Our second summer and second Ramadan. I still find it unbelievable that Muslims don’t drink water all day in 45+ summer heat. Food I can understand, but water? Nothing in their mouth, no swimming, not even a rinse from sunrise to sunset. It makes me thirsty thinking about it.
“Fasting is the easy part.” says a friend. “It is controlling your emotions that is hard.” Not getting angry, frustrated, impatient or lose your integrity and self respect — because really you are just hungry. It is not the other person’s fault you are irritable, or self destructive. You will eat soon enough, and can be grateful you are living a satiated life. You are never hungry for 24 hours. Under controlled stress, it is up to you to be lighthearted. Always choose to be your calm, understanding best.
I have been afforded the luxury of soul-searching in Dubai. Has the financial crisis helped calm people’s thoughts and emotions? Was I lucky I be born with lighter skin, or am I luckier to have had parents that stressed the value of education. Or is the luckiest person the one who understands love? The poorest of poor understand intellect is the true rising above the classes. They ask the UN for schools first and foremost. And yet a friend tells me of her highly educated family in India, living in extreme poverty. Intellect won’t bring us happiness, that is a more emotional/spiritual path.
My Japanese friend tells me of how her husband works 7am-11pm six days a week. (This is better compared to his previous 7am-1am schedule.) But then his company has not been paid for the last few months of work completed. She continues in our shock, telling us how this work schedule is normal in Japan. We all laugh when she describes her incredulousness to see a man swimming, relaxed in the pool at 5pm. “Doesn’t he have a Job?!”
Amidst so many working professionals and laborers, Why are we working? comes to mind. The prestige of your job, and what class it represents? The ability to put food on the table, or designer furniture in the house? To have a happy family? The laborers away from their families for a year, the CEO away every day, or the double income parents that are exhausted or never around. The housewife that doesn’t have any economical status, and in some cases no respect — yet has profound effects on her family and our societies future. Or is that the balance, each member taking on separate roles. Helping each other balance needs: emotional, spiritual and physical. The strength of a society through that community of balance. Staying connected as you take on your role in life.
I try teach my children to stop fighting about toys that are supposed to bring them closer together. Sometimes it works, “Look Mom! We’re a Team!” They say proudly. They are too young for Canadian sarcasm.
I get a wonderful email about Coffee, Carrots and an Egg from my favorite High School Physics teacher. A daughter tells her mother of her stresses in life. Her mother gets up and boils one pot with coffee, one pot with an egg, another pot with a carrot. She offers these solutions 10 minutes later. All have faced the same adversary, boiling water. The carrot started hard, firm, resolute but became soft after 10 minutes. The egg was malleable protected in it’s shell, but with time became hard. The coffee released a pleasant aroma and met its adversary with a great result. An enjoyable cup of coffee full of it’s unique intense flavour.
To stop searching and start being. Being the ideal person you want to be, for you and others. The hardest life lesson to put into practice.
