masses, that’s why we have little to no communication in homes that centre around technology or social media, leaving the young ones struggling to find a space in which they belong, physically and emotionally.

    The emotional connection that they then forge with fellow escapees is what makes drugs the escape of choice.

    If we treat them as addicts, they will behave like addicts. If we deny what is lacking in their emotional make up, we’ll deny ourselves the opportunity to address it.

    It’s never easy. Because we can’t give what we don’t have. That’s why we must invest in ourselves so that we are capable of doing right by those around us. What is your escape?

  • Worship me

    Worship me

    Don’t use religion to elevate your ego.

    By doing so, you use God to worship your ego, rather than subduing your ego to worship God.

    The appearance of religiosity in others misleads many to assume that they possess piety.

    Piety cannot be measured through outward appearance, only through experiencing a sincerity of action.

    Sincerity, if shown due respect, makes an outward show of religiosity for the purpose of earning respect impossible to display.

  • Awakening beauty

    Awakening beauty

    There is a beauty in awakening the soul that is only ever experienced by those who have the courage to stir it from its slumber.

    Fear doesn’t only make us aggressive towards those that don’t deserve it, it also 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 need, and pursuing it as if our life will remain incomplete without it.

    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 have to navigate your future. It doesn’t, and never will define your future.