Sunshine on a cloudy day - Inspirational Monday

If I have learned only one thing about marriage it is this: 

Source: http://www.9quote.com/

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From the desk of a Chronic Pessimist

About 10 years ago my grandfather wrote an Urdu book called 'Fikharein Choro Jeena Seekho' it was a translation of Dale Carnegie's best seller 'How to Stop Worrying and Start Living'. I was very young when he wrote it but I remember we had numerous women who would call or send letters from Pakistan seeking Dada’s advice on an unending list of things they worried about. In my opinion, Dada wasn’t a self-help guru, but he hit the nail on the head with this book. Just the title is enough to show that it’s probably the best advice anyone will give you about life. Sadly, I never even attempted to read the book myself! Lately though a lot of things going on have had me thinking about this concept. This "worry wart pessimistic" attitude which seems to be more prevalent in us women was blaring in my face everywhere I went. Especially after watching Kashaf’s behavior (female protagonist of the current Pakistani TV show I’m hooked on, Zindagi Gulzar Hai) I couldn’t stand it anymore, I had to dish out some advice to the current generation, just like my Dada once did.


Girls, can we please admit to this ‘flaw’ of ours and work on fixing it?! Please?

We worry beyond belief! This issue of stressing about every possible scenario that might play out in our lives literally drives us to the brink of insanity. I know we really can’t help it, its innate. But you know what? We give men a lot of grief about being lazy and irresponsible, so maybe we should take our own advice and fix our quirks when they become a problem. Perfect example: Kashaf is a manic worrier, this girl couldn’t recognize happiness if it punched her in the eye, because she’s perpetually afraid of what can go wrong next. She is doubtful of anyone who is nice to her and of any possible hope of good times in life. Watching her I thought, wow who can be THAT negative? But it took a few seconds to realize I do this ALL the time! Last week, I read in the news about a young mom dying in her apartment and her four year old son walked around alone for days surviving only on a bag of sugar. Suddenly, I’m crying. AT WORK. Because the little boy’s story was so sad I started worrying about what if I die and no one finds out. I imagined Ali locked in with my corpse, eating nothing but fistfuls of Nutella. SERIOUSLY? Get it together girl. Yes bad things happen. Yes they do happen to good people. But GOOD THINGS HAPPEN TOO. We cannot not allow fear of these ‘what ifs’ to consume us.

We need to take off the green lens and actively seek the good in our lives. It may be exams and 8 page papers in college life or endless hours at work or a baby who doesn’t sleep at night that cause us to worry and become Negative Nancys. But the truth is WE allow it, life experiences may be triggers but we are the ones who choose to pull it and shoot out that bullet.

While Kashaf on ZGH is an extreme example of it, we all have this inner pessimist that we sometimes let get the best of us and it only wreaks havoc when we do. Think about at least two things you obsessed/worried about in the past week, month or year that turned out “not so bad” after all. Yes it wasn’t entirely how you expected but it wasn’t as terrible as you worried it would be. And maybe, possibly, some of your worrying negatively affected the outcome, like a self-fulfilling prophecy. By stressing too much we actually cause the things we fear to come true. When I first got married I had this constant dream of my husband dying! Once I woke up bawling from a dream that he went out jogging, was got hit by a car and my parents are telling me he’s dead. It took me a long time to figure this out, but I realized it was my fear of a good thing. I had never loved someone so much and was majorly afraid of losing the best thing to ever happen to me. I had to come to terms with the fact that this amazing occurrence in my life was actually here, and  I wasn’t allowing myself to love him wholeheartedly for fear of losing him.

I’m trying SO hard to fix this worrier side of me, and it may be working. Like last month when we spontaneously decided to do a trip to Turkey planned in 2 days I did not panic. I just got to work on what needed to be done. And even if we dashed to the passport office a few hours before our flight, it all worked out. IT ALL WORKED OUT. As women we are planners and organizers with a big part of our nature is to be a perfectionist, wanting every detail to be flawless. In doing so, we begin equating planning with stressing. If we aren’t stressed we don’t care enough. This attitude has got to change. I care very much about everything in my life and a huge part of me does want to panic at times, but I am making a constant conscious effort to remind myself that freaking out will not help. Worrying won’t make it perfect and ‘perfect’ will only happen when I accept that there will be flaws.


Learn to let things go when they go wrong. Work your absolute hardest and when you find yourself freaking out, stop. Take a moment to breath and tell yourself:

Have hope. Know that this too will be over eventually, so while it’s happening you must enjoy the best of it and let go of the worst of it.

So now with all that being said, can someone please shake Kashaf ‘Churail’ Murtazas’s shoulders, slap her across the face and say "GIRLFRIEND YOUR HUSBAND IS HOT AND HE LOVES YOU, STOP WORRYING ABOUT EVERYTHING THAT CAN GO WRONG AND FREAKING HUG HIM ALREADY!"
 
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Ammi and Abu

The most influential people in my life are, without a doubt, my parents. I've minored in psychology, and although that doesn't mean much, this realization came to me during lecture one day in Personality Psychology. I must have known it unconsciously all along but it just somehow dawned on me that day as Professor Atwood described the single unifying theme present in each person's life which forms the foundation around which all their other actions, thoughts and experiences are based.

Every single important decision I have made involves me thinking about what my parents would think. I know all of this should be done for God and I think as I grew up it did become for Him. But how can I throw them and their teachings to the side? How can I not credit them? Everything I am is due to them, if I had been anyone else's child I would not be me. Apart from just morals, literally in everything I do I hope to please them. All throughout my academic career I was  focused on giving my parents the pleasure to say their daughter was intelligent. I became an accountant because my father is one and he was pleased to hear that I took interest in it. And even at times when I wanted to give up on passing the CPA exam I kept treading forward  because I knew the pride it would bring to him. Because in my mind, if I failed this I would disappoint them. Honestly, whether it was about dating a boy or dressing immodestly or failing the CPA exam I always feared disappointing them. I still do. I still juggle all the balls of life with marriage, motherhood and a career, because I know it brings them pride to see my success. And as a parent myself now, I understand that pride. I PRAY to have that sort of pride one day iA.  But you see, it was not that my parents were extremely rigid people who had harsh rules which made me feel suffocated and fearful of them not loving me if I disobeyed. School friends and people of other cultures would often ask me that, how I lived within such "overbearing limits"? But to me it wasn't that way at all. They didn't actually openly dictate to me how I should live my life. They had set rules and they encouraged us with positive examples in a certain direction, but it wasn't ever that I felt their parenting was overbearing. In fact, with time I learned that even if their rules were pushed or broken, their love was never ending. That's what it was. Their love. They still accepted and stood by us no matter what. I have always been so deeply overwhelmed with just HOW much they love me (and all my siblings), how selfless and unconditional it is that I feel the only way to express my own gratitude and appreciation is to continue to make them proud. If I keep that thought in mind, I never ever feel that pleasing them is a negative element in my life. Honestly, obeying them and trying to please them is just natural to me. I enjoy it. There are so many other things in their life giving them so much to worry about, I thoroughly revel in the fact that they don't have to worry about me, because they know I have a good head on my shoulders and will do the right thing.

And now as I am in my late twenties and life is teaching me a thing or two about wisdom and parenting I can't help but fall more and more in love with the way they raised us. I am finally understanding that unconditional love and selfless devotion that only a parent can understand.