You, Your Mind, Your Life

It is liberating to know that You are not the center of the universe. This means events of your life aren't scheduled around your desires and demands. So life happens. How do you live with that? You plan, you choose, you avoid and only a percentage of your life turns out as you want. To be honest, it is very liberating to know that you are not totally in charge of your life. It is Not all up to you. What is your attitude toward life now? Do you see your life as a series of unfortunate events or

Life is unfair and unpredictable. To say life is beautiful depends on your state of mind at the moment of confession. If you have been experiencing favorable situations recently, you will have a positive and hopeful outlook on life. However, calling life unfair and unpredictable is as objective as it gets. There are pleasure and pain in life. You can't avoid the pain nor can you increase your worldly pleasures, regardless of your intentions and efforts. The only way to live is to endure and rejoice the ups and downs of life and keep going. Keep going  for different reasons at different stages of your life. It's critical to find these reasons as they will keep you going. Again awareness is the key. Be aware that nothing lasts forever! 

Afghanistan is near and dear to my heart. It is the place where i grew up, where i spent my childhood and some of my teen years. I still remember playing outside till late, walking to school, taking public transportation to relatives house, celebrating Eid and Nawrooz and many family gatherings. Our house with its big yard planted with lots of vegetables and flowers was like the main attraction for close relatives and cousins. Life was pretty simple those days and very much enjoyable although we didn't have a lot of facilities that we have in the States. I vividly remember my sweet grandmother teaching me house chores and my parents helping me with my studies in the evenings.  I also remember the war times, running from place to place to hide, schools closing, the panic look on my parents' faces, the desperation in their voices and their reassurance that we will be fine. I remember how they used to hug us in an effort to shield us from pieces of bombs and rockets that just blew...

I am the kind of person who constantly reflect and want to improve an aspect of my life. I reflect selectively and choose my desired improvements purposefully. This allows me to explore my own opinions, values and limitations. I don't reach the optimum results at first and I don't expect that either. It is through consistent and meaningful exploration of my thoughts and behavior that I expand my knowledge of myself. Psychologically, we have four spheres My attempt is always to expand my known self and definitely shrink the unknown self and get more insight on my blind self. It takes conscious and persistent effort to accomplish that. My first strategy is to listen to myself when I talk, in private and public. I want to hear my voice and my opinions, from the tone and pitch of my voice to the choice of words and the quality of my thoughts. It works wonders. So listen to yourself as you talk to others. How are you talking? What are you saying? After a few observations, you kn...

Seriously, are you a prisoner? Often we don't realize that we are a prisoner of our own expectations. You have heard million times about "positive attitude". Let me tell you one thing, positive attitude is nothing but a scam. What positive attitude tells you is to be delusional, to be hopeful and keep telling yourself that "everything will be fine". It is deceiving. The reason that positive thinking or positive attitude doesn't work is because it is in conflict with the logic of an intelligent person. Thus "positive attitude or positive thinking" will not work for a person of intelligence and reason. Ditch the positive attitude. Evaluate your expectations and your self reliance. Your expectations play major role in your life. Think about it! When you drive to work during rush hour, do you get pissed off when you are stuck in traffic? When you skip your meal, and get cranky couple hours after that, do you get angry for not being able to focus? When...

Who is the most important person in the world? The person who influences your life the most? It is YOU. Your happiness, honor and achievements depend on you, yourself. It starts and ends with you. So how well do you know yourself? Self discovery is a long process. You have to go through certain experiences in life in order to know your true wishes and potentials. However, I warn you that it is not a spontaneous process. You have to make conscious effort to discover yourself. It requires reflecting on your choices and behaviors and holding your impulses back from dictating your actions. It doesn't stop at knowing yourself. You need to make adjustments in your expectations and judgement. You must change to grow, accomplish and live. One way to knowing yourself is getting out of your comfort zone and always pushing your own boundaries. If you are a quiet person, speak up, and if you are a loud person, hold your tongue. Do something out of your norm and see how it feels. Be honest wi...

Yes you will know because your heart will tell you how it feels about your relationship. You just have to listen to your heart. In many matters, mind is over heart, but in matters of heart, heart is over the head. Learn to listen to your heart, learn not to ignore your heart. Regardless, you will know when your heart is not in the right place. Usually the politics of the situation will confuse you and whether openly or blindly you may follow the wrong path. But deep down in your heart, you will know something is wrong. When your thoughts wander mid day to dark places, or you are up in the middle of night wondering about something or nothing in particular, that is your heart telling you it's not happy. Unhappy heart won't let you rest. There is no peace of mind with restless heart. So listen to your heart mainly when it comes to your relationships. Don't stay in an unhappy relationship for too long or your heart will break and your soul will be wounded. Don't be someon...