Rat race...

Good read...

The Rat Trap

The rat trap
by Mishal Kanoo on Wednesday, 26 November 2008
"From a young age we are taught that we should work. We work hard at school to get the best grades to go to university. We work harder at university to get a good job. And we work yet harder at the job to get that promotion. Finally, we work harder still to keep on getting promotions until we retire.

In the meantime, we fail to love our parents for taking care of us. We miss out on being children with time to laugh and play because we so want to be an adult.

We learn to hone our competitive edge to the degree that we forget our humanity sometimes. And as we grow older, we forget what it means to genuinely love unconditionally and the meaning of forgiveness.

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Instead, we learn that everything is an obstacle that we must overcome or we will never reach the next stage. Look at the way electronic games are set up. It is a learned behavior. The child learns to fight and push forward but is never taught to share and include.

As a famous person once said, "you are either with me or with the enemy." This doctrine is not far from the hearts of many people. Perhaps they might not agree with the statement when it comes to politics, but I assure you, look around, and you will see it in abundance in everyday life.

We then bemoan about not having enough time to do all the things we wish we could do. We are more than ready to sacrifice our humanity for money because that is what many of us were taught to focus on. Some of us will work ten, twelve and sometimes fourteen hours a day, not because we need to, but because we have trained ourselves that this is the right way to show that we are dedicated to our work.

Of course there are people who genuinely work because there is no alternative for them to survive. But most of us look at work as a competition that we have to win.

That is the fruition of the learned behavior that we took from our childhood in school. We are graded in school, not to see what subjects we excel at, and thus should focus on - we are graded to see which of us has the ability to learn the system the fastest and thus ensure a better chance of survival in the work environment.

We are even often told that some things naturally present in one person's personality can be taught to others, rather than to celebrate our diversity. The new buzz word in business circles and at universities is ‘entrepreneurship'.

Some people actually believe they can teach this as a skill. What can be taught is the thought process and how to hone the skills by someone who has it in him or her, and gets paid to teach it. What cannot be taught is how to be an entrepreneur. So we learn yet another idea that will encourage us to compete even more for money, and that will ultimately result in us failing to focus on, or care about, humanity.

It is said that money is the root of all evil. I would contend that it is not money but the spirit of greed that money invokes that is the root of evil. Because if we allow acquiring things to be our goal in life, we lose vision of what is truly more important - ourselves. "

I swear I'm not the devil...

"And he said…
I swear I’m not the devil…
Though you think I am…
I swear I’m not the devil…

I always fail to see…
The little things in front of me…
The things that mean so much to you…
A way to let you know…
That I appreciate…
The way you always tolerate…
But sometimes when I medicate…
Frustration in you…
Shows me how you feel…"

November drizzle

So, it's already November, I don't even remember the last time I updated this little blog of mine… What have I been up to? Not that many (Or anyone for that matter) would care or even have the slightest interest, but here goes nevertheless: Work, socializing, partying (Soberly, as usual) and trancing. Not much has changed then, eh? That’s what you might think, but photography has been missing from my list of activities for quite a while… I am still that geek who carries his camera with its full gear (Minus that Sigma 70-300 zoom lens which I wonder why I bought it, I think it’s because it was rather cheap, and for the wannabe stalker that lies within)... I still love photography, but haven’t have had much time to go on those shooting trips, which is a pity, especially since the weather has been improving tremendously lately. I like this month.

Work, well, I am learning to cope with stress, emotions, deadlines, “urgent” tasks and assignments which were eternally ‘pending’ yet suddenly become increasingly important out of the blue, but hey, that is work. Learning to deal with people, learn new things every single day, BEING BUSY! I am quite thankful that I eventually landed this job, especially considering the crisis in world economy, and the announced and unannounced layoffs that have been on the increase for the past two or so months in Dubai… The more fortunate companies are freezing their recruitment; the very fortunate ones are going ahead with their plans and projects. Something that makes me look forward to the coming months is the fact that things will get even busier, with two whole projects coming online in the next 6-8 months, and countless others (Well, depending on how the economy goes worldwide, since the others are not in Dubai)… I hope I will still be in the company by then, and hopefully my plans of continuing my studies will go unscathed despite everything… One word: Hamdella… Hamdella for everything, having a great family that haven’ pressurized me and gave me nothing but continuous endless support no matter what, being at a decent company with a good and relatively stable job within the field I studied and for lovely friends (Husam, Suha, Rasha, Mirna, Amal, Noreen, Zeina, Ghada, Mohammed, Cristina, Khaled, Marcus, Rania, Nassouh, Heba, Zayna, Saeed, Sheena, Lisa and countless others, you know yourselves :))

Useless and irrelevant piece of information there- I am at work doing the late shift today, obviously I haven’t had much to do in the last 15 or so minutes so I decided to blog, I am officially done for the day, so I guess I will wrap up this little post here, in the hope that I will get to update this further later on.

p.s. “Z” suggested that such postings should be kept to myself, and that they shouldn’t be shared, I beg to differ there though… There is a reason why I haven’t removed all the old posts, even the cheesy and teenager-ish ones (To be specific, ones relating to that ungrateful cunt I once adored, excuse my abusvie language there, but I think I am actually complimenting her with those words, and yes, I am ungrateful myself I reckon). They (Old posts) are there for nostalgic value, also, to be an eternal reminder of how everything changes and that the only fucking constant is change. Till this day I cannot explain things or make sense of what happened, but maybe it is better that way… Someone told me that in such situations, (Won’t call it a break-up, we were never together in the first place) you never know how it is at the other person’s end. Another reason is to be a bold reminder of how naïve I am, and how naïve I will always be, I’m not the brightest star in the sky, but I sure can be a force to reckon with when my mind is set to do or achieve something, like father, like son (God bless him).

If...

If the truth be told

All our vanities have gone
Wasted so much time with them
Pride the victor all along
Building walls between two friends
It was too high to pull it down
It was too high to climb so far
Now we laugh just like the clown
Who reminds us what a fool we are