some thoughts

Fear Love and Faith

2011-02-15T20:07:00.000-08:00

Warning: you might cry when watching this link but make sure you do watch it prior to reading this post.

Last Minutes with ODEN from phos pictures on Vimeo.

It’s unbelievable that our own fear can cause us to hurt those that we love the most. In this case Woody was too afraid to let go of his relationship with Oden(his dog) that he caused Oden to live in pain. The beautiful part about this was that regardless of the situation Oden was able to continue giving love regardless of the pain he was in. It was only when Woody was able to come to terms with his own fear and act out of unconditional love for Oden that he was able to let Oden move on.

Fear can easily take control of a situation when we don’t base our actions on love and faith. It’s difficult not basing our actions off fear because we our putting ourselves out there.

I know that at time’s in my life I was so afraid of being alone that I’d hang out with everyone and anyone regardless of their goals or morals. In the end I was the one who ended up suffering the consequences. Although I had my array of friends I had created a spiritual void –all from fear. Yet when I was alone I felt content- I felt inner peace because I didn’t need anyone with me. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) once said “… Allah is sufficient a friend…”

Just to clarify, I’m not saying that you should go live as a hermit. What I am saying is that if a moment that makes you uncomfortable presents itself, accept it. Live it out, put your self in a situation that you’ve never been before. I’m convinced this is the only way to live one’s life, unless you’d like to stay in a box all your life.

I'll leave you with this quote by Rumi:
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

Peaks and Troughs

2011-02-05T18:36:00.001-08:00

We all have our peaks and our troughs... funny, it makes me think about antibiotic administration. When antibiotics are given, generally its every X hours in order to make sure that the therapeutic amount is continuously in a person's blood stream. If you have too much, it becomes toxic for your body and if you have to little, the infection remains unharmed.

This same sort of peak and troughs are evident in our own lives. We have our ups and then we have our downs. Similarly, nature goes through the seasons... winter comes and the leaves fall... as spring comes there is rebirth and growth is observed. However we often fail to realize that even in winter there is growth, it just isn't shown as it is during spring and summer.

I've learned quite a bit over this extended "trough". However, the funny thing about it all is that it comes back to the basics. Believing in your self and being able to realize that you are all that you need.

Interestingly enough, the impetus for this re-realization is the impetus for growth in my life over the past seven years- my father. Ironic how someone "dead" lives on. I find it so beautiful that those who are no longer with us in this world are in one way or another still with us.

I had a nice heart to heart with my aunt today talking about anything and everything. Some how or another the subject of God and spirituality came up. She talked about her deceased uncle who had a peculiar way about praying. She explained that whenever he'd go to pray he'd not stop at the customary vudu instead he'd go on to shower, wear his best clothes, and make sure he was looking spiffy prior to praying. She remembers him telling her "When you go to see your boss you make sure that your appearance is without blemish... why don't we do the same when we speak with our Lord?". Here's some food for thought: How do you dress when your pray? Is it in your pj's? How do you speak to God when you pray? Is it rushed? Does your voice have love and sincerity in it? Think about it.

There are people who worship Allah to gain His Favors; this is the worship of traders. There are some who worship Him to keep them-selves free from His Wrath; this is the worship of slaves. And a few obey Him out of their sense of gratitude and obligations; this is the worship of free and noble men.

-Imam Ali

A random thought.

2011-01-20T20:31:00.000-08:00

I've been away from this for a while... let me change that with a quick thought provoking quote I found.

If everyone was blind, how many people would you impress?

It's not who they are... it's who you are.

2010-04-26T20:45:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago I had a critically ill patient who was battling heart failure, kidney failure, and liver failure. The first day I had him as a patient, we were continually dialyzing his blood in hopes that his kidneys would pick back up and give him a better chance of survival. I had him as a patient again two days later and there was no progress. This back and forth between aggressive treatments had been going on for nearly two weeks and at this point we had exhausted everything that we could do. The only thing that was keeping him alive was the continuous dialysis (it essentially does the work of the kidneys and filters out the blood), if we were to withdraw it he’d pass with in the next few days.

Throughout the course of taking care of him, he was completely awake and oriented, and kept asking to go home. He didn’t want to be in the hospital anymore, he was simply tired. In order to accommodate his wishes we had an end of life meeting with him, his family and the staff taking care of him. The resident was explaining the situation of his disease processes to everyone. While I stood quietly behind her I watched the patient’s niece break down, slowly and quietly, all the while attempting to hide her face. Thinking about my patient dying after taking care of him for just two days really started breaking me down. I felt her pain, I burned up inside. It was the same thing, her pain- my pain. Somehow, I managed to make it out of the room with semi-dry eyes.

As I drove home I thought about what had just happened. I said goodbye to him knowing that I wouldn’t see him again. It wasn’t an “Alright buddy I’ll see you next time”. It was a “I’ll never see you again, enjoy your last few days”. It broke my heart. Even further, it reminded me of what I had been through in a different light.

What really struck me was how I felt her pain. How I remember feeling that same pain when I was dealing with it with my own family members. How did I feel what she felt? Why did she feel what I felt? How did we both feel that?

This thought boiled in my head for while until I realized that regardless of class, color, creed or any other “difference” we all are the same underneath it all. The image that came to mind was a cat-5 cable with it’s encasing filled with numerous copper wires inside. So the question comes up… where is this “wire” going? The same place you’re going, so next time you judge someone, look within.

We’re all the same; we just choose to not accept it.

It's life

2010-03-30T20:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday a family friend's father passed away which had me thinking about my father and death in general all day today.

As I drove home from school today I visualized my self giving my condolences to a person who has lost a loved one. I then visualized that person responding "It's life, man.".

I sat on that for a good moment. It's life. How interesting. In my head, this imaginary person had no idea of that gravity of what he just said... just as everyone else who say's this phrase does. Amazing isn't it? That we unknowingly refer to death as life.

Later, when i was at the masjid prior to the funeral all those old feelings of when my dad passed came right back. It was unbelievably erie, the faces, the smells, the scenario, even the season... in just 5 days it will be 6 years for my father's passing.

We made our way to the graveyard after saying prayers at the masjid. The deep sadness throughout the faces had me shook. Then I thought about a line from a song... "They say new life makes loosing life easier to understand." Just as that played in my head a gentleman walked passed me with his baby daughter.

It was an interesting day to say the least, I'll leave you with a poem talking about what else, but death.

DIE BEFORE YOU DIE

Ironic, but one of the most intimate acts
of our body is
death.

So beautiful appeared my death – knowing who then I would kiss,
I died a thousand times before I died.

“Die before you die,” said the Prophet
Muhammad.

Have wings that feared ever
touched the Sun?

I was born when all I once
feared – I could
love.

Not so fast, suckah'.

2010-01-16T22:36:00.000-08:00

You ever find yourself in a similar situation over and over and over again? Ever wonder why?

(I have no clue why I decided to start off this blog entry like an infomercial, hopefully you found it as comical as I did)

WELL SO HAVE I! As those of you who are close(r) to me know, I had several family members pass away with in a short period of time at one point in my life. At the time I dreaded my life, existence, everything because I wasn’t able to understand it.

With time, as I grew to accept the transitions(not deaths) of my family members I become very comfortable with the idea of “death” as we call it. It didn’t bother me.

But I was still missing something… why did 5 people from my family pass away in one year when I never encountered death before?

After much time had passed for me to self reflect along with the wisdom of a friend I had realized a few things that helped me understand the situation better. When a identical situation is presented to us over and over again we are not learning the lesson(s) that is/are to be learned.

When this string of tests occurred in my life I was a complete people pleaser, drawn to people simply to win their approval. My only thoughts were of this world, although I wouldn’t call my self a “bad” kid by any means – I simply didn’t have my eyes set on growth. Everything was in tune with my ego.

Hindsight is always 20/20 and my case was no exception. I realized that I needed to learn detachment from people. I never thought that loosing one’s father could have been a positive impact on anyone’s life (assuming the father was a positive role model), yet God showed me in a very personal matter that everything is perfect.

I now work in a ER where at any moment someone may be wheeled in dying and I am forced to give all that I can give and be able to detach my self. In fact just the other day there was a patient who I was talking to and just a couple minutes after adjusting him in bed, he had a seizure (with a developing bowel obstruction) and vomited all his gastric contents. Subsequently, all of the contents went into his lungs and was the cause of his passing.

Being able to detach doesn’t mean I’m a cold person; it’s quite the opposite. It is the ability to detach oneself from the ego. It’s rather hard to accomplish when you’re in the midst of someone’s passing, but Alhumdillah, God makes no mistakes.
With that said, I’ve started to see similarities to the year with all of those “calamities” and that made me think. Didn’t I already learn the lesson I needed to? Apparently not…

How humbling is it to think you’ve passed the class with an A + only to have to take it again?

Self reflect, figure out you’re perceived strengths and realize that it will be slipped out from under you in a instant so be grateful for all that you have. After all, it was just a quick few moments that has a death toll of over 100 thousand people in Haiti… what’s to say that it won’t happen to you?

Reflect on what has passed of this world. Has any of it remained for anyone? Has anyone remained in it, be he noble or lowly, rich or poor, friend or enemy? Similarly, what remains of it that does not resemble the past more than water resembles water? The Messenger of Allah said, 'Death is enough of a warning; the intellect is enough of a guide; precaution is enough of a provision; worship is enough of an occupation; Allah is sufficient as an intimate friend; the Qur'an is enough of a clarification.'
And elsewhere, 'Only affliction and trial remain of this world. If a person is saved, it is only by sincerely seeking refuge.' And Noah said, 'I found this world to be like a house with two doors. I entered through one of them and went out through the other.' Such is the state of the one who was saved by Allah: so what is the state of one who feels at ease in this world, relies on it, wastes his life by cultivating it, and is full of worldly demands?
-Imam Jafar Sadiq

Subahn'Allah.

Appreciate what you have but realize that you don’t really have it at all

Why so serious?

2009-11-06T20:13:00.000-08:00

The day I had this patient, I knew I needed to share this story. One thing or another just continued to come up and for some reason I end up sharing it now.. I had my first day of clinical on the psychiatric ward about 2 months ago. My patient was 25 years old and had lived in a crack house all of his life, both parents were dependent on alcohol and cocaine. I’m surprised it took for him to hit 14 before he began drug use, being in that environment throughout the course of his life. He started out with marijuana and quickly moved up the ladder. By 17 he started selling crack... “I made 700 dollars in about 10 hours...”... within a couple months he was expelled for selling in school. He continued his ways experimenting with drugs through the next 7 years, which leads us to where we are now.

His addiction had taken him to a point that he was no longer making money and was unable to help out by taking care of his son. His girlfriend wasn’t speaking to him and he felt he no longer had a reason to live.

I felt the root cause of his issues stemmed from a lack of love from his family and peers throughout his life. Moving forward with this intuition, I just sat down with him and let him tell me every thing he had to say and release everything off his chest. I then slowly started to work, attempting to make him realize his addiction on a deeper level.

I started out asking him if he believed in God, knowing he’d say yes,(he was wearing a cross) I then asked him if he truly believed that God created everything(also, a yes). Then I asked if God was perfect; yes again!
“So then, if God is perfect and he created you then somewhere inside of you is a divine inner-self right? If you do believe that you put a piece of yourself in everything you create.”
“I guess so.”, he replied.
“Well then, why don’t we derive our happiness from the divine instead of the material? When we look for happiness in material form, we end up chasing one source of happiness to the next... whether it be drugs or diamonds, we’re in a constant state of unrest looking for the next ‘high’.”

He sat back for a moment and realized something he never realized before. He then continued to ask me about my beliefs about God and so on the rest of the day. However the point of this post is not to talk about how I was able to make someone realize the need for self-reflection, but yet to be able to show love to everyone. How often is it that we think “That dumb___ does drugs, what an _______ idiot!”? We must be able to take a step back and realize three things.

1. How can we love God if we can’t love His creation?
2. Malcolm X once said “Don't be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn't do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today.” We are all at different stages in our lives, we have gone through a variety of different experiences and so it is important to keep an open mind when dealing with people and their deepest of issues.
3. Lastly, in Sureh Fateha- we say “Maaliki Yawmid-diin” “[God] is the master of the day of judgement”... so who are we to judge?

As the day went on we had a group therapy session and my patient talked about how much he appreciated how the staff treated him. He explained how he never felt people cared for him the way that we were able to. My heart sank a bit and made me realize how blessed I was to have the childhood that I’ve had. No matter where you are in life, don’t forget how much a simple act of kindness can affect someone. It’s the easiest way to give that we often end up over looking. If anything just smile.

"death"

2009-10-26T19:54:00.000-07:00

I was watching the film Bab' Aziz and thoroughly enjoyed it... this movie is beautiful I suggest all of you watch it.... you can find it on youtube the first link is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuuWNxAtv84&feature=related

Come be the witness of my death
Why me? Im afraid of death.
Exactly. If the baby in the darkness of the mother’s womb was told: “Outside there’s a world of light, with great mountains, high seas, undulating plains, beautiful gardens in blossom, brooks, sky full of stars and a blazing sun.. and you facing all of these marvels stay enclosed in this darkness...”. The child knowing nothing about these marvels wouldn’t believe any of it. like us, when we’re facing death. That’s why we’re afraid.
But there can’t be light in death because it is the end of everything.
How can death be the ending of something that has no beginning? Hassan, my son, don’t be sad on my wedding night.
Your wedding night?
Yes. My wedding night with eternity.

Brownie points

2009-10-07T22:43:00.001-07:00

I’m kinda baked right now... I rushed this project together and had a work meeting today but now I’m sitting here and I had a bit of an epiphany.

I realized that when you do something for someone, whatever it may be you should do it with the intention of pleasing God and not the person that you’re aiding. When you do something with the hopes of pleasing that person you inherently begin to have expectations of that person. Often times, expectations of people are what allow our egos to grow and cause us to become upset. However, when you do with God in mind; you’re only intention is to grow.

I brought this up with Umar and he raised a valid point... to paraphrase, he doesn’t believe in asking for “brownie points” from God. I second this statement to the fullest, I’ve heard on multiple occasions “If you do ______ you get *motions hands as far apart as humanly possible* this much sawab(blessings)”. Hearing this as a child, I would always question people’s intentions at that point. So you’re telling me, that you’re only committing this “good” deed because you want sawab so that you may go to heaven. So basically, you don’t really care about doing good things, you only care about doing what you need to do in order to get what you want; paradise. I think that’s pretty selfish in it’s own right, but anyway; I told Umar that I agreed with him and shared a little verse from one of Outlandish’s songs..

“If I worship you in fear of hell, burn me in it.
And if I worship you in hope of paradise, exclude me from it.
But if I worship you for your own being,
Don't withhold from me your everlasting beauty”

 Remember, the final analysis is between you and God, so why not just please Him by taking care of His creation without having expectations. PEACE.

The three gates.

2009-09-24T21:32:00.001-07:00

I found this little tid bit and I think it's very important everyone read it:

The Three Gates of Right Speech

"The words of the tongue
should have three gatekeepers."
- ARAB PROVERB

Before words get past the lips, the first gatekeeper asks, "Is this true?" That stops a lot of traffic immediately. But if the words get past the first gatekeeper, there is a second who asks, "Is it kind?" And for those words that qualify here too, the last gatekeeper asks: "Is it necessary?"

With these three on guard, most of us would find very little to say. Here I think it is necessary to make exceptions in the interests of good company and let the third gatekeeper look the other way now and then. After all, a certain amount of pleasant conversation is part of the artistry of living. But the first two gatekeepers should always be on duty.

It is so easy to say something at the expense of another for the purpose of enhancing our own image. But such remarks, irresistible as they may be, serve only to fatten our own egos and agitate others. We should be so fearful of hurting people that even if a clever remark is rushing off our tongue, we can barricade the gate. We should be able to swallow our cleverness rather than hurt someone. Better to say something banal but harmless than to be clever at someone else's expense.

source

Breath, stretch, shake, let it go.

2009-09-13T21:28:00.000-07:00

Over the past couple weeks my spiritual growth has been on point and I felt on top of the world... what a set up...

Last week I ran off to NYC cause I felt like it. It was a great time, but that’s besides the point. On my way to pick up my mom from PA (she was at her cousin’s house while I was in NYC), I had a bit of a traumatic experience and I really haven’t been the same since... I was following this slow driving heifer on a single lane road when I decided to pass him (in the dotted area). I didn’t realize that a huge truck going in the opposite direction was a lot closer than it appeared at first... long story short I’m happy I’m in the physical condition that I am (although I do need to go to the gym).

Ever since that moment I’ve been moping around cause I felt inept in the worst way. I almost felt as if though I wasn’t worthy of living after making such a stupid mistake which could have thrown away my life so easily. All of it because of some impatience.

After a good talk with one of my buddies I realized that I that I was doing myself a disfavor beyond belief. “Duh” I’m sure some of you are saying, but it’s very hard to pull yourself out of these situations when you don’t detach yourself and look at the situation from a different perspective. I needed to detach my self from that and let it go but I was so caught up on the fact that I could have died that I forgot to live the present that God gave me. Now this is very ironic because if we go back to the original situation it was exactly the same case then... Anyways, I will be in a class room from 8am to 5 pm tomorrow so I’m gonna hit the sack.

Here is a clip of Ekhart Tolle that I feel is very relevant. He is the author of The Power of Now, if I know you, I probably mentioned this book to you. His voice is creeperiffic but look beyond it. Just don’t do acid.

Be.

2009-09-01T23:17:00.000-07:00

Hello kiddos, hope your Ramadan is going well and that you are fasting and not starving, I need to talk about me because I want to stroke my ego. About 3 weeks ago I had noticed that my patients at work had been genuinely pissing me off. To the point where I wanted to straight up slap em’ across the face. Although the some of you may not know me, I assure you, this is completely out of character. I’m not one to become irate but that’s what was intriguing about these situations. They continued to repeat over the course of the next couple weeks and I was eerily aware that it was happening… just that it felt that someone had paralyzed me from acting appropriately. Granted, these patients are not in anyway respectful or remotely show any kindness. Still, I was so shocked that these angry thoughts were so easily streaming into my head.

It was almost as if though being angry with these patients was “cool”. Although these patients are down right nasty from time to time, I pride (for lack of a better word) myself on being able to maintain my cool and not fall into the anger. In retrospect I realized that my pride was taken and thrown right back into my face. Beautiful. We are often presented with situation where we’re supposed to do the “cool” thing, and often times the “cool” never gets us anywhere. Anyone who listens to Lupe knows that.

So I thought and thought and thought and thought some more about what I was doing to allow these ridiculous situations control me. All of this thinking came to no avail. I really had to dig down within and realize that I wasn’t grounded at all to figure out my answer. It was all right there in front of me like the answer key for a test. I needed to reaffirm to my self that I was doing this for God and nothing else. When you confirm this to your self everything becomes much clearer as we realign our selves with God.

After all of this sorted itself out, Ramadan started… and of course I already had a roadblock set up. I had a case of sinusitis and was set to take antibiotics for the first 7 days of Ramadan every 12 hours… Finally after finishing my course of antibiotics I got two fasts in a row… feeling as good as ever. The second day I fasted I was at work… with the same sort of patients, but with God’s grace I didn’t even get phased and was able to give love throughout the day. I’ve noticed that in order to truly appreciate what we are given we should only give a single object, person, or idea our attention at a time. This may sound extremely basic but it’s very true. Your appreciation for your food goes down the drain the moment you pick up that tv remote. Anyways, after these two blissful days of fasting I got sick again. After contemplating on it I realized Allah was forcing me to figure out other ways to grow closer to him by taking away my ability to fast which in itself is beautiful but at the same time stinks cause I love fasting. This situation seems to perfectly fit into my current state as my best friend, who is the only person that spiritually gets me rolled out to Montréal for the semester. So now it’s just me and I’ve decided that I’m going to use this time to focus on my connection with God (so you might not see me as much this semester).

In any case, today as I was on my way home I decided to put my iPod on shuffle and out came one of my favorite songs of all time. So many things about this song struck me right after another to the point where I had goose bumps all over. Being able to be content with what we have is beautiful, however being content spiritually is a disease. Don’t stop growing.

“We got arms but won't reach for the skies
Waiting for the Lord to rise
I look into my daughter's eyes
And realize that I'm gonna learn through her
The Messiah, might even return through her
If I'm gonna do it, I gotta change the world through her”

Lyrics

Why don't you rebel?

2009-08-17T21:22:00.000-07:00

Hello kids.

I’ve been thinking a lot about ways to grow further spiritually cause I felt like I hit a brick wall. On what felt like the 48 hour trip back we decided to peep the Lauryn Hill unplugged album, which is always a amazing album to listen to (if you’ve never listened to it… you need to). It seems as if though every time I listen to it I always have a new thought pop up in my large sized dome piece. In the midst of these deep songs I’ll often zone out in my own thought and during one of these moments I came back to reality to hear Lauryn repeat “why don’t you rebel?”

This sent me off into another thought which really got me going off on my mental tangent which fit right into another idea that had been stuck in my head for the past few days: In order to grow the most we must detach ourselves from worldly things. Definitely a “duh” kind of moment cause one can just say “Ramadan” and its all right there in front of you. But what this really means to me is being able to let go of the attachments to all material things even people (to an extent). Often times we base our happiness on a person or a situation when really we just need to look within to find our true happiness. You can say that’s cheesy but you know it’s the truth. God created us out of His love and so we have a part of Him within us. Therefore if we are able to focus on that inner self then we will have our own divine happiness.

Of course this is easier said than done but one of the ways of going about doing this is through removing our ego. Ramadan is a blessing in itself that we often take for granted… rather that we don’t take at all. Many of us are often thinking about how hungry we are as opposed to how much closer to God we are getting. By taking away material things from our daily lives we are shown that we really have our own “remedies within us… if only we reflect”.

Back to the main discussion: So when I listened to this song I heard rebel over and over again and then she asked are you satisfied? It really made me think about my present connection with God. At that moment I knew I needed to change something… after meditating about it, I realized that I’ve grown to comfortable in my day-to-day life. Knowing that it’s when our soul is in the hardest of situations is when we grow the most.

I really don’t want to post this blog cause I think it sucks. However I get a feeling that I should.

Why don’t you rebel?

Down to the board.

2009-07-29T22:04:00.000-07:00

It’s 12 am, I’m on my way back from a terribly tiring day at work and I can’t stop thinking about how much my head hurts. As I drive home and I see a water tower and a smile suddenly comes to my face. I like water.
However, in this case, that’s not the reason why I smiled(if it was this would be a pretty amazing blog… but its not that amazing). I had a 59ish year old patient today who was having/had an heart attack and had to have been one of the funniest patient’s I’ve had in a while. He was what you would imagine of an “angry old man”… cursing just enough to have you on edge and not being able to hear you to not. When I first met him I walked into his room and he’s on the phone with his friend and I tell him I’m about to set up an IV for the meds the nurse needs to administer and so on the phone he goes “ahhh shit I think I’m having a heart attack or something… I’ll talk to you later”. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a patient phrase it quiet like that. I was having a bit of a time holding my laughter. As I started talking my nonsense he told me “I’m not trying to go down to the morb”. I thought about it for a second and then I started laughing and began busting his chops. At that time I thought it was his stuffy nose that caused him to talk like that. Then later he started laughing because he thought that I thought that he said “down to the board”. (incase you haven’t figured it out we’re talking about the morg). Anyway we continued to trash talk one another throughout the day and then we started talking about where we grew up… turned out that he lived right by the water tower which was a mile away from my old house.
So as I approached this water tower I couldn’t help but to think of the old man who even in the most critical of times in his life was able to make someone else laugh and not even be worried with his predicament. There is no real “punch line” to this story… it’s just amazing how in such a crappy mood the entire way home from work all I had to see was a water tower that immediately changed my mindset.

What a blessing this life is.

Singe your fingers...

2009-07-23T20:28:00.000-07:00

What a cheesy title to a blog entry but who cares. In any case I’d been meaning to write a blog about one thing or another for the past 3ish weeks and didn’t end up happening until now. It’s interesting how even when I want to write a blog at times, I don’t end up doing it until its “meant to be” complete.

A couple weeks back when I had that patient with the hemorrhagic stroke (last blog entry) a friend and I were talking about the effect of traumatic and challenging events on people’s life… more specifically the metamorphosis that these events induce. Obviously in my case, the traumatic event was my father’s death. When I had my father in my life, I never really took to any of his lessons that he had taught me. It wasn’t until after his death that everything started to catch on. Prior to his passing I would know what was right and wrong but, would still do as I please… which usually ended up being wrong (not to say I was a devil child, I was just hormonal and slightly retarded). It wasn’t until my dad passed that all his lessons suddenly began stick.

After continuing to back and forth about the matter, I finally had a good metaphor come to me (shocking, as usually my metaphors suck). I've realized that in essence, everyone is a candle. And it is through these traumatic events that the candle is lit, and with that flame the individual is able to grow exponentially. Obviously there are those that do not deal with those events well at all and end up regressing. From my experience I have learned that these people generally based many of their actions on fear prior to having the event. Then once the event occurred and they were pushed further into a hole all they have left is fear… and we all know where there is fear, there is no faith...

And so I will leave you with a quote from Imam Ali (a.s.) regarding faith in God and ourselves.
Your remedy is within you, but you do not sense it.
Your sickness is from you, but you do not perceive it.
You presume you are a small entity,
But within you is enfolded the entire universe.
You are indeed the evident book,
By whose alphabet the hidden becomes the manifest.
Therefore, you have no needs beyond yourself,
What you seek is within you, if only you reflect.
- Ali Ibn' Abi Talib (A.S.)

Gravity.

2009-06-30T20:54:00.001-07:00

Hello boys and girls. I hope you all are doing well and if you’re not - go see a doctor. Speaking of doctors I’ve been working about 36 hours a week (not sure if I included that in the last post but if so then you just read it again, punk) and I’ve been learning a lot as usual (most importantly not just about medicine/nursing, but spiritually). About a week or two ago I all of a sudden had reached a new level in setting up IV’s. I was just a straight beast and as much as I hate arrogance/cockiness ESPECIALLY from myself it had gotten to my head.

Now for the past week I have established one IV linev. That’s just a little something to learn from but there’s more. Earlier today we had a code come in and we were able to save her. This happened to be the first code in the ER that I was there to watch live. Indeed a very nice experience.

A couple hours after that we had a patient who exhibited signs of a stroke upon arrival to the ER. At the Bon, we don’t have the facilities to treat stroke victims. This patient was brought to us in error and really shouldn’t have been there – possible stroke victims are taken to UM. In any case the patient was decently responsive when he first came and throughout the course of the next few hours I watched him slowly decline. For those of you all interested – it was a hemorrhagic stroke in his brain stem. We were trying to get him transferred as throughout the entire time. Long story much shorter, there was a lot of red tape to cross and it really slowed down the entire process which shouldn’t have even had to take place because the EMS should have taken the patient to UM. I think the experience I had today with this case was one of the saddest cases I watched unfold before my eyes. I eventually had to remove my self from the situation because I was so upset. This normally never happens because I’m able to control my self but watching the patient’s health decline right before me was maddening… even more so was knowing that I couldn’t do anything about it. As change of shift came around there were no developments – I will just have to wait till I work next to figure out what happened.
On my way back home I was still very upset and it looked like there was a huge storm coming. I don’t recall seeing such dark skies in a very long time. As I continued to think of what had just happened I saw the sun break right through the clouds in magnificent showing. It really made me think of the entire situation from a different, worldlier perspective. Something in my heart told me that there Gravity effects everyone.

So simple, yet so profound. Often times the lesson is put right in front of us and we choose to ignore it and so it’s spat right back in our face until we truly learn from it.

Pop pop's day.

2009-06-22T00:06:00.001-07:00

So it’s 2 am the day after Father’s day and I’m sitting at my kitchen table in my PJ’s with milk, cookies, and my laptop. Since my last blog 6 years ago, I’ve started picking up about 3 shifts a week at work, (12 hours each) today was one of my workdays. Work has been going very well, learning something new everyday (as usual) and it doesn’t hurt that making people laugh and healing never gets old.

Throughout the day people were asking me if I was a father… apparently I look 34. Anyway, the ER was rather slow and the weather was exceptional so I decided to go eat lunch in the courtyard with 75-degree weather and a nice calm breeze (the courtyard is a completely enclosed area with several benches and a nice little grass area that only employees have access to). After eating my lunch I started thinking more about my father and his impact on my life. I realized that I probably wouldn’t have cared anywhere as much for people in general like I do now had it not been for him. This means that I probably wouldn’t have gone into health care. And for those of you mistakenly call me your friends, probably wouldn’t.

After realizing how much I had gained and continue to gain from having had my father for a [huge] part of my life, I realized the sad fate that so many children share- not having their fathers in their lives. This is a sad reality and really makes me wonder how these children miss out on so much. However, inevitably they have or will become stronger from it.

Appreciating my father(and all those around the world that choose to be a part of their children’s lives) today has helped me realize that we should all try to help out those without a father figure in their lives so that they may grow up to become the father that they never had.

Shook.

2009-04-14T09:38:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago I was talking to a good friend of mine and we exchanged our usual hellos and then she told me something, which stopped me dead in my tracks. Telling me that a 7-year-old niece of hers has cancer in her brain stem… the doctors explained that she has 6 months left to live.

How do you deal with that? I just thought of Sumaa who is now 8 and I still look at her like my little baby. I would have thought that I wouldn’t have much of a problem dealing with death since I’ve dealt with it so often over the past couple years. I thought about how I got over those deaths, but that doesn’t even apply here… this child is more alive than anyone.
Are you supposed to treat her any differently? How?

I have seen several people code (and die) in the ER, it puts some wear and tear on me even though I don’t know them but generally speaking I’ve found a way to cope. It was completely different when my father or grandfather passed because I knew them. I never even met this girl (or I don’t remember meeting her) and I started to crack.

There is no one answer as to how to deal with this situation but as weird as it sounds, I’ve been watching my own behavior. I’ve noticed that I mentally put my self in many sad or depressing situations and then find then beauty in it. I did just that in this situation. The thing is I don’t do it consciously, I’ve just work this way with out even thinking. The beauty of this incredibly sad situation is that this girl at this very moment is the definition of life. One of the most important keys to life is to live it, not to have lived it or hope to live it, but to live it at this very moment. I keep thinking about this verse from one of my favorite poems…

In a child's first year it’s in search of its 5th year,
In its child's 10th' year its in search of its 16th year,
In its 5th its year its in search of its 25th year,
And when its dead, its in search of its life.
So why should it not be in search of now?
You don't even have to search for now,
Now is here.
Has now used and abused you?
Maybe Now loves you and doesn't want to lose you.
What if something accused you of not being good enough when it just met you?
You hardly know now,
The same way you desire then, now;
You will desire now, then.
So it seems you are searching for what is present.
-Amir Sulaiman

Just last night I was at Wall-Mart where I saw a guy who had the same disease process as my father. I actually had met him at Pizza Roma’s and my brothers and I talked to him there. I was so shook when I saw him because he was a spitting image of my father. It had been about 4 months since I had seen him and this time it shook me just as bad. For the entire 5 minutes that I was talking to him my eyes were ready to burst. It’s so weird because his mannerisms and the way he talked were so similar to my father (or maybe I was just deliriously imagining things). In any case, I was thinking to my self about this mans life. He is 49 (or 43 I’m not sure) years old and with that disease process the person is basically sitting on a ticking time-bomb, waiting for their aorta to have a full-blown aneurysm. I’m sure he was aware for it but he was so soft spoken and relaxed in his speech. It made me think more and more about his life and obviously my fathers with it. What if I were in that situation? Would I be able to handle that process in the same elegant manner that he has? The more I thought about it the more I came to the conclusion that even if he was not as relaxed an individual before he must have become so very quickly after realizing the gravity of the situation.

Knowing that you’re liable to die at any moment (as we all are, however in this case it has a very high morbidity rate especially at his age) is one of the most humbling experiences. It felt very weird saying that but it’s true. He is able to grow so much on a spiritual level on a constant basis because of the fact that he has to deal with this burden on daily basis.

The main point is, even though it hurts like hell to have to deal with such burdens in our life, they are truly blessings. Its because of those burdens, obstacles and hardships that allow us to live and grow as people.

Adam lives in theory

2009-03-11T20:25:00.000-07:00

They reminisce over you.
At my clinical the other day I had a patient who had an array of psychosocial issues; stemming from drug abuse and her need to get clean. She had a history of several different drugs, as did her husband. The couple then enlisted in a methadone program to help get clean; unfortunately her husband was not able to give up his addiction to alcohol while on the methadone program. With methadone on board, alcohol will kill a person. Her whole situation was an impetus for me to reflect for a moment about my own life.

How come I didn’t get into drugs or alcohol? I thought about how vital the role of my family was in my development. I am blessed to have been presented the opportunities that I have had. I can take this experience back to the Bon, so many patients that I’ve worked with have a history of drug and alcohol abuse, venereal diseases, etc. Many of these people who do or did drugs were hooked by their own family members. I remember one patient telling me that he starting using crack at 11 because his uncle stuck him. Last I saw him he was 33 with Hep. C and I think HIV but I’m not sure about the latter. By the same hand there are those people who want to get out and ‘try something’ and this is where our free will comes in. I can not say that the only reason I never did drugs was because of one specific factor but it all by the grace of God that I stayed clean.

While were on the topic of reflecting on our blessings lets focus on our current behaviors as well and how we can grow through reflection. If we do not reflect on our own behavior we will never try to correct our wrong doings (don’t try to say your perfect, cause I’ll kick you in the face, with love ☺). How are we going to know how our behavior affects others unless we reflect?

“Reflect on what has passed of this world. Has any of it remained for anyone? Has anyone remained in it, be he noble or lowly, rich or poor, friend or enemy? Similarly, what remains of it that does not resemble the past less than water resembles water. The Messenger of Allah said, 'Death is enough of a warning; the intellect is enough of a guide; precaution is enough of a provision; worship is enough of an occupation; Allah is sufficient as an intimate friend; the Qur'an is enough of a clarification.' And elsewhere, 'Only affliction and trial remain of this world. If a person is saved, it is only by sincerely seeking refuge.' And Noah said, 'I found this world to be like a house with two doors. I entered through one of them and went out through the other.' Such is the state of the one who was saved by Allah: so what is the state of one who feels at ease in this world, relies on it, wastes his life by cultivating it, and is full of worldly demands?”
-Imam Jafar Sadiq

It is through being objective while scrutinizing our own behavior through which we can go on and adapt better behavior (unless of course your perfect). This also relates back to the ego post I had a little ways back. If are not completely objective in our reflection, then the benefits of reflection will be greatly decreased. Separate yourself from ‘you’ and you will be on your way. Realize that this body is not really you but just a shell.

Another point I want to bring up is regarding our current actions and their direct effect on the present situations that we may be in. How can your action facilitate growth, and/or benefit someone or yourself? Obviously we will never know how our actions will completely play out but to some extent we can use our intuition to see the benefit or disfavor of our actions. The most obvious example that we all see day in and day out is “Insert name here is such a adjective of choice.” Sure, this maybe completely true, but how is saying that going to help anyone? If anything it will only exacerbate the current situation. Figure out a way you can bring up this topic with that individual with whom you are having the problem with without being aggressive or rude. It is important to be HONEST and RESPECTFUL, simultaneously. If you are only honest, then you will come off as a prick. If you are only respectful, you will be a pushover.

So tonight, while you lay in bed before you sleep, reflect about all the things that you could have done better. Remember, this is not regret-this is reflection. I’ll leave you with one of my favorite songs from Lauryn Hill called Adam Lives in Theory. It talks about the whole of humanity without any exception…
Take care homies.

Are you God conscious? 'Yeah, I go to the _______.'

2009-02-16T16:07:00.001-08:00

So I have been doing a lot of thinking [shocker] after Brother Shiekh Abbas Virgee came to our masjid; specific to his lecture on Taqwa. For those of you who are not familiar with the concept Taqwa is being God-conscious. So one may think, "Okay, I believe in God, so obviously I'm performing Taqwa… but it goes much deeper than that. What does it mean to be conscious of God... to know that He is watching you. Now I feel that some may take this as “We need to be afraid of God”, but I look at it completely the opposite. I see it as yet another means to help build you’re relationship with God.

If we are ever in the middle of an unjust act and all of a sudden we think, “God is watching me” it will have some effect or another on us. I for one will definitely be stopped cold in the middle of whatever I was doing. Although that is a good thing, we shouldn’t be basing our relationship with God on fear. To base ones faith on a fear of God is a paradox. Where there is fear there is no faith. In order to really grasp Taqwa we must understand that our relationship with God should comprise of love and trust…

The love for God is where we are able to excel in our spiritual growth. Think for a moment, if our heart is not filled with love for God, then it is the playground for hate(work of the devil). This entire creation comes from God and when He created these things he instills in them a piece of him self. So if we really want to love God, we must learn to love His creation. Sounds simple enough, but it gets pretty hard. How do you love that person that stands for everything that you feel is wrong? How do you love that person who is always trying to find a way to put you down? That is jihad. That is love.

“For real Akbar… what the heck are you talking about? How are you supposed to love someone who just smacked you across the face?”

We are able to do this by being able to live in the present moment. This doesn’t mean that I won’t A) Stop him from doing it again OR B) Run. The thought is that we must live in the present moment and not let the past (albeit is only a few seconds ago) define us or what we are to do in the future. The only thing that we have is the present moment. You’re life will not be lived yesterday or lived tomorrow; it will only be lived right now. This is really opening a whole different can of worms that I will have to fiddle with later. (If this paragraph catches your interest I suggest you read this book called The Power of Now)

Throughout our lives we will come into situations where we will have the instinct to hate a person at one point or another. It is because of this that it is important to remember that we do not live here for this world but the next and by that it means that we are here to purify our souls. So often we will know what is right and what is wrong but we won’t go through with it. Our mind tells us to stay away from the bad act while our soul goes through and does whatever it pleases. The soul wants comfort and when the soul is uncomfortable is when its being purified. It is through the tough decisions in life that we are able to truly grow spiritually. My buddy 50 cent said it best “Sunny day’s wouldn’t be so special, if it wasn’t for rain.”… I don’t really like 50 that much incase you were wondering.

I will end with a quick synopsis about a incident that involved Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). He used to travel through a road every day, and every day a lady would dump her garbage on him. He never said anything to her but he would still keep going about his way. One day there was no garbage dumped on the Prophet (PBUH), and so he decided to go check on the lady to make sure she was in good health. He went into her house to find that she was ill. She on the other hand was completely surprised that some person on whom she would dump her garbage on, came to check on her health.. This is the type of love we should all strive for, to love our fellow human beings in such a manner is a great goal to work to.

Take care and let me know what YOU think.

And your point is?

2009-02-01T20:10:00.001-08:00

It's not about a goal, its not about a specific point... it's about your purpose. Do you know what you're purpose in life is? Often time's people confuse all of these together, I know I used to all the time... The difference is that someone’s purpose takes on a spiritual meaning and is rather subjective, where as a goal is objective and is materialistic in nature. What I mean by materialistic isn’t necessarily about ‘bling’ or whatever, but rather something ‘worldly’.
The reason I bring up this topic is because we often define our 'life goals' as simply that... goals. What happens when you reach that goal and your still alive? Do you just sit around and try to think of another goal, which could possibly elude you for the rest of your life? I think it's important for everyone of us to know our purpose in life. A purpose is something that you can continuously work on which allows you to grow more in that aspect of your life. For example if you're purpose in life is to help people, you can make goals in accordance with that purpose. This allows you to grow continuously throughout you're life.
Now what if everyone knew their purpose? What if everyone would have a goal everyday working towards that point? I would like to think the world would be a different place. This is all presuming that everyone's purpose in life is to have a positive effect on the world- as no person casts themselves out to be a bad guy. In order to work towards our purpose in life we need to take little steps... after all, it's not like a purpose is something that can be complete, it is an on going process, that helps us purify ourselves.
On a side note; why don't we make a goal for our selves regardless of what you feel your purpose might be in life, to help at least one person every single day.

In any case school started this past week. I need to keep myself focused. My clinical is also at shock trauma so I’m really pumped it should be a great experience iA. I need to get back in the gym – I had problems with my left shoulder again where I would have crepitus whenever I raised it above my head. I had this problem junior year during lax season as well but I guess its back again unfortunately…
I also have a flikr account – check it out wheneves.
http://flickr.com/photos/akbuuur/

Change a life?

2008-12-29T22:45:00.000-08:00

I have alluded to my need to help people before but I try not to talk too much about it. I do this simply because I don't want any praise of any sort from people for what I do to help people. Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) once said "Give with the right, so the left doesn't know." (And if it's not correct like that then please correct me). I had been thinking about this for the past few days and it was a matter of fate that today at the majalis the maulana talked about the very same thing. Often times you see people donating, or doing any act simply for the sake of gaining praise from others. He went on to say that if you do end up doing these good deeds simply for the attention from other people, you will be seeking you're reward from them on the day of judgment.

I've kinda lost track of my thought so I'll be adding another part to this later... lol

With all that said, I am writing this entry to hopefully get more people to help others rather than seek praise(to be blunt, I could care less what anyone thinks). In any case, I watched the movie Slumdog Millionare and it went about describing a boy’s journey from living on the streets begging to becoming a millionaire. It was based in India where this went through anything and everything and the sad thing is that I know so many children face the same sort of trials and tribulations unnecessarily. While our children in America worry about getting a Wii, these children have to worry about making sure they have food to eat. I always thought I was going to work abroad for a few months and then come back home and work and then go back... But as of late I've become firmer in this idea of going abroad and helping children specifically. I have several things in mind that I want to tackle but they all stem from setting up a basis- an orphanage where these children will have proper schooling, clothing and most importantly food. With all the children that I hope to shelter, if ONE, only ONE goes on to college and that child goes on to put another positive effect on another child then I will have been successful. I'm not asking for anyone to go to the extreme of leaving the country and opening a orphanage. I wrote this entry to hopefully inspire someone to do something positive.
With that said, I would like to ask all of you all to come out to the protests in DC for the Palestinian crisis going on right now.

“A time of crisis is not just a time of anxiety and worry. It gives a chance, an opportunity, to choose well or to choose badly.”

Choose.

Hotel le Bon.

2008-12-16T22:28:00.000-08:00

This is going to be a quick entry about my day at the Bon.

For those of you that don't know but for some reason care, I worked at Bon Secour's a small inner city hospital in West Baltimore. To give you an idea of the surrounding area, at my training, I heard 22ish gunshots. Anyways I worked phlebotomy in the ER for about a year, drawing blood, setting up IV's and some other stuff just to help out when things got wild. I loved the experience but then new management came in and apparently phlebotomists are not legally allowed to set up IV's. In the ER the vast majority of the patients need to have IV's in order to administer meds and repeat blood tests so me sitting there doing only straight sticks was kind of worthless and long story short they eliminated that position all together. I then started working as an accessioning clerk in the lab, basically prepping all of the specimens to go through with their lab tests, very boring in comparison with the ER. Now that I completed my first semester of nursing school I can work as a ER tech doing everything I was doing as a phlebotomist + a lot more (BALLING).

Anyway, I was working in a clinic that is a part of Bon Secour where I worked over the summer filling in for the resident phlebotomist there. I was just getting used to drawing blood again and getting used to the system since the most amount of work in that office was dealing with insurances rather then actually collecting the specimens. On my break I walked over to the ER and met with one of the ER supervisors and she told me that they were hoping I was going to be done soon so I could join back up *SCORE*. We then walked around the ER for a second and I saw a bunch of the old staff as well as a lot of new staff. It was nice seeing everyone and they actually did some upgrades as well. I'm really excited to be back in the ER, hopefully by January I'll be setting up IV's telling people that its my first day again. When I got back from my break I continued drawing blood... definitely had some rust but it wasn't too bad, I didn't miss anyone except for a lady that was simply unstickable. While I was in the middle of drawing blood I heard on of the people working the office proceed to flip on this doctor. It was kind of out of the blue and I was completely caught off guard especially since I had just stuck the needle into my patients arm (lemme know if that made your arm twitch ;-) ). Apparently this doctor talked down to all the women in the office, granted the only men in the office was me and another doctor. I think its pretty whack how people can just talk down to another person regardless of who they are, where their from and so on. But I made sure not to pass any judgments on this doctor and it turned out to be essential. I had to draw his blood later in the day and I knew that if I did it out of anger then there would be no point in drawing his blood anyway since the whole point of me working in health care is to help people. Funny thing is that the doctor was mad scared... more scared than the 8 year old I stuck earlier in the day. As I was leaving for the day, I had to drop off specimens in the actual hospital's lab. When I saw the lady working in accessioning (she had trained me before) I told her I had brought her a present. Her response was "why couldn't you have just brought your self with out the blood"... most awkward moment ever... even more so because she’s about 50.
End of story.

Props to the Pops

2008-12-11T19:35:00.000-08:00

Today I was at my last day of clinical at Stella Maris, an upscale nursing home out in Timonium. I was sitting at the table with my patient while starting to fill out my clinical evaluation. As I was about to write the date I realized it was my dad’s birthday and all of a sudden I just stopped and everything blurred out for a second. Took me a second to come back to reality and realize what was going on. I finished chatting with my patient about football then I went to the nursing station and had to take a minute to my self. All these old memories started cycling through my head like a movie. One of the memories that clearly stuck out and always does is of me giving my father a hug on Eid and a telling him I'm sorry that I had nothing to give him. But his reply was the most genuine and loving thing saying simply that the hug and love was plenty. Every holiday this memory comes up like a broken record and every holiday or birthday I still have to take a step back and collect my self. I sat there for a couple minutes and just kept my head in my hands and pulled the "I-only-got-4-hours-of-sleep" bull... except I wasn't lying about that [haha]. Throughout these memories I watched a recurring pattern and I remembered what set him apart from any other person. He was the most helpful and caring person I ever encountered- no matter who needed what, he was going to make sure he helped. This however is only half of it - I was oblivious to the degree that he went since he would never talk about it. When he passed away and people came to give their condolences it was as if though they were talking of a different person (not that he was uncaring or unhelpful to us at all). Every person that came said the same thing "You're father did so much for me" or "I never met anyone that was willing to help with anything as much as he was". As I started to come back to reality I realized that this was an obvious message and I remembered why I am in the health care field in the first place. I immediately felt happy and content and went about the rest of the clinical with my father in mind and thought about how much he gained and grew from bringing a smile to people's faces. Even on my way home, passing an elementary school - there was a crosswalk guard standing in the rain... I clearly remember my dad making me wave to the cross guard every morning with a smile just so that he or she may smile.

It’s funny as I’m writing this tears are on the verge of coming out but I’m ridiculously happy.

I'll leave you with a quote that I feel we should all live by.

“Associate with people in such a manner, that they weep for you when you die and long for you if you are alive.” -Imam Ali

Not that I feel that we should base our life on how others feel about us but rather we should base it on treating people with genuine love and respect.

pride?

2008-11-30T22:36:00.000-08:00

Hello children, I finally decided to update this thing and I had been meaning to do so for a while now… my alibi had been that I have no time and I still don’t. I have a final tomorrow but I’m at the ‘idontgiveas---‘ point. As of late nothing exciting has been going on in my life besides thanksgiving break… and the amount of food I have consumed over the past 4 days. On Friday Sam, some friends from his church and I played some football which was pretty fun albeit we only had 5 people. I made a sick one-handed catch, I don’t understand how I did it though – probably divine intervention cause I’ve had butterfingers all my life. Then on Saturday I played again –except with some ol’ folk from the Idara- the majority of them being 35ish. Saturday’s game was one of the most fun games I’ve ever played in. On the second play I caught an interception on the left side of the field and I started running toward the right as the blocks were setting up and then as I was about to be nabbed my brother came up from behind and yelled for me to lateral… I hit him up with the ball and blocked a guy. My brother ended up making to the endzone and we got the first score… as I turn around and start walking back I discovered one of the dinosaurs on the ground moaning in pain. I was about to start laughing my butt off because we had joked about someone getting hurt- but then as I approached I realized there was blood all over his shirt and that he was actually hurt but the nose was the least of his problems… long story short- he dislocated his shoulder and he ended up being alright. –still funny as hell.

Now on to the real topic of today’s entry: pride.

I always thought pride was a good thing from way back in the day. Everyone has it at one point or another – taking pride in “being right” or being a part of a specific group. While I think its good to know your roots, I feel we often allow these materialistic traits to define us as beings. We get so caught up in being black/white, shia/sunni,, Indian/Pakistani, etc. that we forget that we are only given these materialistic traits in order to grow as spiritual beings on this earth. The more we take pride in such things the less objective we become, the less growth we will achieve. We become so caught up in day-to-day things to stay inline with our materialistic traits that we lose touch with our true selves.

I have, and I’m sure all 5 of the people reading this blog have had an occasion where they were caught in an argument and KNEW that they were wrong, but still continued to argue simply because they couldn’t be wrong. This is your pride at its best controlling you.

Pride also is the basis of racism; first the oppressors believe they are inherently superior to the oppressed because of their pride in their own history. This pride then leads the oppressors down a series of extreme actions all based on their divine superiority. Allah brought you here, and he will take you away, what makes you possibly think that you can judge His creation?

In the end – who are we to take pride in anything at all, God made us and in the end all of these materialistic things-along with our body will be nothing but dust. You are not you, you are just a spirit.

Now I strive to be done with my pride everyday but as with many other things in life, it’s a day-to-day struggle that you must work at in small victories.
That’s about all I have to say right now – let me know what you all think!

p.s. I'll leave you with some U2 lovin'

If you want to kiss the sky, better learn how to kneel. On your knees boy!
-U2 –mysterious ways

2008-11-03T21:15:00.000-08:00

And in your soul
They poked a million holes
But you never let them show
Come on its time to go

And you already know
Yet you already know
How this will end

Now you’ve seen his face
And you know that there’s a place in the sun
For all that you’ve done
For you and your children
No longer shall you need
You always wanted to believe
Just ask and you’ll receive
Beyond your wildest dreams

And you already know
Yet you already know
How this will end

How is your faith?
Just because you already know how it will end do you still live your life to its potential?
Do you still have faith in that ending?
Or do you have faith in that transition?

Find your self SUCKAH.

2008-10-30T13:12:00.000-07:00

Normally, a ridiculous amount of things are running through my head on a regular day, but as of late I've been thinking more than I really need to(if you know me well, you know my mind is a nomad). Unnecessary thoughts about the future, about the past, about insignificant stressors. All of these unnecessary thoughts, some how have led me back to a very significant yet very basic reoccurring theme... the only thing that we have is our selves and God. Everything here is so temporary, over the past couple days I was looking at old writings I did. Here’s one I wrote last year about my father and death in general:

"So as I sit here in class I'm thinking about my fathers passing just 3 years ago; I'm not dwelling on the death I'm thinking about how much we really take our parents for granted. Time and time again I hear people say "Why is my mom/dad such a ________", I'm guilty of it my self. After going through this experience and having to deal with this change every day whether I wanted to or not made me realize what makes the relationship of a father and son so different. When my father was alive I never quite understood why he went about as in why he was so strict or why we were so distant. But after analyzing his actions over and over again I have been able to get a better understanding of what type of person he was and in turn what he wanted me to become. As slick as we think we are or as much as we think "I'll never be like my dad/mom" we end up turning into them anyway... i gotta take a quiz now ill finish this later

In the end, the point is to enjoy your parents while you have the chance they are your culture and everything you will or wont become. It's only when you see through their eyes that you can truly know yourself."

I still feel this remains true, however still it is incomplete; the most important thing is to look for ways to grow, it becomes more and more evident everywhere I look. In the poem "Piece of a man" by Amir Sulaiman, he describes a homeless drunk who comes up to Amir on the street and drops some knowledge on him to say the least...

I see a piece of a man,
Blinking slowly,
Talking quickly,
He's alone and lonely.
His eyes hit me and I'm thinking "Does he know me?"
He's past hips,
But something told me,
To listen closely,
I stopped in my tracks as he approached me,
He smelt mostly of cheap scotch,
He had on a gold watch that didn't tick,
I'm thinking "how ridiculous" but he moved even more closely.
He reached in his coat and unfolds these sheets of loose leaf of poems he hadn't finished composing,
As his mouth was open, his eyes were closing and he said in a soft raspy voice:

The reality is, you love fantasy
I prefer the reality of confusion,
To the seduction of illusion,
So I understand that we lie shortly,
We are tiny,
And our time is near.
So what else is there except to be sincere?
My peers appeared to be dead or
Not yet born or,
Perhaps they have not yet been loved by the norm,
And adored by the norm,
And beloved by the norm,
Burned and scorned by the norm.
People are funny, fickle and dying,
Our time is near,
So what else is there except to be sincere?
In a child's first year its in search of its 5th year,
In its child's 10th' year its in search of its 16th year,
In its 5th its year its in search of its 25th year,
And when its dead, its in search of its life.
So why should it not be in search of now?
You don't even have to search for now,
Now is here.
Has now used and abused you?
Maybe now loves you and doesn't want to lose you.
What if something accused you of not being good enough when it just met you?
You hardly know now.
The same way you desire then, now;
You will desire now, then.
So it seems you are searching for what is present.

When he was finished he gently fold the poem in half.
Stuck it in his other dirty palm and asked,
For a couple dollars.
I forked over the cash.
He turned his head, turned his collar as we passed
and returned to a spot a half block up the ave'.
We live in strange days,
you'll find the truth out in many strange ways,
Just keep your soul close, cope and maintain.
Some of us deranged, are really, the best at staying sane...

-Amir Sulaiman

I love the portrait Amir illustrates of the man on the street, really showing you that you may find wisdom at any place that you choose to. Another way that I looked at this poem was inserting a very simple line...

I see a piece of a man,
Blinking slowly,
Talking quickly,
He's alone and lonely.
His eyes hit me and I'm thinking, "Does He know me?"
But rather, do I know Him?

The point of this is that if you know Him (God) then you will inherently find your self. This brings me to my conclusion... I need to find Him.