…You’re Welcome!

I consider myself to be sort of the Manners Police. I firmly and whole-heartedly believe there needs to be one in each city, institution and even household. I feel like it’s the age of the death of manners, and what makes it an even bigger tragedy is that the next generation will grow up not even knowing the void that this has created. Melodrama aside, “please” and “thank you” really is sweet music to my ears.

It’s almost become second nature for me to quickly blurt out a sharp “YOU’RE WELCOME!” whenever someone so conveniently forgets to say “Thank you”. Some people manage to back-track at that moment and quietly say a quick “thank you”. Regardles of whether it is out of embarassment or simply because it slipped their mind the first time around, I get a strange satisfaction from being the subtle yet effective Manners Police.

This post is not an attempt to toot my own horn, but to reify the importance and quite frankly necessity of manners. Holding the door open for someone, saying please and thank you, and offering simple gestures of kindness don’t take much out of our daily hectic routines. My best friend in her awesome nerdiness always says “Manners are free!”, and it couldn’t be said any better.

I have worked in fast food in the past, and the amount of people who will treat the people who are serving them their food with kindness and respect are a dime a dozen. This is why I refuse to offer rudeness and treat servers as inferiors. Well, this and simply human kindess. And hey, if this doesn’t do it for you, at least remember that those same people have the power to make your food however and with whatever they please .

Bullying…what it means all these years later.

incompetent. Worthless. Sub-human. Filthy. Disgusting. . . and these were all the words that I was forced to describe myself. Yet, today, at this moment, it seems unfathomable that this was my reality. I was bullied in middle school to the point where I had thoughts of suicide. I had just moved schools and started grade seven when the bullying started. I was the new girl, an outsider, who was being pushed further to the outskirts of pre-teen joys and acceptance. It seems so long ago, but some shards still remain that prick me every now and then.

What does this mean for my reality today? I would never wish those experiences on anyone, yet in a weird way I feel like it made me stronger. It made me realize that if you don’t believe in yourself, NO ONE else will either. You need to rely on yourself to bring yourself up from whatever place you have fallen to. Most importantly however, you need to BELIEVE. Believe…in yourself, in that you are not alone. Whether this means calling a help line for support, talking to your siblings or parents about it, reaching out to support groups, or simply forums online. I remember praying with tears so heavy that I felt like my insides were being drained of life. It was painful, and I felt numb. I dreaded waking up in the morning, I thought of ways to escape.

But like I said, I don’t remember the full feeling of it anymore. It was a traumatic experience, but it was something that had a silver lining. I’m not saying bullying is ever a good thing, or that anyone is fully able to heal from the pain or even overcome it. Just like everyone’s reality is slightly different, so is mine. It really sensitized me to the subject. It gave me a voice. It taught me that being different is okay. It taught me to be proud of my culture, to accept my flaws and all.

Reality is never a collection of rainbows and sunshine, but I really believe that you go through things in life that make you stronger, that add value to your life, or that just test your strength and faith. This was probably one of the first tests of faith I had. I relied on praying and I could still see the blotches that my tears left behind on pages of the Quran years later. It was a true test of faith for me, and it was a constant struggle between rays of faith and dark emptiness.

I feel like being bullied morphs you in a way that you can’t really explain. Although you grow and learn from it, like any other experience, for a while a strange thought lingers at the back of your mind. Whenever you see a group of people laughing as you walk by, your subconscious assumes its someone laughing at you. So like I said, I don’t know if you fully heal from it, but I also think each life experiences leave a little mark on your soul. Little etchings inside of you, that make you who you are.

For those who are going through a similar experience, I pray from the bottom of my heart that you get the courage to overcome the hardships. After the pain and tears there comes a point where you truly start to love yourself. You think of all the beauty that is merely in your own existence, that you in your singular soul hold a significance in the universe. You matter, and you really are worth it. I know, I have learned, and I constantly strive to grow to my fullest capacity.

Playing on re-re-rewinddd!

So I am not a regular Glee watcher, however I respect the show for the musical talent. Growing up on a digest of Bollywood, how can I not love musicals? I LOVE this song, and can’t stop listening to it!

If you can’t be anything else…

Be humble! My mom has always had an eye for flashy jewellery, anything that’s super shiny and weighs about the size of a baby she will buy (:P exaggerating of course). I don’t know if my brown-ness is bursting from the seams or if she is rubbing off on me, but I have acquired the taste for super shiny bling as of late, as well as bright lipsticks which are a sort of signature look of my mom. She will not wear anything else, but adding a little colour on her lips is a must, even if she is just driving to the grocery store.

Although my mom can be flashy with her accessories (something that makes it easier to steal some fine pieces of jewellery for myself), something I really appreciate that she has passed on to me is that she is never flashy in her personality. She has always raised us to be humble in our actions, to never ask for too much, and to never boast about what is given to us as a gift from Allah.

I’m going to be honest, and say that I often have to work at deflating my ego, because as my sisters remind me, I have my dad’s temper and am stubborn as a mule (but don’t tell them I admit that it’s true ). I have to remind myself to stay grounded whenever I get a compliment, or when I start comparing myself to others in terms of what I may or may not have. Although we may work hard to get what we have, it may easily be taken away from us. So all we can really do is be thankful for what we have, help those that may not be blessed with as much, and make good use of the things that were given to us without letting pride distort something that is supposed to be beautiful.

On a side note, I had a staff member drop off a nice little Easter treat for me.

 

I was talking to her earlier asking her how her Easter went. I LOVE random acts of kindness, and it’s a nice reminder that I should do them more often!

I hope your Easter, long weekend, or day in general is going well!

 

Black, white and everything in between

I worry… a lot. Let me rephrase that, WE worry a lot, as a community, as a society, as humanity, and sometimes rightly so. Ensuring that you have enough food, a proper income, enough to pay for the bills and mortgage, or even job security can be stressful things to have at the back of your mind cosntantly.

However the moment you start seeing life, ourselves, and the world around us for what it is, the worry starts slipping from your tired and sweat-drenched hands and slipping into nothingness. I love readings poems by Rumi and I came across this one last week:

“You suppose you are the trouble
But you are the cure
You suppose that you are the lock on the door
But you are the key that opens it
It’s too bad that you want to be someone else
You don’t see your own face, your own beauty
Yet, no face is more beautiful than yours.”

Our mere existence is a miracle, from the way we were conceived, brought into this world, and have accomplished so much since. So why fret over the little failures or what would seem to be our shortcomings? I really do believe that life is about nourishing the soul and letting ourselves experience every moment. We have to own and feel not only our happy and accomplishing moments, but we also have to own and feel the moments of pain, and disappointment. Like in a masterpiece there are the highs and lows in music, or the dark and light colours in a piece of art, the contrasts are necessary to understand the full piece.

Above my fear of creepy-crawlies

John Mayer – Waiting on the World to Change

I have many fears, some rational, some not so much. Truth be told, I am afraid of any sort of creepy crawly, and almost any four-legged creature. Growing up in a brown family and never having any pets (except for our little kittens that we had as toddlers) might have something to do with it. From all the little or big fears that could keep me up at night, one of my most anxiety-inducing fears is leading a shallow and passive existence. I fear sitting as a backseat passanger in my own literal and actual voyage through life.

We live in a society where our ideas, dreams, ambitions, personality, appearance and even relationships are nipped and tucked to fit the norm. The self-obsessed social media-driven culture we live in gives us the false illusion that we are proud of our own uniqueness. However in reality it creates a form of conformity where we are able to express ourselves in the boundaries of what others approve of or agree with.

We are told happiness is the amount of “friends” we have on facebook, how many parties we get invited to, how educated we are, how much money we make, how big our house is, what kind of car we drive, how “sexy” we are, how many vacations we can afford to go on, etc. I am not saying that the want for these things equates to a shallow existence, but rather the exclusive want of JUST these things may.

As you can probably tell from my previous posts, I am going through a tough dilemma and strange crossroad in life where adulthood is setting in yet I do not feel like I have spread my wings enough to accept it. The completion of my undergrad is creeping up on me and everything just got real. I don’t know what life has in store for me, and to be honest I have always been better at trying to pen (or at least try to pen) my own destiny. All I can do is pray for a life fo meaning, a life of purpose, a life of happiness and love, and a life where I can balance all of this with the material things I need to live comfortably.

The “P” Word

When it comes to the discussion of  marriage, I find that the understanding of what it should entail and what you expect to come out of the union is always different for each person. However the trend that I have perceived within the south asian community , or even the muslim community, is a certain prototype of a bride that a lot of Muslim men are looking for. This of course is my own opinion, however opinions are often formed based on lived experiences and perceptions of the world around you.

There seems to be an emphasis on the “P” word, or ”purity” when it comes to looking for a bride, regardless of what the past, upbringing, experiences or “purity” of the groom may be. What is purity anyways but a man-made ranking system that determines the worth of women. Instead of monetary ranking however, purity is based on an invisible system where the currency is respect based on so-called religious principles.

I respect that individuals would look for qualities of modesty, spiritual richness, humility, and loyalty in their , however the need for purity is not something that I can comprehend. This is especially frustrating when it is a hypocritical ambition; if your level of “purity” does not match up to the level you are looking for in a wife, it is an unfair expectation. I have often heard from male friends and acquaintances  that although they have dated before (and may or may not agree with dating rules within Muslim tradition/culture) they would prefer to marry a girl who hasn’t dated before. I have often heard the words “pure”, “clean”, and “virgin” used in conjunction with these expectations.

Obviously ideas do not emerge form a black hole. They are created, implemented, and defined/redefined by society. Therefore the emphasis on purity for women, whether it is defined by their dress, behaviour, relationships, or ideas, does not emerge as a unique coincidence. Why is it that men choose to go “back home” (their country of origin or their parents’ country of origin) to find a “pure” woman to marry, as if the women who grew up in the same North American society as them have been soiled. That is not to say that choosing to go back home and marrying is a problem, but that this recurring trend of seeking “purity” is.

I suppose I am just baffled at the hypocrisy that exists within Muslim or South Asian culture with the issue of purity. As if the men get a free pass to do what they please, while the emphasis, rather the microscope is pointed towards the women to maintain their “purity”.