Monday, November 29, 2010

Mentality of some of our status conscious people

Some people which majority are ladies are very status conscious, my ladies readers, please no offense, its just what I have observed in my life. It is said in words of wisdom that it is good to live a life according to your social status but ignoring some important factors like health, our own impression in front of other people that includes children and other people feelings etc. leads to a society with people who waste most of their brain in doing destructive activities.

People who belong to such a society always say to eat meat, chicken, BBQ, grilled food instead of eating vegetables and lentils. And they say that this should be followed specially when we are in some social gathering like with friends, wedding ceremony or some occasional gathering because they think that people who eat vegetables, lentils are not appropriate to sit with so called high class people. Where in fact vegetables and lentils have same food nutrients as in meat and also keep us away from many dangerous diseases like cancer. Meat and vegetables both are necessary for health and if this is kept in mind, instead of worrying about what other people will think of us, is a very creative step for us and for our society. 

Such people say to drink soft drinks like Pepsi, Cocacola, Marinda, 7up, Sprite and Fanta instead of fresh water. Well dear for your information soft drinks are not at all healthy since they make our stomach weak ,so I would prefer to have fresh juice or water to avoid any stomach problems that I might get eventually.

They talk about wearing expensive clothes, watches, shoes and going out in luxury cars to casual friends or family parties. They say to stand with people of same status. Where in my view how you look from inside matters more than how you are from outside and being nice with everyone regardless of their social status has been the quality of great people.

They say drive car even when your office is on 10 minutes walk from your house. Where walk is a very important part of every day routine to keep us healthy and stay away from many diseases specially heart  diseases. And also driving car is not at all good for our environment where we live and breath every day. Such people never stop being a politician even when they don't even know ABC of politics. Pulling leg of others, back bitting, lying and attitude problem some prominent characteristics of these people.

The list goes on and on and to maintain status wherever we go has became part of our culture. And the result of it is discrimination among people based on wealth, spending too much money just for sake of showing status and dragging some people to inferiority complex etc. I do not see any positive outcome of doing all this so why not we change it starting first from ourselves and then educating close relatives and friends. And I admit that bringing such a change needs very wise decisions and their implementation not only by individuals but also by government.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Importance of loved once in our lives

Father, mother, sisters, brothers, wife, children and all other who are close to our hearts are the people that we need at some stage of our lives and without these people life is not life. I don't feel reluctant in saying that without these people there is no life as I believe that it is not only the case with me.



Sisters/Mother:
Important creation of God for giving confidence, showing right path, looking after all basic necessities of life including food, clothes and we need their involvement in many important decisions of our lives for our own good.


Mother is someone who keeps her child close to her from the first day he/she is brought in this world. She keeps the baby for nine months in her womb with many difficulties that no one else can even imagine. There is a very special bond of love between the child and mother from the very start. She takes care of child in early stages where a child has no idea of the world around him/her.She is there for her child when no one else is there and there is no match of sincereness a mother has for her child. 


Well said by great people;
  
A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.  
~Tenneva Jordan


Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible.  
~Marion C. Garretty, quoted in A Little Spoonful of Chicken Soup for the Mother's Soul


A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest.  
~Irish Proverb


Sisters are brother's best friends. Sister is the one who argue with parents for their brother's and sister's rights. They are the one who feel for their siblings and they are the one who always want good for them.  



Brothers and sisters are as close as hands and feet.
-- Vietnamese Proverb



A sister is a gift to the heart, a friend to the spirit, a golden thread to the meaning of life.
-- Isadora James

To have a loving relationship with a sister is not simply to have a buddy or a confident -- it is to have a soul mate for life.
-- Victoria Secunda 


Father/Brothers:


It is impossible to please all the world and one's father

-- Jean de La Fontaine


 "I talk and talk and talk, and I haven't taught people in 50 years what my father taught by example in one week." 

-- Mario Cuomo

 "A father is a banker provided by nature." 

-- French Proverb 

"Sometimes the poorest man leaves his children the richest inheritance." 

-- Ruth E. Renkel 

A brother is a friend given by nature.
Jean Baptiste
Legouve





Friends:
"My friends are my estate."
~ Emily Dickinson



All these beautiful people make our life worth living. They are the essence of ones life. They are the one who make us think positive and make us realize importance of this life. Without them life is nothing more than an unsolved mystery full with pain and disappointment.

Realizing how important these people are and live for them is one of important things which I think everyone should do. As great Albert Einstein has said, life is worth living when we live it for others. 

Monday, June 7, 2010

Love for this culture

What makes me stay in Pakistan even when every other day there is bombing somewhere near my place or where my relatives lives, when there are so many problems including people are deprived from basic living necessities including food, land, clothes, electricity and gas because of corruption in our leadership, administration and responsible people, where living expenses is so high that an average job doing person is hardly able to save any money and for some, even it is hard to feed their families and the thing is that when it is very easy for me to go abroad to a very developed country and start living a very comfortable life?

Answer to this is that because my loved ones are here.



I left my father's place ten years ago for higher studies, stayed in Pakistan and then went to Australia in 2004. I lived there for five years and last year came back to Pakistan. During this time I have gone through many ups and downs in my life which have taught me many important lessons that I am sure are going to prove big help in my future life for making better decisions.

I learnt that living a life without loved ones alone is like living no life at all. When we reach a certain age our responsibilities increases and people on whom we rely in our childhood start relying on us or need us as they grew old. And at a certain age you have to take these responsibilities and if you start enjoying them, I think no one feels these responsibilities as a burden on them.

Now, even seeing loved ones faces brings such a satisfaction that you won't believe. This keeps me stick to this country and affects are that I have also started to love the culture, people, work and my city.

I feel that I enjoy more when I am close to my loved ones. I enjoy the food, friends company, my work, relaxing at home and company of children. I used to watch Hollywood movies, English TV series alot but since I have come back to Pakistan, I have started to watch Pakistan TV dramas and loving it.

I think some one has said very right that 'we can make our environment hell or the same environment heaven which depends on how we want it to be'. So for me, no matter if we live a very luxury life or an average life, if we don't have loved ones in our lives which include brothers, sisters, mother and father, we are not living but just trying to pass our time in this world.  

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Do we know how to drive on roads ?

No sir, we have no idea how to drive on roads!

That would be the answer of any one who will see traffic of any city of our country Pakistan. In my view there are two main reasons for this problem, one is that while driving we do not care and follow traffic rules and regulation and second is our traffic police are not doing their job properly.


When we are driving we do make many small mistakes including not keeping our cars in lane, not following traffic signs, ignoring traffic lights and most common I have seen is that we are always in hurry even when there is no need to be. 
Result of all this is so obvious, if we actually start noticing and acknowledging incidents that are happening every other day around us including; pedestrian deaths after being crushed under a car because of someones reckless driving, drivers along with people in a car died as a result of traffic accidents, drivers fighting with each other which in my view is just like animals behavior on someones minor mistake and innocent animals being killed.
   
One of the bad habits that new generation has adopted is texting while driving. It deviates one's concentration on road and brings many serious life threatening situations for driver and for other living beings. 


In my view, if we start being patient and adopt give way policy, things can get much better. Giving way when we are supposed too, for example when turning on road, parking, entering roads and driving on a straight road. Not using any gadgets that take our focus away from road and following traffic rules all the time.

So what if our traffic police is not doing their job properly or there is not enough traffic police in our cities. If we start taking only few precautions, believe me, our driving would be a great drive every time and we will feel much more free of aggressive behavior that we start developing by reckless driving. And last but not least, by doing so we are not only saving others from serious injurious but also reducing likelihood of us having an accident. 

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

People full with discrimination and how can we kill this evil

Discrimination exists everywhere where in some places it is clearly visible while in others it is rare but does exists. Notice people that you interact with everyday and count number of times they discriminate against poor, illiterate, weak, woman and on religious and racial background etc. In addition to this, if we start analyzing ourselves we will see that living in an environment with people who are full with discrimination, we have also become victim of this evil and do discriminate every now and then.


Discrimination against servants:


Servants who are illiterate, weak, lack confidence as they have seen being ignored always and anyone can yell at them anytime, are discriminated by almost everyone. 


Only few people who still have feelings treat them with respect as they treat any other human being. Servants are also human beings like us they should be treated with respect, we should know that they also sometimes can get sick like us, they also want to enjoy or atleast live their life as a bachelor and with their family. They also like to laugh and feel bad when someone yell at them alone or in front of other people.


We forget that our servants are also human being, they also get tired and need rest, they also have problems in their life. They also have feelings and want to live life like any other normal human being. In country where there is a trend to keep servants on fixed monthly pay and where servants are given double the work that they should be doing with that much money, there is a very serious need to make people aware that treating servants like this is a crime.


To sort this issue, in my view, this should be made a law or atleast people who have servants should try to fix hours that servants are working on daily or weekly basis and not to give them work more than that. If we need them to do some extra hours work then they should be paid extra amount as well. This will keep them happy and they will also do their work properly. At the same time it will be a step to erase discrimination from our place against servants.
                                                   
Discrimination against poor:


Poverty can be taken as one of the characteristics of hell. In a culture where a man in power can control anyone's life, most affected person is the poor. Poor people who do not have enough resources to eat and feed their family have no other option then to work directly or indirectly for this man in power and as a result they become victim of this evil.


This makes a certain group of people, who are poor not by their own will but where born like this, completely deprived of basic rights that each and every human being should have in a society.
Poor people have to suffer a lot, when its matter of food, money, illness, kids, education, cloths and in case of any emergency that anyone face in normal life.


If rich people instead of just filling up their banks, buying new cars, spending money on unnecessary things or making property, do think of poor people who are in their family, neighbors or that they meet in their every day life and try to give them food, money or help them in any other way can make a huge difference. 


If rich people atleast start taking poor people as normal human beings and treat them with respect and see them equal to themselves then this can ease poor people life alot. Not only this it will also help in reducing crime like theft or robbery that is normally committed by people who are in desperate need of money.


Discrimination against woman:


Women have less physical strength than men but without them a man is incomplete. Woman can be mother, sister, wife or daughter and all these relations are very important in any body's life.


But when same woman comes to work environment in countries where there are no proper laws to handle discrimination against women or if there are laws passed but are not implemented, they are treated as if they are inferior than men. 


My Message:


All I am trying to say here that discrimination does exists everywhere around us. If we just start thinking about it, its not hard to eliminate or atleast reduce this evil by taking initiative to not to discriminate at all in any manner and where possible educate people around us to do the same as this evil destroy others life and also ours . 

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Unethical people's behavior, behavior of animals

In my view, from perspective of people's thinking, there are two types of people; first are those who just keep pointing at others and never think about their own actions and second type of people are those who not just condemn others bad action but also acknowledge their own mistakes and keep correcting themselves. 


First type of people, who I will call unethical people, are the ones who do not bring a good change but are actually just an addition in creating an environment worse which is just like animal's world. Unethical people never respect each others believes, values and attitude. In world of unethical people, everyone wants to see other in a way that he/she don't want to see himself/herself. They keep noticing very small mistakes of others which might have been done unintentionally, just to discuss it with people to convince that they are better than anyone. 


For example, if we talk about work environment, unethical person will never want his/her colleagues to reach at a higher designation which will reduce this unethical person's control on him/her even if that person deserve to be on that designation. He/She will never want other person to take command and worst of all he/she will keep arguing with other every now and then on small things just to spit out his/her intense dislike for others. This arguing in return does not only disturb these two people but also others who are some how involved with them.



Someone has drawn a very well sketch of two unethical persons normal behavior when they sit together in a gathering. First they will start arguing on very small things with each other, then after a while this arguing will become worse where they will not even hesitate to grab each other and start a fight. In all this, it really depends if there are any ethical persons sitting in that gathering who can cool things down otherwise this can end up with wounds, blood and even death.


Similar scenario can be written when an unethical person is driving car. He/She will yell at other drivers or pedestrians and break traffic laws while ALWAYS hasty driving.
  
Now will it be wrong if I call this an animal behavior?


Coming to human's ethical behavior which in my view is not at all hard to implement even in unethical people's world. Ethical people don't hate each other, they don't just think about themselves but also others, help other and what they desire for themselves they want same for others. When ethical people sit in a gathering they give smile to others and give message of loving other human beings. They respect others believes, thinking and attitude. They don't make fun of others in their absence and if they are around, they only make jokes that they don't mind at all. They enjoy their life and also want others to enjoy with them. When they learn a good thing like benefits of healthy food, clean water, studying and educating others they also want others to know them.


I don't see this hard at all if we just start practicing ethical people's behavior and see how great the results are.  Make our city, home, office or school a better place to live for ourselves and also for others.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Anti-ragging measures

God ragging sucks!!!!!


Don't know why sick tradition of ragging is followed in great universities of Pakistan, to mention few UET, NUST (for civilian students), Punjab university, GIK and Central university of Punjab.

I have spent most of my live abroad and have spent five years in Australia. During my stay in Australia I studied for two years and for rest of time, I worked in a very well known company. I lived in two cities Brisbane and Canberra, and also visited Sydney and Melbourne. During this time, I met many people and some of them are my friends now. Many good things I noticed there, not all I want to mention in this post but one which is 'NO RAGGING IN ANY SINGLE AUSTRALIAN UNIVERSITY'.

Well all of us will agree that in those countries education system is much better than ours. I believe reason is not only the way they have planned teaching all courses but also the great environment that they are maintaining in their universities. Where possible, giving every individual right to choose instead of making him/her to follow others decisions in all matters, keeping a very friendly environment, respecting each others believes, not interfering with others personal business, no ragging trend at all and respecting others privacy are some of good things about Australian universities.

I am not trying to say here that they have the ideal environment but still much better than what we have here in Pakistan. Now my point here is that its not hard to bring those good things in our universities as well. Of course it takes time and not every thing is in a single individual hand but still at least things like stopping trend of ragging is always possible. Where we don't follow this tradition and also advise other students not to do this bad act.

If we search internet simply by typing anti ragging in google, we will see many websites that are meant to bring awareness in people that ragging is a abuse and should be considered a CRIME.


Yes in some countries there are strict laws against it, for example in India where a student found guilty is not eligible to study in any educational institute at all. I found this written in one such website

"Ragging is neither a means of familiarization nor an introduction with freshers, but a form of psychopathic behavior. Ragging is a violation of human rights. Respect humanitarian values and say NO to ragging".


All we have to do is promise that we will never abuse or in other words get involved in ragging and we will always advise others to do same. Also, if possible, we will take action for example by informing authorities if we see any such activity in our university.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Helping a relative

My father has taken responsibility of an orphan after his father's death last year. His name is Haseeb and he is now 26 years old.

Haseeb belongs to a poor family and he is not educated enough to get any skilled professional job. My father brought him home sometime in November last year and since then he is living at our place. Now he has got a job in a government organization with my father's help. His job is secretary level and pay is just enough to pay his family bills. In addition to this my father followed and did all process to claim money from government that Haseeb's family entitled after his father's death as his father was also a government servant. Since we know his family who is one of those who really need someone to show them how to utilize money in more fruitful way and without proper guidance they could get involved in bad deeds like theft, drugs or gambling easily, my father purchased bond from that money in name of Haseeb's mother so that this money is not wasted. As per my father's advise, he gives some portion of his pay to his family every month. For his food expenses as long as he is living in our place we afford it and don't take any money from him.

This way, now Haseeb is on right track and also doing good for his family. He has also been allocated an apartment in government's apartments where his father used to live but he is bit afraid to move there now as he has never lived alone and also is bit coward.

Now when I go to my father's home on weekends, sometimes I feel uncomfortable and bit reserved. I am unable to do whatever I want to do at home with family in presence of Haseeb. I try to keep an eye on all his activities to share my father's responsibility. It is almost five months since Haseeb moved to our place and with time I have started to realize that it's not an easy thing to actually support and keep someone at our own home for long. We have to sacrifice to do so but as a Muslim its our believe that reward for such deeds is great.

So to come to point what I am trying to say here is that a good deed like this is not that everyone wants to do as it cost some sacrifice; sacrifice of money, self desires or comfort. But if one has strong belief then great self satisfaction is one of rewards among many.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

We only think of others when its good for us

How bad it is that we only think of doing good with others when we see some benefit that we are going to get out of it. For example when we want to make new friends we will start helping others in their matters, when we are thinking of some other benefit of ours like we want to start a new business we will be very nice with people who are already in business or who are thinking to start a new business, or when we need someones help in preparing for an exam. I have started to get this feeling after having such experiences with people around me.

I said it bad because I think instead of doing like this, we should be helping others who are in need without expecting any thing in return from them. For example if we think that we want to make our surrounding a better living place for all of us or atleast just for ourselves we should do good with others and also convince others that by doing good with others we can make our place a better place for ourselves.

Doing good for others can be a very small favor or a very huge favor. In other words we can do good with others to an extent we can afford and willingly want to do. For example what I do every month I give some money to poor person that I know actually need money and has not made begging his livelihood. Sometimes when I feel that my money can be wasted then just for my own sake I buy a thing that a poor person needs and give to him/her with my own hands like food, books or similar items that I can afford.

Analyzing affects of this act, below is list that comes to my mind

- we do good for others
- we do good for ourselves by getting reward of good deeds in our account with God
- we added our share for removing poverty from our country
- if we have a strong will to do good for others, a single act will bring great self satisfaction
- we made a good impression of ourselves in front of others
- and finally, we naturally passing this habit to our next generation

What are your views about this? Any thing you like to add here?

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Harassment at workplace

Everyone should be treated with dignity and respect at work. Harassment of any kind are in no-one's interest and should not be tolerated in the workplace, but if you are being harassed what would you do ?

Some common kinds of harassment being faced by male and female at workplace,

-unfair treatment
-overbearing misuse of power or position
-insulting someone by word or behavior particularly on the grounds of age, race or belief
-constantly making fun of someone in front of him/her which he/she don't like