Volunteering Overseas:
An Unforgettable Experience, An Enduring Friendship
I’m fortunate to know people who just decided one day that they would drop everything here for the opportunity to work in a third world country. Although I too have entertained the idea of doing the same, somehow my path led me in a different direction. Sure, it can be a life-changing experience, but there is plenty of that in my carefully constructed bubble. However, at some point, I might have a healthier relationship with life if I allow my inner wisdom to poke and prod until the bubble finally bursts. Well, every time yet another friend stuffs the proverbial backpack with survivor paraphernalia to head south, I feel my feet twitching to follow along. Of course, there is plenty of volunteer work to be done on Canadian shores, from homeless shelters to senior centres. However, volunteering overseas takes a special amount of courage since volunteers are literally stepping into an unknown world ravaged by war, disease, poverty and malnutrition, natural disasters, and a host of other extreme ills. Work sites like refugee camps and squalid slums are far removed from the clean, air-conditioned work environments we’re used to in Canada, but they make up a huge part of a volunteer’s ‘office’ in the third world. But so do schools, village communities, and hospitals. With all these challenges, just what makes people so hungry for this kind of experience and where do they look for it? People like Gurpreet Kambo and Calvin Knight can offer us some insight.
Gurpreet went on a six-month volunteer and educational exchange program through Canada World Youth, an organization that connects young Canadians with their peers from different countries to foster understanding and cooperation. The program consisted of each Canadian participant being paired up with a member of the exchange country, in this case, Honduras. There were nine pairs in total along with a project supervisor from each country. Each pair spent three months in a rural part of Canada with a host family, where the exchange members were able to experience aspects of Canadian culture. They were also given a work placement, and Gurpreet and his exchange buddy got the opportunity to work in a small museum where they conducted tours and worked on the museum’s database among other things. For the second half of the program, the group flew to Honduras, where Gurpreet worked in a government daycare for street children. He and his fellow participants played with the children and taught them English. They also organized fundraisers for the centre and used the money to renovate the place.
All in all, Gurpreet feels that his experience as a volunteer was nothing short of amazing, and if he had the chance to do it again, he would. His main reason for doing it in the first place was to experience something new and meet new people. All too often, we in the West tend to have the attitude that people in the third world need our help and guidance. This way of thinking is reminiscent of the times when Western imperialism was at its zenith. Colonialism played a big part in spreading and imposing Western Christian values and ideals in the non-Christian world destroying the systems, cultures, and traditions native to those regions. Although help is always nice, and is never refused when offered, the attitude that we are the benevolent givers and they are the needy takers requires some adjustment in light of the Western colonial legacy and the continuing impact it has had in the third world. In Gurpreet’s case, he thought the daycare was getting on just fine without their help, but there was still “room for us to do things when we were there”. If we went with the attitude that we have just as much to learn as to give, than it would make for a much healthier relationship between nations and between people in general. Furthermore, we can’t discount the contributions of grassroots organizations to improving the health and well-being of their people. The Grameen Bank is one such example of a micro-credit organization that has made a real difference in the lives of the poor, particularly poor women in Bangladesh, and whose founder, Mohammad Yunus, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. Many international volunteer groups work in concert with these NGOs (non-government organizations), and provide them with the manpower to administer assistance, groups like Kirabo Canada.
Kirabo Canada was founded by Calvin Knight, a high school teacher who not only wanted to share his knowledge and skills with his students in Canada, but also with kids around the world. He has both gained and given from his experiences in countries like Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Cuba. He spent a lot of time in India where he taught and mentored orphaned boys. Uganda was his next stop and this is where the idea of Kirabo Canada was born. Calvin’s not for profit organization is committed to “providing Canadians with the experience of living in a developing nation through interactions with locals, excursions, and above all volunteering…we create a bond between the Canadian and Uganda”. Kirabo works closely with grassroots organizations in providing educational programs for Ugandan children who have been impoverished by war.
The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) has been waging a 20-year war against the Ugandan government and is responsible for large-scale human rights abuses including abducting children and turning them into child soldiers and sex slaves. Millions of Ugandans were displaced as a result of the LRA’s armed rebellion in the north. The Ugandan military tried to put a stop to the rebellion, but it only served to intensify LRA aggression. The LRA is a guerilla group led by self-professed messenger of ‘God’, Joseph Kony. Kony and his followers want to establish a theocratic state based on the Biblical Ten Commandments. LRA also represents the interests of the Acholi people who Kony asserts are being discriminated against. Unfortunately, the Acholi suffer a similar fate to that of the abducted children within their ranks. The LRA is wanted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague on war crime charges. In 2006, a truce was called, and the LRA is said to have moved its headquarters to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Although Uganda has been relatively peaceful for the last three years, the war has had a crippling effect on Uganda’s children. Many of the children are orphans and cannot afford the cost of schooling, which is one of the only ways to escape a life of poverty. The Almond Secondary School was established in 2003 to help children in Lira District, located in the northern region. The school is funded by Kirabo Canada and the primary donor, All Nations Christian Care Centre, a charity registered with the Ugandan government. Kirabo’s goal is to form an ongoing relationship with the kids through sponsorship and hands-on work. A good portion of the fee paid by volunteers who join Kirabo goes towards assisting the educational needs of the children as well as to pay for construction projects.
Another important aspect of the Kirabo volunteer experience is a visit to Rachele Secondary School, a rehabilitation centre for child soldiers that welcomes sponsorship initiatives to allow these children to get another chance at living life in a different way. The organization is 100% volunteer-run, and is committed to putting all money into various projects to help the kids of Uganda. There are of course administrative costs, but these are kept to a minimum.
Kirabo organizes an annual volunteer program in July. A maximum of 15 volunteers can be part of the excursion. Information sessions are planned months in advance to give Canadians a taste of what it might be like. The fee is $4499 and this includes flight, accommodation, transportation, excursions, food and drinks. When the group arrives in Uganda, they get a city tour and attend cultural performances. Then they leave for Lira and visit the Almond School and meet the students and staff. The first part of their day at the school is spent on construction projects and refurbishing anything in need of some repair. Kirabo constructed a courtyard for the school as well as reconstructed a dormitory that was falling apart. Calvin believes that this is an important element of the experience since there is a “physical entity left behind” when the group returns to Canada. In the afternoon, leadership seminars are conducted and the kids take part in educational activities that teach them skills in planning and problem-solving. Although English is the official language, the kids still have a lot of difficulty expressing themselves and so English makes up part of the curriculum. Afterschool some of the kids and volunteers meet to discuss plans for the Kampala and Lira Kids Day, a special day for Uganda’s poorest children, which Calvin started up on one of his first trips to the country. Kirabo works in conjunction with another international organization called Right to Play, which is supported by an international community of professional athletes who promote sport and play in disadvantaged regions of the world. On kids day, children gain confidence in their abilities, and learn about teamwork and cooperation. Kirabo also works with H.E.A.L. International (Health Empowerment Aid Light), another non-profit organization assisting with leadership programs in the area.
Indeed, the work Kirabo does is extensive. Calvin’s thoughts on his personal motivations?
It makes me happy. What I believe is it’s what makes everyone happy. It brings you more happiness than sitting doing nothing. Everyone wants to do their part…an innate desire to help people in need. What I enjoy doing is being directly involved. It has changed my life, and I want to give others the opportunity to do it as well.
…and what’s it like for the volunteers who participate?
It’s good sensory overload. Everything they are seeing, doing, hearing is completely foreign to them. The volunteers are getting just as much as they are giving. It is an uplifting experience to meet people being so happy with so little, which makes it impossible not to re-evaluate your own concerns.
So, yes, overseas volunteering definitely doesn’t sound like a walk in the park. It requires hard-work, courage, openness, and patience, but overall job satisfaction scores very high. People like Gurpreet, other friends I know, Canadian starlets from the Degrassi Generation, to name a few, have answered the calls of their inner voices to give and receive knowledge in one of the most fulfilling ways possible. Also, people like Calvin have made overseas volunteer work a lifelong pursuit. Youth volunteer organizations like Free the Children have set up recruitment programs in schools to encourage our Canadian youth to be part of a volunteer mission and learn something extraordinary about themselves and about the people they assist. Whether you build homes or teach English, play ball or play music, your skills are a welcome contribution to the global volunteer network.
In Gurpreet’s words,If you do do it, put your whole heart into it and have the most memorable experience you can possibly have. It’s not worth doing unless you put everything into it.
Kirabo Canada will be holding a Gala fundraiser at Lula Lounge (1585 Dundas Street West, Toronto, Ontario) on April 26th which will include a silent auction and information booths to learn how to sponsor. The event will also feature performances by some spectacular spoken word and music artists. Tickets are $25 and the show starts at 7pm.
For more information on how you too can grab that nifty backpack and become an overseas volunteer, please visit the following sites:
www.KiraboCanada.ca
www.RightToPlay.com
www.FreeTheChildren.com
www.CanadaWorldYouth.org/en/
Copyright © 2009 Shazia Islam. All Rights Reserved.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
The Spirit of Giving
THE SPIRIT OF GIVING
By Shazia Islam
December is a time of year when people generally think a little more about the poor, and therefore give just a little more. It’s unfortunate that those who are living in dire circumstances where food is practically a luxury must wait until the holiday season to receive a surplus of charity. The fact that the food bank is having trouble filling its quota and making enough to carry them through the winter in Canada’s largest city might be a reflection or warning of tough times ahead. Of course all humans are complicated beings with complicated lives, and things are never easy especially when the country’s economic future is on the brink of…something. Hopefully disaster isn’t the word my mind is going to push forward. However, it could very well be a disaster, and if so, how many of us are going to pull our family close to us and look out for their needs – yours, mine, ours – and their needs only? How many of us will be able to think about the millions of people living out their lives from shelter to shelter, soup kitchen to soup kitchen, welfare to welfare, some without bank accounts, others without identities? How many of us will forego the Christmas presents this year and settle for everyone giving as much as they can to charities like Daily Bread Food Bank and The Salvation Army?
The truth is, poverty and inequality have been on the rise since 1995. There are 1.3 million low-income children in Ontario. Almost thirty percent of families in Toronto are living below the poverty line. Queen’s Park is expected to invest $720 million next year as part of a plan to eradicate poverty. The Federal government sends child benefit cheques to help hungry families, but has also cut back on other programs and subsidies to make up for the amount being spent on the monthly allowance. Families are basically no better off than they were without the cheques. In such circumstances, relying on the kindness of strangers is the only other choice they have until, by some combination of determination and luck, they are able to pull themselves out of poverty’s black hole. This, of course, does not often happen. Although success stories do abound about people overcoming destitution, those stories account for only a small percentage, in other words, the lucky few. The rest of the lot suffer through life on their meager earnings and provisions.
This is where giving plays a vital role in helping poverty-stricken families and communities survive the indignities of hunger, poor health, lack of education, unemployment, inequality, and exclusion. The government of our country has a responsibility to meet the needs of all of its citizens through policies designed to narrow the rich-poor gap, but it’s regular Joes like us who can make a real difference in the lives of others just by turning the holiday spirit of giving into a year-round tradition. This isn’t too hard to do if we viewed charity more as a duty than a choice. We could make arrangements with our financial institutions to automatically debit a small amount from our accounts in the same way we pay our bills. The charity of our choice would be like a bill to pay, but instead of paying a corporation to maintain our lifestyles, we’d be paying a non-profit organization to provide the basic needs and more for the city’s poor.
There are scores of charities in the GTA that help different communities in different ways from providing healthcare services to assisting people with addictions, from raising awareness of terminal illnesses to offering a safe place from abuse. There are charities that help animals too like The Royal Humane Society. It is a matter of personal choice as to which charity to support, but charities that help alleviate the deprivation caused by poverty should be given priority. Adlai Stevenson, an American politician, once said “it is not easy for [people] to rise whose qualities are thwarted by poverty”. How true indeed! A hungry child can’t concentrate in school. A single mother can’t work because she can’t afford the cost of daycare. A homeless man can’t afford a suit and tie. Homeless youth can’t fit into the ‘system’ and end up selling their souls to drug lords and pimps. New immigrants can’t get jobs they’re actually qualified for because they can’t speak English fluently, and therefore, must settle for the low-paying jobs that no one else will take. Also, the struggles of our First Nations communities to escape the indigence in the reservations have gone on for decades. There are many more communities who are suffering the same fate.
Self-righteousness is sometimes used as an excuse not to give. We sometimes think that the reason why some people are poor is because they chose it. Another judgment is when we criticize people on welfare. Of course, we can never fully comprehend the choices people make in their lives unless we put ourselves in their shoes. No one deserves to go without the basics, particularly children. And because so much of the future of this country rests on our youth, it is imperative that we give all children a chance to achieve their goals.
This holiday, make charity your number one priority. Leave the Ipods, Playstations, and big screen TV sets off of your Christmas lists, and donate your time, money, goods, and healing energy to the poor. Celebrate the true spirit of giving by making it a year-round endeavour until it becomes as traditional and indispensable as Christmas dinner.
Copyright © 2008 Shazia Islam. All Rights Reserved.
By Shazia Islam
December is a time of year when people generally think a little more about the poor, and therefore give just a little more. It’s unfortunate that those who are living in dire circumstances where food is practically a luxury must wait until the holiday season to receive a surplus of charity. The fact that the food bank is having trouble filling its quota and making enough to carry them through the winter in Canada’s largest city might be a reflection or warning of tough times ahead. Of course all humans are complicated beings with complicated lives, and things are never easy especially when the country’s economic future is on the brink of…something. Hopefully disaster isn’t the word my mind is going to push forward. However, it could very well be a disaster, and if so, how many of us are going to pull our family close to us and look out for their needs – yours, mine, ours – and their needs only? How many of us will be able to think about the millions of people living out their lives from shelter to shelter, soup kitchen to soup kitchen, welfare to welfare, some without bank accounts, others without identities? How many of us will forego the Christmas presents this year and settle for everyone giving as much as they can to charities like Daily Bread Food Bank and The Salvation Army?
The truth is, poverty and inequality have been on the rise since 1995. There are 1.3 million low-income children in Ontario. Almost thirty percent of families in Toronto are living below the poverty line. Queen’s Park is expected to invest $720 million next year as part of a plan to eradicate poverty. The Federal government sends child benefit cheques to help hungry families, but has also cut back on other programs and subsidies to make up for the amount being spent on the monthly allowance. Families are basically no better off than they were without the cheques. In such circumstances, relying on the kindness of strangers is the only other choice they have until, by some combination of determination and luck, they are able to pull themselves out of poverty’s black hole. This, of course, does not often happen. Although success stories do abound about people overcoming destitution, those stories account for only a small percentage, in other words, the lucky few. The rest of the lot suffer through life on their meager earnings and provisions.
This is where giving plays a vital role in helping poverty-stricken families and communities survive the indignities of hunger, poor health, lack of education, unemployment, inequality, and exclusion. The government of our country has a responsibility to meet the needs of all of its citizens through policies designed to narrow the rich-poor gap, but it’s regular Joes like us who can make a real difference in the lives of others just by turning the holiday spirit of giving into a year-round tradition. This isn’t too hard to do if we viewed charity more as a duty than a choice. We could make arrangements with our financial institutions to automatically debit a small amount from our accounts in the same way we pay our bills. The charity of our choice would be like a bill to pay, but instead of paying a corporation to maintain our lifestyles, we’d be paying a non-profit organization to provide the basic needs and more for the city’s poor.
There are scores of charities in the GTA that help different communities in different ways from providing healthcare services to assisting people with addictions, from raising awareness of terminal illnesses to offering a safe place from abuse. There are charities that help animals too like The Royal Humane Society. It is a matter of personal choice as to which charity to support, but charities that help alleviate the deprivation caused by poverty should be given priority. Adlai Stevenson, an American politician, once said “it is not easy for [people] to rise whose qualities are thwarted by poverty”. How true indeed! A hungry child can’t concentrate in school. A single mother can’t work because she can’t afford the cost of daycare. A homeless man can’t afford a suit and tie. Homeless youth can’t fit into the ‘system’ and end up selling their souls to drug lords and pimps. New immigrants can’t get jobs they’re actually qualified for because they can’t speak English fluently, and therefore, must settle for the low-paying jobs that no one else will take. Also, the struggles of our First Nations communities to escape the indigence in the reservations have gone on for decades. There are many more communities who are suffering the same fate.
Self-righteousness is sometimes used as an excuse not to give. We sometimes think that the reason why some people are poor is because they chose it. Another judgment is when we criticize people on welfare. Of course, we can never fully comprehend the choices people make in their lives unless we put ourselves in their shoes. No one deserves to go without the basics, particularly children. And because so much of the future of this country rests on our youth, it is imperative that we give all children a chance to achieve their goals.
This holiday, make charity your number one priority. Leave the Ipods, Playstations, and big screen TV sets off of your Christmas lists, and donate your time, money, goods, and healing energy to the poor. Celebrate the true spirit of giving by making it a year-round endeavour until it becomes as traditional and indispensable as Christmas dinner.
Copyright © 2008 Shazia Islam. All Rights Reserved.
The Power of the Mind
The Power of the Mind: Can We Change who we are?
Does humankind have a bright future ahead? Our technologically-advanced age has brought a bevy of benefits, one of which is the ability to communicate with people all over the globe in real time. Take the internet, for example, it has become the most effective way of making your presence known to millions of people out there. Dreams can be realized. Wealth can be gained. Your message can be heard. All the latest news is at your fingertips. The internet is a great resource to get us out of our seats and out there, meeting people, using the information we’ve gained, perhaps to better our circumstances. Are there people out there realizing their dreams? Absolutely! But there are also many people who fall through the cracks, due to choice and circumstance among other things. We get stuck living our ordinary lives in fear of opening ourselves up to living life in a different way, where we take risks in order to achieve what we want most. And we ask ourselves, so is this really it? When the answer’s right there on all those screens we look at 24-7, we try to find more ways to fill that cavity, the space where once our dreams and imagination once resided.
Then again, some people are totally happy with their lives. They’ve got their families and careers to fill up their days. Well, it is the American/Canadian dream y’know! Life is good when you’re part of the blessed middle-class, and you know the direction you’re heading. But then why are so many people from this particular class packing auditoriums to see personal development speakers like Tony Robbins, registering for Oprah and Eckhart Tolle’s “Awakening your Life’s Purpose” on-line classes, joining consciousness-raising and wealth-generating organizations like HUB (Humanity Unites Brilliance), reading up on The Secret and The Laws of Attraction, and watching one of the most successful documentary films of all time, “What the Bleep Do We Know”? Well, maybe, just maybe, people are looking for something more than just the ordinary. We’re looking to regain our power and rediscover our true potential in the face of so much outside stimuli telling us how to live and what to believe. We want control of our lives again, and the people and the philosophies above might help us get closer to our personal truth.
Tony Robbins, the gentle giant with a big voice and powerful persona, has reached millions by selling millions of his motivational books and lectures. He was recently in Toronto presenting his “Unleash the Power Within” weekend-long life coaching session. Tickets ranged from a whopping $800 to $1200, but, as explained by Robbins himself, this was a way to ensure that people were self-motivated and committed from the start. All he had to do was give them that extra push because if he could survive the doldrums of an unfulfilling existence, which is what stirred him to get cracking, then anyone could. His best-selling book “Awaken the Giant Within”, in short, is probably the bible of motivational psychology, although there are others that come in at a close second. Tony reveals in his book how to take control of every aspect of your life including your emotions, your health, your relationships, and your finances through a solid and practical step-by-step approach.
He helps us identify our values – even in the process of identifying those values, we may cross out some pre-existing ones, and shows us how to strengthen our values through changing our limiting beliefs and taking action. He tells us to set clear and specific goals, so when we take action, action that is in harmony with our values, we know exactly what we need to do.
“Values guide our every decision and, therefore, our destiny. Those who know their values and live by them become the leaders of our society…We must remember that all decision making comes down to values clarification.”
Throughout the book, he encourages us to keep our eyes on our goals, and to stay positive, as a positive outlook increases the chances of bringing us that much closer to our goals. Not just that, but positive thinking gives us the motivation to get up everyday and keep giving our best to ourselves and to the world.
Another rising star, closer to home, who echoes Tony’s self-empowerment principles, is Danish Ahmed, also a personal development speaker and the founding Canadian member of HUB, Humanity Unites Brilliance, a wealth-generating community whose main focus is to make a positive impact on the world by creating wealth for local and international charities and non-profits. Danish has accomplished a lot. He has produced short films, written a best-selling book called “Dictionary of Distinctions”, organized positive networking events, is currently working on an inspirational feature film called “What is Possible”, and is a partner of the new wellness centre in town, Universal Light Centre, which offers courses in yoga, dance, and the healing arts.
Danish was inspired to make a move and change the course of his destiny through learning from people like Tony Robbins. Like Robbins, he too had to overcome some pretty serious obstacles in his life, being an albino, and having faced sexual abuse and poverty growing up. He did it through determination and discipline, focusing on the desire to have a great life, and to live that life everyday. Danish feels that the reason why it’s so difficult for people to change their circumstances is because “they surround themselves with the media that condition them to be mediocre”. In order to lift ourselves from our quicksand couches that swallow every piece of ourselves, always leaving the remote in plain site, we have to learn the psychology of taking action and moving in the direction of our goals by practicing it on a daily basis until it becomes second nature. It’s part of creating another pathway in the brain, a pathway that will take us down a different road, one that will bring us closer to our life’s purpose. Like Tony, Danish is not out there to convince people who won’t listen. He surrounds himself with like-minded people, people who also feel the urgency to change for the better, and start living a life with purpose and optimism.
Here are just some of Danish’s words of wisdom:
“When we learn to love ourselves for everything that we are, we learn to love others for everything that they are."
"As we generate and give love freely to others, we create the energy within us that attracts more love into our lives."
"Every moment has the possibility of endless choices. Every moment is choice."
"It's impossible to feel unfulfilled when we're helping somebody else."
"If you want to improve in something, then learn about it and have it be part of your conversations."
For more information on Danish and his life-changing projects, visit www.ordinarywords.com.
There are scores of self-development books focusing on the power of belief, ranging from the practical to the spiritual including Vancouver author, Eckhart Tolle’s best-selling Oprah-endorsed hit, “A New Earth: Awakening to your Life’s Purpose”. You can read a review about it by Stephanie Zubcic in the June issue of Futureale. The book and the successful online class with Oprah and Eckhart encouraged millions of readers to let go of their limiting desires, desires based on ego, and “awaken” to their true selves by staying in the moment and reaching for their higher selves in every situation. Also, books like “The Secret” based on the hit internet documentary of the same name and “The Laws of Attraction: The Basics of the Teachings of Abraham” by Esther Hicks explain how our thoughts control reality, and that by changing the way we think, we can change our circumstances to create positive results.
One of the most ground-breaking explorations on the thoughts-reality paradigm was elucidated in the hit docu-drama film “What the Bleep Do We Know”. It started out as a low-budget independent, but then went on to win numerous independent film awards, and eventually became one of the most successful independents of all time. It was well-received at various film festivals, but it also had its critics, who labeled the film as a pseudo-scientific attempt at making sense of our world. The film claims that there is a strong correlation between thoughts and our physical environment, that we can actually shift the energy in our environment just by thinking of changing it. The film combines studies done in quantum physics with consciousness-raising spiritual practices. What we believe or think to be true is manifested in ourselves and in our environment. The makers of the film also came out with a sequel “What the Bleep: Down the Rabbit Hole”, which explored the theories presented in the first film even further.
It’s quite a powerful belief that thoughts can change reality. All of the people mentioned above are proponents of that wisdom. The overall message is that positive thinking creates positive results in your life and the lives of others. But it’s not always easy to think positive in the face of events and situations that threaten our survival. When cancer patients are told they only have six months to live, those words have significant bearing on what they think and do in the next six months. Likewise, people in war-ravaged countries face an even greater challenge where questions about their own humanity are raised everyday under the threat of violence and death. Others who have experienced severe trauma in their childhoods, including physical and sexual abuse at the hands of someone they trusted, may not find it so easy to suddenly put a smile on their faces and ‘think positive’, but some of them do find a way. Tony Robbins mentions in his book how people with Multiple Personality Disorder, recently renamed as Dissociative Identity Disorder, not only change who they are, but also what they look like as they move from one personality to another to help them deal with the abuse. If one of the personalities is afflicted with an illness, it won’t show in the other personality. Perhaps this is further proof of how powerful and complex our minds are. In Uri Gellar’s book, “Mind Medicine”, he writes about his metal-bending gift, and points out the fact that we only use a small part of our brain, and that it is possible through meditation to unlock its hidden gems to unleash the power Tony Robbins talks about. Furthermore, the Placebo effect has been around since the beginning of the 20th century. It is based on the idea that patients are told that a drug will cure them of their illness or provide temporary relief of their symptoms, when in actuality, the substance is nothing more than a sugar pill. Studies have indicated that patients taking the placebo experience an improvement in their condition or performance.
Of course, there are skeptics who say all this talk about making something happen just by thinking it is nothing more than new-age drivel. Although the naysayers do recognize the power of self-motivation, they are definitely not going to be waiting in line to welcome this way of thinking with enthusiastic applause. The medical establishment, the drug industry, and mainstream media thrive on our willingness to look for answers outside ourselves, look for quick fixes, and remain too distracted by our illusions to seek and question knowledge ourselves. What a catastrophe it would be for these industries if people began looking for answers and healing within themselves.
In short, the idea that we have healing built into our systems, that our lives can change for the better regardless of what we might have suffered or are suffering, and that there are no limits to what we can accomplish is quite a propitious one. So forget that there’s a higher power above making all the decisions for you. According to supporters of thought-controls-reality, god is within you. I guess the only way to find out is to go ahead and give it a try. You never know, you might bend more than just metal.
Written by Shazia Islam
Copyright © 2008 Shazia Islam. All Rights Reserved.
Does humankind have a bright future ahead? Our technologically-advanced age has brought a bevy of benefits, one of which is the ability to communicate with people all over the globe in real time. Take the internet, for example, it has become the most effective way of making your presence known to millions of people out there. Dreams can be realized. Wealth can be gained. Your message can be heard. All the latest news is at your fingertips. The internet is a great resource to get us out of our seats and out there, meeting people, using the information we’ve gained, perhaps to better our circumstances. Are there people out there realizing their dreams? Absolutely! But there are also many people who fall through the cracks, due to choice and circumstance among other things. We get stuck living our ordinary lives in fear of opening ourselves up to living life in a different way, where we take risks in order to achieve what we want most. And we ask ourselves, so is this really it? When the answer’s right there on all those screens we look at 24-7, we try to find more ways to fill that cavity, the space where once our dreams and imagination once resided.
Then again, some people are totally happy with their lives. They’ve got their families and careers to fill up their days. Well, it is the American/Canadian dream y’know! Life is good when you’re part of the blessed middle-class, and you know the direction you’re heading. But then why are so many people from this particular class packing auditoriums to see personal development speakers like Tony Robbins, registering for Oprah and Eckhart Tolle’s “Awakening your Life’s Purpose” on-line classes, joining consciousness-raising and wealth-generating organizations like HUB (Humanity Unites Brilliance), reading up on The Secret and The Laws of Attraction, and watching one of the most successful documentary films of all time, “What the Bleep Do We Know”? Well, maybe, just maybe, people are looking for something more than just the ordinary. We’re looking to regain our power and rediscover our true potential in the face of so much outside stimuli telling us how to live and what to believe. We want control of our lives again, and the people and the philosophies above might help us get closer to our personal truth.
Tony Robbins, the gentle giant with a big voice and powerful persona, has reached millions by selling millions of his motivational books and lectures. He was recently in Toronto presenting his “Unleash the Power Within” weekend-long life coaching session. Tickets ranged from a whopping $800 to $1200, but, as explained by Robbins himself, this was a way to ensure that people were self-motivated and committed from the start. All he had to do was give them that extra push because if he could survive the doldrums of an unfulfilling existence, which is what stirred him to get cracking, then anyone could. His best-selling book “Awaken the Giant Within”, in short, is probably the bible of motivational psychology, although there are others that come in at a close second. Tony reveals in his book how to take control of every aspect of your life including your emotions, your health, your relationships, and your finances through a solid and practical step-by-step approach.
He helps us identify our values – even in the process of identifying those values, we may cross out some pre-existing ones, and shows us how to strengthen our values through changing our limiting beliefs and taking action. He tells us to set clear and specific goals, so when we take action, action that is in harmony with our values, we know exactly what we need to do.
“Values guide our every decision and, therefore, our destiny. Those who know their values and live by them become the leaders of our society…We must remember that all decision making comes down to values clarification.”
Throughout the book, he encourages us to keep our eyes on our goals, and to stay positive, as a positive outlook increases the chances of bringing us that much closer to our goals. Not just that, but positive thinking gives us the motivation to get up everyday and keep giving our best to ourselves and to the world.
Another rising star, closer to home, who echoes Tony’s self-empowerment principles, is Danish Ahmed, also a personal development speaker and the founding Canadian member of HUB, Humanity Unites Brilliance, a wealth-generating community whose main focus is to make a positive impact on the world by creating wealth for local and international charities and non-profits. Danish has accomplished a lot. He has produced short films, written a best-selling book called “Dictionary of Distinctions”, organized positive networking events, is currently working on an inspirational feature film called “What is Possible”, and is a partner of the new wellness centre in town, Universal Light Centre, which offers courses in yoga, dance, and the healing arts.
Danish was inspired to make a move and change the course of his destiny through learning from people like Tony Robbins. Like Robbins, he too had to overcome some pretty serious obstacles in his life, being an albino, and having faced sexual abuse and poverty growing up. He did it through determination and discipline, focusing on the desire to have a great life, and to live that life everyday. Danish feels that the reason why it’s so difficult for people to change their circumstances is because “they surround themselves with the media that condition them to be mediocre”. In order to lift ourselves from our quicksand couches that swallow every piece of ourselves, always leaving the remote in plain site, we have to learn the psychology of taking action and moving in the direction of our goals by practicing it on a daily basis until it becomes second nature. It’s part of creating another pathway in the brain, a pathway that will take us down a different road, one that will bring us closer to our life’s purpose. Like Tony, Danish is not out there to convince people who won’t listen. He surrounds himself with like-minded people, people who also feel the urgency to change for the better, and start living a life with purpose and optimism.
Here are just some of Danish’s words of wisdom:
“When we learn to love ourselves for everything that we are, we learn to love others for everything that they are."
"As we generate and give love freely to others, we create the energy within us that attracts more love into our lives."
"Every moment has the possibility of endless choices. Every moment is choice."
"It's impossible to feel unfulfilled when we're helping somebody else."
"If you want to improve in something, then learn about it and have it be part of your conversations."
For more information on Danish and his life-changing projects, visit www.ordinarywords.com.
There are scores of self-development books focusing on the power of belief, ranging from the practical to the spiritual including Vancouver author, Eckhart Tolle’s best-selling Oprah-endorsed hit, “A New Earth: Awakening to your Life’s Purpose”. You can read a review about it by Stephanie Zubcic in the June issue of Futureale. The book and the successful online class with Oprah and Eckhart encouraged millions of readers to let go of their limiting desires, desires based on ego, and “awaken” to their true selves by staying in the moment and reaching for their higher selves in every situation. Also, books like “The Secret” based on the hit internet documentary of the same name and “The Laws of Attraction: The Basics of the Teachings of Abraham” by Esther Hicks explain how our thoughts control reality, and that by changing the way we think, we can change our circumstances to create positive results.
One of the most ground-breaking explorations on the thoughts-reality paradigm was elucidated in the hit docu-drama film “What the Bleep Do We Know”. It started out as a low-budget independent, but then went on to win numerous independent film awards, and eventually became one of the most successful independents of all time. It was well-received at various film festivals, but it also had its critics, who labeled the film as a pseudo-scientific attempt at making sense of our world. The film claims that there is a strong correlation between thoughts and our physical environment, that we can actually shift the energy in our environment just by thinking of changing it. The film combines studies done in quantum physics with consciousness-raising spiritual practices. What we believe or think to be true is manifested in ourselves and in our environment. The makers of the film also came out with a sequel “What the Bleep: Down the Rabbit Hole”, which explored the theories presented in the first film even further.
It’s quite a powerful belief that thoughts can change reality. All of the people mentioned above are proponents of that wisdom. The overall message is that positive thinking creates positive results in your life and the lives of others. But it’s not always easy to think positive in the face of events and situations that threaten our survival. When cancer patients are told they only have six months to live, those words have significant bearing on what they think and do in the next six months. Likewise, people in war-ravaged countries face an even greater challenge where questions about their own humanity are raised everyday under the threat of violence and death. Others who have experienced severe trauma in their childhoods, including physical and sexual abuse at the hands of someone they trusted, may not find it so easy to suddenly put a smile on their faces and ‘think positive’, but some of them do find a way. Tony Robbins mentions in his book how people with Multiple Personality Disorder, recently renamed as Dissociative Identity Disorder, not only change who they are, but also what they look like as they move from one personality to another to help them deal with the abuse. If one of the personalities is afflicted with an illness, it won’t show in the other personality. Perhaps this is further proof of how powerful and complex our minds are. In Uri Gellar’s book, “Mind Medicine”, he writes about his metal-bending gift, and points out the fact that we only use a small part of our brain, and that it is possible through meditation to unlock its hidden gems to unleash the power Tony Robbins talks about. Furthermore, the Placebo effect has been around since the beginning of the 20th century. It is based on the idea that patients are told that a drug will cure them of their illness or provide temporary relief of their symptoms, when in actuality, the substance is nothing more than a sugar pill. Studies have indicated that patients taking the placebo experience an improvement in their condition or performance.
Of course, there are skeptics who say all this talk about making something happen just by thinking it is nothing more than new-age drivel. Although the naysayers do recognize the power of self-motivation, they are definitely not going to be waiting in line to welcome this way of thinking with enthusiastic applause. The medical establishment, the drug industry, and mainstream media thrive on our willingness to look for answers outside ourselves, look for quick fixes, and remain too distracted by our illusions to seek and question knowledge ourselves. What a catastrophe it would be for these industries if people began looking for answers and healing within themselves.
In short, the idea that we have healing built into our systems, that our lives can change for the better regardless of what we might have suffered or are suffering, and that there are no limits to what we can accomplish is quite a propitious one. So forget that there’s a higher power above making all the decisions for you. According to supporters of thought-controls-reality, god is within you. I guess the only way to find out is to go ahead and give it a try. You never know, you might bend more than just metal.
Written by Shazia Islam
Copyright © 2008 Shazia Islam. All Rights Reserved.
Summer Fitness
NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS AND SUMMER FITNESS: WALKING ON SUNSHINE
Written by Shazia Islam
Toronto is welcoming the first glorious waves of summer - let‘s just hope it’s not another unbearable heat wave! Technically, it’s spring, but in this city, spring is a bit indecisive and frequently allows winter’s frosty breath to invade its space with intermittent spells of cool temperatures, even snow, just to mess with our minds. Whatever we choose to call our seasons in T.O., it’s definitely time to throw out the thermal underwear. The flowers are well on their way to blooming, people are out mowing their lawns, and the city is buzzing with outdoor events and activities to suit all manner of taste and lifestyle. This is the best time to dust off that New Year’s list of resolutions you conveniently forgot about from January till now, and perhaps give your number one resolution - the one circled in red - a go. Just what is that resolution that always seems to get the prized position on top of the lists of millions of other dreamers like you? It certainly doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out. You know it and I know it: it’s time to GET FIT!
There are a myriad of ways to get fit like joining boot camps, fitness clubs and hot yoga classes, hiking, cycling, running, roller-blading, swimming, and playing sports. The key is to do something you enjoy and do it outdoors. We spend a lot of our time cooped up indoors because our livelihoods depend on it; you can’t exactly ask your boss if you could work out the details of a million-dollar account in the park! Reality for many people is not having enough motivation nor time to exercise. Some people spend loads of money on home treadmills and exercise bikes, but the equipment ends up becoming just another decorative piece you’d rather cover with your potted plants. Indeed, finding time out of our busy schedules to get rid of the hot dog and McD calories we rang up at our short lunch breaks is definitely a challenge in a fast-paced metropolis like Toronto. However, there is hope. All we have to do is put one foot in front of another and walk. Walk.
If you’re pretty close to the city and close to where you work, you might want to consider walking. It’s a great way to keep you in shape, especially since the weather is getting so much more agreeable. Walking has many other benefits as well. Unlike running, walking does not cause any strain on your joints and internal organs. It’s important to do some stretching before and after the walk if it’s a particularly long walk like going from the Danforth, over the bridge, and into the city centre. Walking allows you to go at your own pace; you can go as slow or as fast as you like. Personally, I think keeping a slower pace gives you a chance to really see the city and its many faces and places. Accidents tend to be minimal when we move slowly in general. Of course there are always exceptions, so it’s good to stay cautious and look both ways before crossing an intersection. With walking, you can also take detours through the lovely neighbourhoods of Toronto, and witness summer coming alive on the front lawns of people’s homes. You can also stop to have a coffee or a smoothie, read the paper, and then once again, be on your way if you’ve given yourself plenty of time to get to your destination...
Now you’re probably thinking that walking at a turtle’s pace ain’t gonna help you get fit any time soon. Actually, getting fit gradually is much better in the long term. If we rush into our exercise routine with the idea that we’re going to lose tons of weight in a few short days, chances are the weight will come back sooner than we think. We spend most of our day in rush mode, and our bodies deserve a break from all the running around. Some of the advantages of walking include a lower incidence of heart disease, a longer life, improved mental and spiritual faculties, regulation of blood sugar levels, and an increase in coordination and balance. Health experts always encourage people to walk at least half an hour to 45 minutes a day to improve cardio-vascular health. Furthermore, when we go for a daily stroll, the movement releases endorphins, the ‘happy’ hormones, into our blood stream, which is a great way to combat anxiety and depression. Our stress levels have a tendency to escalate when we’re stuck in a car during rush hour and breathe in toxic fumes from car exhaust. It is no wonder drivers get frustrated, making rear-enders and accidents more likely. Walking takes care of our stress and the environment!
Most importantly, walking is easy and free. You don’t have to make room in your schedule to do it, and you don’t need any special equipment. Some water and a comfortable pair of shoes will suffice. You get to take the time to say ‘hi’ to the people you pass by, pet their dogs, admire Toronto’s architectural wonders, and enjoy the open air and green spaces. By the time you arrive at work, you’ll be mentally prepared for the day. If you make a commitment to walking to and from work at least twice a week or even three times a week during the summer months, you’re going to be feeling a whole lot more fit and fabulous. The New Year’s resolution you made will then become effortless and you will be proud of yourself for following through and achieving the most hardest-to-reach goal.
If you would like to walk for a cause, there are plenty happening in the next couple of months including the 6th Annual K9 Rescue Walk-a-thon on June 14th from 10am to 12 noon. The event raises awareness of pets in need and helps abandoned, abused, neglected, and homeless dogs in Ontario. For more information, visit the site at www.k9rescueme.com . The World Partnership Walk takes place on May 31st. It is an international event organized to raise funds for international development programs. It is a 5K walk and it begins at 10:30am. For more information on how to participate, visit www.WorldPartnershipWalk.com . One other walk/run event is the Walk/Run and Family Fun Day for Colon Cancer also held on May 31st. Details can be found on www.ColonCancerCanada.ca .
Not only can you check off your number one resolution, but you can also check off a couple others including the ones about going more green and making the world a better place by helping others. Walking can make a huge impact on our life and our communities. If you want to do something that’ll make you feel good in every way this summer, then walking is just the right activity for you!
Written by Shazia Islam
Toronto is welcoming the first glorious waves of summer - let‘s just hope it’s not another unbearable heat wave! Technically, it’s spring, but in this city, spring is a bit indecisive and frequently allows winter’s frosty breath to invade its space with intermittent spells of cool temperatures, even snow, just to mess with our minds. Whatever we choose to call our seasons in T.O., it’s definitely time to throw out the thermal underwear. The flowers are well on their way to blooming, people are out mowing their lawns, and the city is buzzing with outdoor events and activities to suit all manner of taste and lifestyle. This is the best time to dust off that New Year’s list of resolutions you conveniently forgot about from January till now, and perhaps give your number one resolution - the one circled in red - a go. Just what is that resolution that always seems to get the prized position on top of the lists of millions of other dreamers like you? It certainly doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out. You know it and I know it: it’s time to GET FIT!
There are a myriad of ways to get fit like joining boot camps, fitness clubs and hot yoga classes, hiking, cycling, running, roller-blading, swimming, and playing sports. The key is to do something you enjoy and do it outdoors. We spend a lot of our time cooped up indoors because our livelihoods depend on it; you can’t exactly ask your boss if you could work out the details of a million-dollar account in the park! Reality for many people is not having enough motivation nor time to exercise. Some people spend loads of money on home treadmills and exercise bikes, but the equipment ends up becoming just another decorative piece you’d rather cover with your potted plants. Indeed, finding time out of our busy schedules to get rid of the hot dog and McD calories we rang up at our short lunch breaks is definitely a challenge in a fast-paced metropolis like Toronto. However, there is hope. All we have to do is put one foot in front of another and walk. Walk.
If you’re pretty close to the city and close to where you work, you might want to consider walking. It’s a great way to keep you in shape, especially since the weather is getting so much more agreeable. Walking has many other benefits as well. Unlike running, walking does not cause any strain on your joints and internal organs. It’s important to do some stretching before and after the walk if it’s a particularly long walk like going from the Danforth, over the bridge, and into the city centre. Walking allows you to go at your own pace; you can go as slow or as fast as you like. Personally, I think keeping a slower pace gives you a chance to really see the city and its many faces and places. Accidents tend to be minimal when we move slowly in general. Of course there are always exceptions, so it’s good to stay cautious and look both ways before crossing an intersection. With walking, you can also take detours through the lovely neighbourhoods of Toronto, and witness summer coming alive on the front lawns of people’s homes. You can also stop to have a coffee or a smoothie, read the paper, and then once again, be on your way if you’ve given yourself plenty of time to get to your destination...
Now you’re probably thinking that walking at a turtle’s pace ain’t gonna help you get fit any time soon. Actually, getting fit gradually is much better in the long term. If we rush into our exercise routine with the idea that we’re going to lose tons of weight in a few short days, chances are the weight will come back sooner than we think. We spend most of our day in rush mode, and our bodies deserve a break from all the running around. Some of the advantages of walking include a lower incidence of heart disease, a longer life, improved mental and spiritual faculties, regulation of blood sugar levels, and an increase in coordination and balance. Health experts always encourage people to walk at least half an hour to 45 minutes a day to improve cardio-vascular health. Furthermore, when we go for a daily stroll, the movement releases endorphins, the ‘happy’ hormones, into our blood stream, which is a great way to combat anxiety and depression. Our stress levels have a tendency to escalate when we’re stuck in a car during rush hour and breathe in toxic fumes from car exhaust. It is no wonder drivers get frustrated, making rear-enders and accidents more likely. Walking takes care of our stress and the environment!
Most importantly, walking is easy and free. You don’t have to make room in your schedule to do it, and you don’t need any special equipment. Some water and a comfortable pair of shoes will suffice. You get to take the time to say ‘hi’ to the people you pass by, pet their dogs, admire Toronto’s architectural wonders, and enjoy the open air and green spaces. By the time you arrive at work, you’ll be mentally prepared for the day. If you make a commitment to walking to and from work at least twice a week or even three times a week during the summer months, you’re going to be feeling a whole lot more fit and fabulous. The New Year’s resolution you made will then become effortless and you will be proud of yourself for following through and achieving the most hardest-to-reach goal.
If you would like to walk for a cause, there are plenty happening in the next couple of months including the 6th Annual K9 Rescue Walk-a-thon on June 14th from 10am to 12 noon. The event raises awareness of pets in need and helps abandoned, abused, neglected, and homeless dogs in Ontario. For more information, visit the site at www.k9rescueme.com . The World Partnership Walk takes place on May 31st. It is an international event organized to raise funds for international development programs. It is a 5K walk and it begins at 10:30am. For more information on how to participate, visit www.WorldPartnershipWalk.com . One other walk/run event is the Walk/Run and Family Fun Day for Colon Cancer also held on May 31st. Details can be found on www.ColonCancerCanada.ca .
Not only can you check off your number one resolution, but you can also check off a couple others including the ones about going more green and making the world a better place by helping others. Walking can make a huge impact on our life and our communities. If you want to do something that’ll make you feel good in every way this summer, then walking is just the right activity for you!
2008: Another year of Possibilities
2008: Another Year of Possibilities
I’m trying to think of an opener for this piece and all I keep thinking of is the proverbial “another year has passed and it’s time to…” line. How about something a little less ordinary? I mean when we start talking New Year’s talk, we almost always go into the realm of the extraordinary as expressed in each and every one of those superhuman resolutions that often surpass all primordial systems of logic. There! That’s my opener!
New Year’s is always a glorious time of year not only because it gives us earthlings of the privileged variety the opportunity to converge in discotheques, cocktail bars, chic condos and squishy apartments and revel in the spirit of another year coming, but also to figure out how many of the 365 days of the previous year were wasted on wanton activities that got us nowhere and what we can…no, should do in 2008 to change that. This is assuming that we were on a sinking ship in 2007. Hopefully, most of us will look back at the year with the same glimmer of hope and belief we began it with. I’m talking clarity here not drunken revelry.
Resolutions can be a tad confining and quite stressful if our success at achieving those goals only lasts for a week. I can’t count the number of years I’ve ditched my resolutions when reality kicked in, telling me quite bluntly to stop reaching for the impossible because it’s never going to happen. I suppose the value in these resolutions is the effort we put into them, however brief. Oh well, at least we tried. But is making meager attempts at greatness enough? Anyone who has ever had to work like a dog to get to where they wanted to go would unequivocally disagree. It might have been easy for the likes of Paris and her gang of pampered pets, but for most of us, life don't come easy. Something as simple as choosing skim milk over whole could take years to master and may never actually happen because it all boils down to asking ourselves how much are we willing to sacrifice for our dreams. Honestly, you ain’t gonna get far with a few half-ass driblets of your blood, sweat, and tears. You might make it to the first step and a half, but if you’re reaching for the whole bowl, expect to give nothing short of a downpour that’s enough to fill the Atlantic.
I learned this valuable and annoyingly simple lesson in 2007 when I took on quite an ambitious resolution head on with my rosy eyes looking forward, and my ears plugged! Who wasn’t I listening to? Those voices of reason, and most importantly, my own. In a nutshell, I fell far short of the required downpour by spending more time complaining rather than doing. Also, engaging in all sorts of warfare with the very man who could have helped me achieve my dreams didn’t help the situation and only succeeded at guaranteeing the possible future demise of our friendship. What’s more, since most of my focus was on making it to first base with the intensity of a turtle, I had very little ‘energy’ and ‘time’ to give to friends and family. Once again, I was whiling away the hours on delusional thinking rather than actively taking the steps to make my dreams a reality, dreams that required both an intense mental and physical commitment from me. But I’ve always been a sucker for cheap soap-opera-ish drama. Hardwork? Are you kidding me?! It was much easier to revel in self-pity and loathing than to try to lift the weight of the past off and finally discard it. Some people come to worship their pain and they make everyone else suffer for it. Sorry, changing the world will just have to wait. Shazia is busy stuffing her face with chocolate Cadbury sticks dipped in sweetened condensed milk and blaming the whole world for making her do it.
Until now.
Now, I’m coming face to face with the reality of yet another passing year where I left my dreams to die a slow burning death in a moldy corner of my heart, and where I prostituted belief in those dreams for a romantic-comedy movie moment, which never really came. I should have known better because those movies are about an hour and a half long. My belief should have been constant and uncompromising. What can I say? We have all fallen through those childhood cracks in the pavement, but when you’re consciously choosing to fall, refusing to really see what’s within and without, well, how does the word ‘shrink’ sound to you?
But this piece is not entirely about slicing up the past and living with the regret of eating it all up without really tasting it. It’s a lesson, a lesson that took me thirty-five years to learn. There was only one thing that could wake me up out of my delusions - delusions that passed me off as some martyr because I was acting out the self-sacrificing role, a role I have played well, but a role that never won me any awards. What had the power to wake me up? Love. Not the warm, fuzzy stuff we get from our mothers, although that’s always nice to have, but the tough kind, the kind that is merciless, unyielding, and intense, the tough love that forces you to take a good hard look at yourself and commands you to change, now!
Well, now I know better. I have seen the light and it’s a pretty bright light, enough to blind me into submission. Now I know that in order to get those moments of joy, love, and fulfillment - those moments that everyone deserves whether Canadian or Iraqi, whether black or white, whether gay or straight, whether a man or a woman, whether rich or poor – I’ve got to work hard, put my two feet in the right direction, and give myself the chance to make change happen. If I can’t change myself, I can’t change the world.
Back to making and keeping resolutions…I’m going to keep it very simple this year. Whatever I have chosen to do on New Year’s is an indication of how I want 2008 to be for me. Whatever I have chosen will give me a new approach to reaching those goals of mine. What am I doing on New Year’s? Well, rather than sitting in front of my computer writing self-deprecating prose or drinking Dionysus’ wine, I’m going to be on my feet and working hard on the job. And so, it is with this newfound work ethic that I will make 2008 the year I get exactly what I want and I’m not talking tragedies and chocolate bars. This is the good stuff and if you’d like to know what that is, you’re more than welcome to join me or at least check in from time to time. Better yet, just facebook me!
Here’s to all the people I love, respect, and admire for helping in their own way to set me straight. My prayers, belief, and good intentions are with you all.
HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR OF INFINITE POSSIBILITIES…but don’t forget to work hard J
Shazia
I’m trying to think of an opener for this piece and all I keep thinking of is the proverbial “another year has passed and it’s time to…” line. How about something a little less ordinary? I mean when we start talking New Year’s talk, we almost always go into the realm of the extraordinary as expressed in each and every one of those superhuman resolutions that often surpass all primordial systems of logic. There! That’s my opener!
New Year’s is always a glorious time of year not only because it gives us earthlings of the privileged variety the opportunity to converge in discotheques, cocktail bars, chic condos and squishy apartments and revel in the spirit of another year coming, but also to figure out how many of the 365 days of the previous year were wasted on wanton activities that got us nowhere and what we can…no, should do in 2008 to change that. This is assuming that we were on a sinking ship in 2007. Hopefully, most of us will look back at the year with the same glimmer of hope and belief we began it with. I’m talking clarity here not drunken revelry.
Resolutions can be a tad confining and quite stressful if our success at achieving those goals only lasts for a week. I can’t count the number of years I’ve ditched my resolutions when reality kicked in, telling me quite bluntly to stop reaching for the impossible because it’s never going to happen. I suppose the value in these resolutions is the effort we put into them, however brief. Oh well, at least we tried. But is making meager attempts at greatness enough? Anyone who has ever had to work like a dog to get to where they wanted to go would unequivocally disagree. It might have been easy for the likes of Paris and her gang of pampered pets, but for most of us, life don't come easy. Something as simple as choosing skim milk over whole could take years to master and may never actually happen because it all boils down to asking ourselves how much are we willing to sacrifice for our dreams. Honestly, you ain’t gonna get far with a few half-ass driblets of your blood, sweat, and tears. You might make it to the first step and a half, but if you’re reaching for the whole bowl, expect to give nothing short of a downpour that’s enough to fill the Atlantic.
I learned this valuable and annoyingly simple lesson in 2007 when I took on quite an ambitious resolution head on with my rosy eyes looking forward, and my ears plugged! Who wasn’t I listening to? Those voices of reason, and most importantly, my own. In a nutshell, I fell far short of the required downpour by spending more time complaining rather than doing. Also, engaging in all sorts of warfare with the very man who could have helped me achieve my dreams didn’t help the situation and only succeeded at guaranteeing the possible future demise of our friendship. What’s more, since most of my focus was on making it to first base with the intensity of a turtle, I had very little ‘energy’ and ‘time’ to give to friends and family. Once again, I was whiling away the hours on delusional thinking rather than actively taking the steps to make my dreams a reality, dreams that required both an intense mental and physical commitment from me. But I’ve always been a sucker for cheap soap-opera-ish drama. Hardwork? Are you kidding me?! It was much easier to revel in self-pity and loathing than to try to lift the weight of the past off and finally discard it. Some people come to worship their pain and they make everyone else suffer for it. Sorry, changing the world will just have to wait. Shazia is busy stuffing her face with chocolate Cadbury sticks dipped in sweetened condensed milk and blaming the whole world for making her do it.
Until now.
Now, I’m coming face to face with the reality of yet another passing year where I left my dreams to die a slow burning death in a moldy corner of my heart, and where I prostituted belief in those dreams for a romantic-comedy movie moment, which never really came. I should have known better because those movies are about an hour and a half long. My belief should have been constant and uncompromising. What can I say? We have all fallen through those childhood cracks in the pavement, but when you’re consciously choosing to fall, refusing to really see what’s within and without, well, how does the word ‘shrink’ sound to you?
But this piece is not entirely about slicing up the past and living with the regret of eating it all up without really tasting it. It’s a lesson, a lesson that took me thirty-five years to learn. There was only one thing that could wake me up out of my delusions - delusions that passed me off as some martyr because I was acting out the self-sacrificing role, a role I have played well, but a role that never won me any awards. What had the power to wake me up? Love. Not the warm, fuzzy stuff we get from our mothers, although that’s always nice to have, but the tough kind, the kind that is merciless, unyielding, and intense, the tough love that forces you to take a good hard look at yourself and commands you to change, now!
Well, now I know better. I have seen the light and it’s a pretty bright light, enough to blind me into submission. Now I know that in order to get those moments of joy, love, and fulfillment - those moments that everyone deserves whether Canadian or Iraqi, whether black or white, whether gay or straight, whether a man or a woman, whether rich or poor – I’ve got to work hard, put my two feet in the right direction, and give myself the chance to make change happen. If I can’t change myself, I can’t change the world.
Back to making and keeping resolutions…I’m going to keep it very simple this year. Whatever I have chosen to do on New Year’s is an indication of how I want 2008 to be for me. Whatever I have chosen will give me a new approach to reaching those goals of mine. What am I doing on New Year’s? Well, rather than sitting in front of my computer writing self-deprecating prose or drinking Dionysus’ wine, I’m going to be on my feet and working hard on the job. And so, it is with this newfound work ethic that I will make 2008 the year I get exactly what I want and I’m not talking tragedies and chocolate bars. This is the good stuff and if you’d like to know what that is, you’re more than welcome to join me or at least check in from time to time. Better yet, just facebook me!
Here’s to all the people I love, respect, and admire for helping in their own way to set me straight. My prayers, belief, and good intentions are with you all.
HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR OF INFINITE POSSIBILITIES…but don’t forget to work hard J
Shazia
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