I love you just the way you are ...... hmmm

You know the advice 'just be yourself' and then someone adds; 'but not too much'!

What does it mean to be 'yourself'? What if being yourself is to be grumpy, angry and vindictive? What if in being yourself, you are losing people’s love, attention and care? What then?

I guess the idea is not to pretend to be someone you are not. There are so many catch phrases at the moment promoted by all the self-help books and they go like this:

-        Discover the inner you

-        Release your potential

-        Live life as your true self

-        Understanding ‘you’

…and so many others that keep going on and on about rediscovering and reinventing ourselves.

So the question is, what happen after you discover this ‘inner you’ or after ‘reinventing yourself’? Are people suffering around you? Are they paying the price for your new discovery?

In our journeys to self-discovery, releasing our potentials, self- examinations etc, we forget sometimes that there are people around us who love us and care for us. Our quest to rediscover ourselves engulfs us in a selfish journey to focus on the self and forget all others.

In our new found love to live life as ‘ourselves’, we still need to be mindful of people’s feelings and not to hurt or offend just simply by claiming that:

                        Hey….I am being myself !

Reading between the….. lies!

Reading people’s CVs, personal ads, profiles and even obituaries is fascinating. They all read a happy, well balanced and amazing picture of harmony and maturity. From a ‘people person’ to ‘team player’ and from ‘outgoing, fun loving and loyal’ to ‘great parent and friend’. These are not lies and are not exaggerations, this is the way WE see ourselves, or the way we WANT to see ourselves.

I don’t think you will ever find a CV that says, ‘ I am a nightmare to work with’ or ‘I can only work when people listen to every word I say’. Personal ads is another one, no one will say that they are ‘indecisive, immature and got a lot of issues around commitments’! Instead, they like to see themselves as ‘easy going’, ‘a child at heart’ and ‘will only settle when I find my dream match’!

The good thing is that when God created us, he saw it was GOOD….all of it. With every part that we may not like or people might find it difficult to cope with, HE still finds us GOOD and longs for a relationship that last with us, just as we are, no pretends and no lies.

Welcome Olly to our life

True Love

2011 was full of much political news across the world, from the Arab spring to capturing Bin Laden, from the recession in Europe to the demonstrations in Greece. But as the whole world struggled to come to term with so much, Italy was facing a different scenario. Italy was facing a recession like the rest of Europe, facing the risk of being downgraded from the credit agencies and its prime minster, Mr Silvio Berlusconi himself was facing so many corruption allegations and accusations of misconducts etc. So in the middle of all of this and just one week before Mr Berlusconi's  time come to an end as Italy prime minster, he made a very important decision...................................

He released his album of love songs!!!!!

Yes, you read right…..it was not a decision to save the currency, to help the country out of recession, to clear his name or to save his reputations ….no he decided in his wisdom that it was time to release his album of love songs. He is clearly passionate about these love songs and he co- wrote 11 of the songs and - I presume - wanted to reach people with his softer side. All I thought about this was to think of the reaction of his advisers as he told him what he wanted to do,

'A love album prime minster? Yes sure, of course, that what the country needs, that what people really really want!'

But on a serious note, this was, may be –in his mind- what he wanted to be remembered by, may be this was his passion, his heart was really with these love songs and he wanted to spread the joy.

In the quest to make a difference and to be remembered, we strive to do our best and to reach high grounds, to do something unique to be remembered by, to stay in touch with our emotions and reach out for true love … just one important detail…make sure that the timing is right to fit within the big picture!

A Step or A Stop?

‘Everything comes to an end’ this is a fact of life and as we were created, ‘endings’ are a reminder of our limitations and that as we had a beginning we will have an end. 

We are surrounded with ‘endings’ all the time, even the words we hear. You hear football managers talk about: ‘at the end of the day, the lads did their best’ or your teacher will say: ‘by the end of the class you need to understand this process really well’, or your friends tell you to ‘hang in there, the end is near’ when you are having a tough time.

Endings are hard, ending a relationship, a job, leaving an old house or loosing someone as their life ends. And as we move from one thing to another we struggle with how to deal with this simple fact of life and in our way to deal with endings we either glorify the person/the event/the job or make a villain out it. So after loosing a job, we only bring up the worst in the boss, how bad it all was, how nasty people were and almost making it an evil cartoon character. On the other hand, after loosing a loved one we glorify them and brush aside all the negatives and make a saint out of them. We all do that as this is the only way we can deal with difficult endings.

But there is another way; we can look at endings as a STEP and not as a STOP. We can stop forever after the end of a relationship and never move on or we can look at the experience and learn from it all (good and bad) and move on with what we leaned. We can see it as a STEP in our development and life experience and remember the good times and don't let everything stops.

How do you look at every ending surrounding you? Finishing school, ending a contract with work, finishing a charity event, ending a relationship, the end of a holiday, etc? How do you see it? A step or a stop….you decide.

Join us upstairs, down here!

This is a real photo on the London Underground station in East London. I couldn’t resist taking a photo. But thinking about it, so many things take place around us with some very contradicting messages.

Listen to the parent who tells the kids off to ‘encourage’ them, to those who hurt you because they love you. Look at the army that is supposed to protect you but aims at you and kill you for the sake of what is called ‘stability’. See the government that says ‘we are on the side of the poor’ but reduce their jobs, their education and their chance of a better life. Some who declare their hate to others under the umbrella of 'show compassion to those who are different from you'. The group of 'I want to kill you to show you what is the right way to go'.

Who are we deceiving? This photo is honest, if you go ‘downstairs’ you will get the overground trains. In life we need to call things by their own names otherwise we will never change anything. If we are running around looking for ‘excuses’ to certain actions, we will never move forward. That happens in relations, in societies and across the whole world.

The photo is confusing because the words don't follow what you expect. The same in every other situation, If I say I care about you, then I my actions needs to show that. If I want to show you how wonderful my way of life is, I need to show you lovingly and not by force. If I say that I want 'stability' then declaring war is not the right way to go about it. 

So, would you like to join me 'upstairs, down here' to correct the contradictions in our lives? 

Now you see it.....now you don't

Today, I had a big task at work, to clear my electronic data from my computer. I wrote about this last week and today was the day that I had to move all my electronic files, folders etc. Where do you start, I have endless number of documents, lots of drafts and final documents, some duplication and some just back up files. Some I worked on long time ago and some are as recent as last week. I had lots of things already organised in big folders (yes, I am not totally hopeless) but I still felt overwhelmed by the task at hand.


So, I decided to do this in a tidy and organised fashion (OK, OK, no need to laugh) I decided to do it the quick way. I created a new folder and called "work old PC" and then moved everything to it, just as they are. 'I will look into them later' I told myself. The files were so big and took a long time to be transferred to my external drive but it was done at the end. Then with one click I deleted the folder from the main computer after it was transferred. Just like that, one click, one button and it was all gone. More than 8 years of work, research and teaching just gone from the PC, as if I was never there. All you can see on the old PC was my log in name.

There is a book on Amazon called "Now you see it, now you don't: lessons in sleight of hand" by Bill Tarr. Shows you how to do magic tricks and when I deleted the files it felt like that, a magic wand that cleared everything. Then I thought, what if we can do that in real life. Just one click and the problem is gone, one button and 'done' pain deleted. But if we can do that, then we have to be able to run the risk of deleting the good things by mistake or accident. I don't really fancy backing up my relationship in 3 different ways like I do with my documents in case they get lost. I am confident in the love, support and friendships that I have and am sure they can not be lost by mistake, or with a click of a button. As much as I would like for the bad things to be taken away, I know that God in his wisdom is writing the story of my life, weaving it all, dark colours and bright ones, all together to make a wonderful complete picture.

Enjoy life with all its ups and down, no back up and no system crashes, invest in what matters as when it is all said and done only two things remain, your faith and your relationships.

Wish you were 'THERE'

You know the deal, you go on holiday, you are having a great time and you pick up few post cards and send them to a select group of people with the words “wish you were here”. But why do we do that? While running around on holiday enjoying yourself, you think of those who could have made it even better and more enjoyable. You imagine the good times that you could have with someone who is not actually there in this lovely holiday spot and wish they could be there to share this time with you.

So what do we miss? We miss the fun times, the laughs, the jokes, the silly faces and the kind words. We remember how late we stayed out or how much fun we had with someone. Although we remember the bad things, we do not miss it. I never heard someone says: ‘I miss going to get treatment for my teeth’, or ‘I miss the shouting I used to get from my nasty teacher’. We remember it all, but we do not miss the ugly things. As we pass through each other’s lives, we will leave lots of memories, good and bad, but for people to miss us, it will be the good things they have to miss. So, do not work hard to leave bitter taste in people’s mouths by leaving them with bad memories otherwise you will get a card that says

Wish you were ‘there’…away from me!

Gingerbread "person" anyone?

The birthday week for my blog continue with some of my old posts. Here is the gingerbread person post. Enjoy.

This is the last straw I think. The news that we are now supposed to change the name of gingerbread man to gingerbread person or gingerbread people as it is not politically correct anymore.

I don’t like gingerbread anyway (nothing personal really) but I had so much fun helping in my local school with making gingerbread man with the kids, it was fun and messy experience. I was trying to follow the recipe while running after the kids who are trying to taste the dough that had raw eggs and stopping others from dipping their toys in the honey or making tracks on the floor with the flour. However, eventually we made the gingerbread man and they were really nice.

So what is the problem with calling them gingerbread man? And who exactly got offended by that? And where is all this political correctness taking us? and what is next? protest against snowman? Most women -in my opinion- do not actually mind what we call those ginger cookies, and it is not– as far as I am concerned - an equality problem in anyway. When God created us both men and women, He created us on His image, equal in His sight. Equal in being sinful, equal in our need to His grace, equal in being human and equal in our need to be accepted and loved. But saying that, He gave us different talents and different characters and so different ways to contribute and make a difference.

So when it comes to fitting that IKAE bookcase with instructions that only an expert in Egyptology can read and understand (as it seems to be in Hieroglyphics), men are well talented to do that and most women will have no problem accepting that. On the other hand, cooking, tidying and baking “gingerbread man” is enjoyable and women love doing that. I might be still sticking to the old stereotype but I believe that the issue is not who does what or what do we call things, gingerbread men or postman or chairperson etc. The point is that we are all accepted as equal in God’s eyes and it does not matter who does the ironing, what matter is that we are equal in being people who need to be loved and accepted as we are.

Micah Challenge

(I first wrote this post back in 2007).

Isabelle Caro posed for a series of provocative photos to highlight the tragedy of anorexia. She says she now weighs almost 4 1/2 pounds more than she did when controversial photographer Oliviero Toscani captured this image.I was shocked by the images of this anorexia campaign. It aims to ban size zero models from all fashion shows. But the fact that as a society we became so obsessed with our image to the extent that some people are dying trying to achieve their ideal weight is really hard to understand. In the mean time, still our actions or in-action a lot of the time, causing the death of people who live thousands of miles away, people who are now "size zero" not because they choose not to eat but because there is no food for them to eat. I think the idea to help them is there, but we must be really ashamed that now in this day in the 21 century there are still people dying of hunger in Africa. Join the Micah Challenge http://www.micahchallenge.org.uk/, let us stop both hunger in Africa and size zero models. Let us move from being self obsessed to acting justly, loveing mercy and walking humbly with our God (Micah 6:8).

Happy Birthday Blog

Few days ago, my blog turned 4 years old. I can't believe it, approaching the ripe old age of 4 as a blog is a big milestone. I posted 205 posts so far, I wrote about so many different things, from art to anorexia, politics in the Middle East to traffic jams on London's trains, I wrote about books I read and articles I could not understand.

As I read through some of my old posts, I enjoyed reliving the times where they were written. Socrates was reportedly worried about the written word - in books etc- and its availability will have an effect on retaining information. He argued that knowing that the information could be accessed anytime in a book will discourage real learning and retaining information direct from the source. I felt a bit like that reading some of my older posts. I know they are here, always here, I can read them at anytime and so - like anything I know that I can get to at anytime - I never did.

So, as a way for celebrating the birthday of my blog, I will re post some of the earlier posts. You can also check "Popular Posts" for some of the most read post. 

 And to steel the famous catch phrase from Bruce Forthsyth: Keeeeeeep Blogging.  

Life is hard, but.....

"Life is hard"...one of my friends said to me and I agreed. It is so difficult sometimes. You look around and you try and make sense of situations that are really difficult. Then you look worldwide, and there is no much comfort out there either, wars, famine, crimes and brutality. In the middle of it all we start to drown between our personal problems/challenges and the world's sufferings. The results....tiredness and frustrations most of the time.

But while we were away on holiday, I had a chance to think of so many things and reflect on God's creation. I thought of the times when people were dying because there was no simple antibiotic or the times when hot water was luxuries that the poor could not afford. I remembered when we used to go to a phone office to ask to be connected and make a 3min phone call to the capital, when phone numbers were 4 digits! Remember when education was just for the wealthy? when women were still fighting to get some of their rights?

There are so many problems around us, but there are so much that we are enjoying and taking for granted. The beauty of nature, the vast oceans and the blue skis. The education and the travel and the medical advances. I am under no illusion that as I write this, there are millions of people who are still suffering and fighting for their rights. However, in the middle of a gloomy world, let us not be consumed of the darkness of the night because the sun always shine at the end.

A Battered Wife

Imagine the scene … a dim light in small house, a woman sitting down crying with her hands covering her face. In comes a big guy into the room and looks at her and ask her to stop crying. She does not want to listen to him. She tells him it is over between them, as she removes her hands from her face; the light is shinning on the marks on her face of the fight they had.

But he sits down and try and talk to her, he tells her that he loves her and that she is the one for him, he says that she pushed his buttons and made him so angry that he had to hit her, he tells her that he wants the family to stay together and for the sake of the kids she must stay with him. He tells her that he is not like other guys who beat their wives so badly that they end up in hospital when their men are angry, and it is only few bruises on her face and it will heal very quickly. He tells her that he knows best and she is better leaving all the decisions for him and not to interfere in the future.

Now….this is what is happening in Egypt at the moment, A battered and helpless wife's relation with the one who is in charge, the one the wife used to love. Look at the army arresting and killing innocent civilians, “but we are not like the Syrian or the Libyan armies” you hear them say. “We know best and for the sake of stability of the country we need to rule with an iron fist”. “Some people are protesting so much and stopping normal life and so we had to intervene by force” the “you pushed me to do it” story. So many excuses and while the battered wife used to be able to call for her neighbours for help, at the moment the world is watching and getting more immune to the numbers who are getting killed each day. The majority respond by saying: “but at least it is not like Syria”. True, but how do you feel if I say to the people of Norway after the killings last week, “ah at least it is not like the twin towers in USA” This will be the most inappropriate thing to say.

A life is a life; injustice hurts whether it is against 10 people or 1000 people. The whole police force in the UK was under huge, long and expensive investigation for the unlawful death of a newspaper seller in London during a protest last year. What is happening in Syria, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Palestine and many other places is not acceptable on any level. However, brutal force in one place does not excuse extreme force in another.

One thing about battered wives, they may believe the lies first, but they soon learn to stand up and defend themselves. I believe that Egypt will.

A Rabbit or a Tortoise...You decide

You know the story, the race between the rabbit and the tortoise, where the rabbit decided to sleep most of the race thinking that he can jump in last minute and win while the tortoise steady and slow progress made it the actual winner at the end.

We were told the story many times with the emphasis on the laziness of the rabbit and the hard work of the tortoise. This is true but there is another element I think to this great story.

Look around you and see so many people acting like the rabbit, at work, in high positions and even as they treat each other and they have the rabbit attitude which is: “I can get up at any moment of this race, jump two huge jumps and win the race; I can do it because I am THE RABBIT”. It is true that the rabbit could have won the race in two big jumps, the problem was his timing. Look at the middle eastern governments; offering reforms to issues after things reached the point of no return, thinking that they can at any point offer a big gesture and HOORAY, problem solved. Or look at relationships, some people take others for granted thinking, “I can always come back with a big promise, a nice gift or a huge change and I can win them back”. It is the rabbit all over again, two big jumps and I will be the winner.

However, no matter how clever you are or how fast you are you need to jump at the right time otherwise you will be left alone on the sidelines wondering “how did it all go wrong?”

Happy retirement to every dictator

I have been watching the events in Libya very closely and can't help but feeling outraged at the brutality of the regime against its own people. It seems that all the Arab leaders had -at some point- a crash course on how to cope with any revolution. I think it was all in all a one day training course and it must have covered the same old points:

1- how to use scare tactics (weapons, machine guns, thugs, brutality, etc)
2- keep everyone busy hating one another (tribes against each other, Muslim against Christians etc
3- burn all government offices and police stations to remove all evidence when the going gets tough
4-use threats like: if i go; it will be chaos, if i leave; the country will be occupied by foreign forces, etc
5- accuse everyone who criticise the system of being an agent and a spy working for Israel or the USA (this one always work against anyone)
6- maintain the media under your grip, broadcasting calming music, Tom and Jerry, patriotic songs in the middle of any million man marches that come your way

Other general points include, withdrawing your police force and arming thugs to frighten people and keep saying that you -as a leader- will NEVER leave until you finish your time in office (which is usually lasts for 50 years).

If all this fail, pack your bags, move your billions abroad and book one way flight to Saudi Arabia, the whole revolution thing usually takes about 3 weeks max!!

Ahh, one last tip, after you leave office do not forget to spread rumors that you have suffered a coma and that you are on your death bed.

Happy retirement to every dictator.

Getting to know you...

It seems that the next Arab league meeting will be a chance for the leaders meet new faces and for them to get to know each other. The old bunch got to know each other for the past 30+ years and now the time has come for a new stage and new direction for the whole reagion.

There might be an event on Face Book to invite all the new leaders to attend :)

We asked for change in Egypt for so long...now we have a chance...are we big enough to take it and do something?

For years we wanted change, for a long time we talked and complained about the state of our country, about the poor and the unemployed, about the emergency law and the corruption in EVERY office in the land. Now we have a chance for our voice to be heard, to make a difference, is it going to be easy? Of-course not. Some say who is good enough for this position? I am sure among 82 million; there will be one person we can trust. Surely, we cannot just simply stand with a corrupt system just because there is no alternative!

So what can we do now?

1- Support the moderate forces in our country

2- Go and exercise our rights in electing members of parliament

3- Teach each other and educate one another on the best way forward

This is OUR land, our country and we owe it to ourselves and to our kids. To simply do nothing is just not an option. For so long they sold us the lie that we cannot cope with change, that it is better to stay as we are because we are not sure about what the future might bring. My fellow Egyptians, if you stand and do nothing then you cannot come and complain that no one is listening to you or giving you your rights ever again. I would rather die free than live as a slave.

To all Arab leaders

Three things Arab leaders are worried about at the moment:

1- Their people

2- Facebook

3- Fridays

This is Egypt

Some said that Egyptians are not ready for democracy, that they need an iron fist to control them, that they are not ready for freedom and that they don't know what is good for them. However, for a nation that was never allowed to protest or ask for its rights or cry out in the face of injustice, they did pretty well so far....the only violence came from the police while the protesters shouting "Selmeya" which means "peaceful", the protesters turns their slogans into songs played out on guitars (see previous posts) and they formed search teams to check that those coming into the square where not armed or trying to cause trouble. However the most striking images that came out in the last few days were the images of the cleaning process taking place not only in Tahrir square itself but all over the country. One of the CNN reporters said: "for the first time we see people cleaning the streets after they finish their protests". For me, this is great nation that is proving that it is ready for real and true democracy, they deserve it and I have every confidence that they will work hard to get it. The next stage will be hard and no one is under any illusion that it will be easy, but if people work together then impossible is nothing. I am proud to be an Egyptian. Long Live Egypt.

In the middle of the Egyptians revolution, the media played a very important role. However, while the cut of the Internet and the phone lines by the government, the Egyptian TV was -for many Egyptians- the only source of information. The top picture was the reality on Tahreer Sq on Friday 28/1 while the bottom picture was what the state media broad casted. No wonder that people are now asking for the media minister to resign from his job for misleading people.