Stand up for yourself

Have you ever been to bed at the end of the day and were absorbed by guilt? That guilt rushing towards you holding “I should’ve said that” flag. This is a huge debate point in our regular talks. We talk about how people misunderstood us, how they hurt our feelings or how we are sure they meant no good with what appears to be an innocent question they’ve asked.

My mother is the kindest person on earth, I believe that trait and her smile are the reasons she is found attractive by strangers she encounters in her life. She came from a family that values virtues over materials and they believe in what I call the "sacrifice mentality". If you love someone you would go as far as sacrificing your all for them. You give without waiting for return because if that tells the world something it tells it how well raised and how sophisticated person you are. I believe this kind of thinking is beautiful and rare in today’s world. Being beautiful doesn’t mean it is suitable for all ages and all kinds of encounters. Al Ain as a small town is growing rapidly not just  in terms of modernity but in culture and way of thinking as well. Never the less, if each of us looked inside their houses we will still find traces of those people who were raised on the sacrificing mentality. Me myself had dealt with many troubles being truly influence by my mother’s kindness and following her leads. To listen to those older than you and never disagree, to always be kind and generous to others even if that was on your own comfort account, and to never return back the abuse by another abuse.

What our parents forgot

What our parents forgot to answer is how irrational it is to treat different  people with a single way. We start wondering why the same inputs would give us a different output each time. Eventually, we come back to the faulty conclusion of “Maybe it’s Me.”.  How many times in your lifetime you blamed yourself for a friendship that fell apart or for being mistreated after paying good or maybe not getting the situation right when everything else tells you;  you did the right thing? When the processing of your inputs is giving you unwanted outputs that’s a sign you need a different inputs to try with. (Excuse my technical terms I came from a technical background)

Social Intelligence

I’m here to assure you sometimes it is not your fault. You need to learn how to stand up for yourself especially if what you’re doing is right ethically and legally. In another words, you have to make sure that you 're not harming anyone around you in any way but still receive this kind of treatment. We need to learn what we once thought a bad person’s habit. We need to be SELFISH for ourselves once in a while.

People like my mom should not be underestimated. In fact those people have a very high emotional intelligence with clear self-awareness and empathy. They can easily read your facial expressions and know when to interfere or step back. However, a newer branch of intelligence was identified called the Social intelligence. Social Intelligence or as some prefer to call it “ people skill”; is about how you can smartly deal with your social life situations and how to interact with various types of personalities. It can be considered as a complementary to the emotional intelligence you already own, but they are not the same. Educating yourself on such topics can really widen you horizon and polish your ability to adapt in the vast moving world. And identifying such intelligence by psychologists shows how important it is to not just be the social beings we were born to be; but to be masters of the regular act of "socialising" in order to excel.

To Talk

We don’t realize how crazily social we are as creatures. We talk to people from different languages with different background and we learn how to analyze emotions and situations and act upon them. That’s a huge task in hand, but we do it as easily as breathing or drinking water and we would expect a clear communication without clashes or misunderstandings!? That’s way too optimistic! yet the issue can be resolved by simply talking and clarifying your point. If you don’t understand even a small part of the way a person acts never give the implication to the other side that you got it. Stop them to ask for further explanation. No one thinks it’s smart to be able to guess what people think inside their heads nor do they want to hear a yes when you mean a No. And NO one will refuse to rephrase his/her message to you unless that person is babbling about useless stuff and sees no benefit of transmitting the right message. I really regret standing in a middle of a foreign joke once and thinking it was ok and I should be more easy going. I did my part and asked for explanation but I was given some shallow answer and more laughs. It was hurtful and I should’ve said well you know what! A joke in a language that you don’t understand is not a funny joke and I wouldn’t accept to be treated that way. In my undergrad years, saying Yes when I meant No put me in a lot of trouble. I used to nod for the instructor when he checked if we got the topic, because I knew I could get it if I went through it at home. I always ended up wasting hours and nerves over one part I couldn’t get when asking was so much easier. Guess we have to live those moments to learn.

How someone I know did it

One of my workmates is a late thirties lady, she is really friendly and has a large network of communications which always wows me. I tend to sit with her in our free time to discuss issues around self-development and weird situations we faced during the week. I love how our talks takes a critical turn and goes as deep as analyzing the psychologies behind. She shared a confession with me that if there’s one thing she regrets doing for over a decade or so; it would be not speaking up for herself and sacrificing most of her energy and family time to others. People who she was going against herself for left her/never even remembered her at the peak of her relationship crisis. And what she made her mind to do this year is to revalue her relationships and be honest and most importantly transparent about her needs. She started talking her mind and she lost many people accordingly but those people didn't left that huge impact she thought they own on her life. What was more rewarding in speaking up was the people who appreciated her presence in their lives in first place, they had more of her attention and she got a hand full of their positivity.

Final word

I don’t ask you to be aggressive nor do I ask you to lower your standards. There is nothing more nobel than modesty and forgiveness but I ask you to protect yourself in a smart way so you keep your rights and dignity safe. We are lucky to have parents to correct our actions and clean community that brought us up to be the sophisticated grown-ups we are now. However, you need to acknowledge the fact that not everyone took the right turn on his way to adulthood. Some come loaded with hatred, greed, fear or trust issues while others come flying over their dreams, hopes, ambitions and kindness. Stop complaining of how they once treated you and start enforcing the way you want to be treated by and a step towards that starts with speaking your mind or as the topic suggests standing up for yourself.

Love,
Amna

  

Jigsaw of the Mind

Despite the generous blesses in our lives and the strong believe in Fate’s game, one cannot keep his feet mud free in the pool of depression.

When you are content with your own life you might point sarcastically at the mourning of others. Forgetting that people differ in life scope, hopes, dreams, plans, worries, biology and psychology.

Loud arguing and confronting a friend can pass by in couple of hours to normal people but might be a big deal to others that it would lead them to shy out and hide from the society.. ever asked yourself why?

A person I recently met gave an outrageous confession of not believing in psychology and the existence of its illnesses. I was once in the same spot, I knew someone can get down and blue but thought the rest is an exaggeration except total madness which is incurable.

Yet when I met people with unfortunate cases, I stopped myself in wonder and disbelief. What if what I see is not a bit a like of what they see?! The way we simplify a math problem in attempt to get it solved, what if a grown up human being lost this formula and had an alternative mechanism of complicating matters and worse a tendency to depression or death?!

A friend talked about philosophy and the question of his life saying “what if the red I see is blue to you but we were raised to agree that its called red?! How would you know that the hue I see is not the same when we can’t get into each others mind?”  this statement that got stuck into my mind made me embrace the difference and believe it exists.

For those who think they can read all people behaviors and triggers, think again. A study shows that 85-90% of human mind is a subconscious based. A part that you have no control over and a part that drives you instead of you giving it a drive. If we assume that all the bad and good experiences, emotions, memories are recorded there. Won’t you think it will come back in a way or another? Yes it will and in some cases a person might act this way and when asked for a reason he wouldn’t see a clear answer coming. If they, themselves are not aware of their motivations who are we to list them.

Me, myself not immune against all of that. In fact these are my writings, my inner thoughts, and maybe a little squeeze from my subconscious in there. I’ve always admitted that I find myself more frequently depressed than the others, but what do we know about the others? Every day is a fight to stay happy and a prayer for the best to happen.

I want you, my reader; to get a glimpse of my happiness and save you my agony, that’s why I will always write about joy here. And again if you think I got it all easily and without sweats and tears you are not only fooling yourself, but you are underestimating the life holding us all. When I started to be independent, I had to shed a tear at each and every step I took until I reached my place. Life changes in a matter of seconds, it can be unbearable and yet excitingly livable at another day. Its how we deal with it that differentiate us.

In this century, it is sometimes understandable to act cold and mean assuming everyone is not willing to compromise and not worth the chance of letting them in anyway.. So we hurt, judge and avoid. Its such a shame that such violent acts are so welcomed and applauded for while the reverse is a signature of weakness and stupidity on the face of the beholder. Later when the good is disgraced and the bad appraised they wonder why many are committing suicide, many are lying in hospitals and mostly are living dead.

“Live as a Noble in your own land rather than a badass in theirs because they will not be your loyalists in both ways.”

Another important view to look at is Destiny, we were giving things in life and obviously its your choice to manipulate them, yet sometimes fate stands in the way of controlling what seems easily controllable. One day I was having dinner with a friend when all of a sudden a little mentally disabled girl jumped on my French fries because she was hungry. I was so damn scared but convinced myself that she meant no harm and kept watching. When her mother came to apologize we totally lost our appetite although we were starving and so excited for the meal earlier. She touched our hearts. She was living in her own world disturbing the tables of other people without knowing much other than it’s a food to reach your hands for with a smile. I didn’t think life was hard on the little girl more than on the mother.. the tiredness and carelessness showed all over her face. God’s fate picked them to suffer on earth may they be blessed with heavens afterwards. When you are in such position tell me how would you hold it together? Tell me is this a condition you can get over with sessions of rehab? And aren’t you lucky enough to understand my message to you?!

  

And if this doesn’t move you to look around and respect the majesty of life diversity in creation, look back at our prophet Mohammed testament! He asked us to fight the abuse with kind. Because a human is a collection of psyches. And even in his life centuries ago people still suffered from the ups and downs of the mind. The human can go astray from his true nature, the nature of neutrality, loving, happiness and faithfulness. And all religions came to emphasis that road to acquire those things still valid and is engraved in the rocks as long as a person is alive.  A talk in a modern church in Seoul was held under the title “ clean your house ”, stories and wise words were thrown to support the people to clean their hearts and maintain their sober minds. 

"Because we are, those fragile little things.."

Finally my dears I don't expect you to change the way you treat people as much as I ask you to stop and think. Give others excuses for what they've done, give them a chance to be a better beings in your mind. Only when you think.. you will believe, and when you do believe.. you will start acting accordingly.

“Oh dear god, I call you with the greatness of your creation, I know nothing about life, never wanting to judge your servants; I’m asking you the protection from the many they are tested by.”

Peace,

Amna Al Dhaheri