I'm writing to you from a year ahead, and let me tell you - you will be just fine.
Right now things might be a bit restless, you might think that you need to do this, have that figured out and settle those other things. Let me tell you, you don't. A year later and you still haven't quite figured much out, but you'll be okay. In fact, you now feel much lighter when you don't always need to plan a few steps ahead.
Don't force a square peg into a round hole. Things will fall into place when it's the right time. "Not upon you (Muhammad) is (the responsibility for) their guidance, Allah guides whom he wills" - Al-Baqarah [2:272]. You reap what you sew and sometimes the fruit takes a little longer to grow. Believe.
Believe in Allah's will. He indeed is the best planner. "But perhaps you hate a thing that's good for you, and perhaps you love a thing and it is bad for you. And Allah knows, while you know not" - Al-Baqarah [2:216]. You've always been a little bit slow in life, so it's okay if you need some time to figure things out - don't beat yourself up about it.
In 6 months time you'll be making a trip that is the best trip in your 23 years of living. Know that whatever happens in between is only to prepare you for this trip, to cleanse your heart, to make you surrender because you know you haven't been doing that. You will make a promise that you'll try to always forgive and watch your words more - try to keep that promise, 6 months later you're still struggling but you'll have better control. Baby steps.
Forgive - some days you'll feel like some people don't deserve your forgiveness, and I'm not gonna tell you to forgive them anyways, because you are stubborn and you do live your life how you want to. But all I'm gonna say is that you are no matter what a big hearted girl who will eventually find it in you to forgive them and let it go.
Your anger in 2016 will reach a whole new level, but the workouts will sorta help. But mostly, when you've gone through all of the above, you'll learn how to let go of your anger. Anger is like a coal, you'll only burn yourself holding on to it.
For the first few months you'd be struggling to assume the best of people, to believe in people. You'd think life is unfair, like I said, wait. By mid-year, your year will turnaround. It may be temporarily (who knows) but as of now I can tell you that you are perfectly okay! All those things that bothers you may still bother you, but you'll have control on how you react to them.
You'll want to hurt people, wish the worst for them when you're hurt. But eventually you'll learn that the best thing to pray for when you're hurt is protection. Protection from people with ill-intentions towards you, your family and your loved ones. At one point your favourite doa will be "Ya Allah, I seek shelter from worries that saddens me, thoughts that make me restless, information that bothers me and people that intend bad for me", remember to use it when things are bothering you! Most of the time it is worse in your head than it actually is.
Even if they're hurting you, make doa for them - make doa that Allah opens their eyes/ heart to stop hurting you, and to never hurt anyone else like how they hurt you. When you truly love someone, make doa for them too. Allah is the best listener, the Creator, the Almighty - you may be powerless to help them, but if there's anyone who can do absolutely anything, it is Allah. Put others before you in your doa - one doa you make for a person, an angel will make the same doa to God for you.
2016 will be a trying year for you, but I assure you, it is all worth it. Sabar, believe and hold your head up high. The storm will pass and you will look back at 2016 as a year that will shape you, you will (re)discover a few sides of you that you (forgot) never knew was there. 2016 will be your bootcamp (professionally, spiritually and emotionally), and in some areas you may excel than another but just like how you survived your workouts (even with some breaks/ Ventolin at times), you will be just fine :)
She isn’t going to trust you right away, that’s just a simple fact. And it’s not meant to be insulting — it just is. When your trust has been broken you’re not super willing to just give it away again. Trust takes time, but it will come.
"If you've failed bad, been hurt, felt sadness or a pain so great that your nerves ache...but you found in yourself the strength and courage to pick yourself back up, only to find peace once again, then you've found the magic and light that He placed in you when you were created." Find that magic and let the light shines through.
I am a bag of emotional sappiness right now, because I found this - a letter from Prakash Padukone to her daughter, Deepika:
Dear Deepika & Anisha,
As you stand on the threshold of life’s journey, I want to share with you some lessons that life has taught me.
Decades ago, as a little boy growing up in Bangalore, I started my tryst with badminton. In those days, there were no stadiums and courts where sports people could train. Our badminton court was the wedding hall of the Canara Union Bank near our house, and it was there that I learned everything about the game. Every day, we would wait to see if there was a function in the hall, and if there was none, we would rush there after school to play to our hearts’ content.
Looking back, I realise that the most important thing about my childhood and adolescent years was my refusal to complain about a lot in life. I was thankful for the few hours a week we had the opportunity to hit the shuttle back and forth. In fact, the foundation on which I based my career and my life was the refusal to whinge or whine about anything. And that is what I want to tell you my children, that there is no substitute for perseverance, hardwork, determination and passion for what you choose to do. If you love what you do, nothing else matters — neither awards nor compensation, not even the gratification of seeing your face in newspapers or television. When I won the All England Championship, the prize money in badminton became significant — £3,000 — a huge amount in those days. But that did not distract me from the sheer joy of having been instrumental in putting India on the global map of this game.
Deepika, at eighteen, when you told us that you wanted to shift to Mumbai for a career in modeling, we felt you were too young and too inexperienced to be alone in a big city and in an industry we knew nothing about. In the end, we decided to let you follow your heart and thought it would be cruel to not give our child the opportunity to go after a dream that she lived and breathed for. If you succeeded, it would make us proud, but even if you didn’t, you would not have any regrets that you did not try.
Deepika, I have learned that you can’t always win in life, that everything you want might not come your way. That events don’t always turn out as you want them to. To win some, you have to lose some. You have to learn to take life’s ups and downs in your stride. The amount of effort that I put in my game never varied from the first day till my retirement. Even during my toughest times, I focused on what I had, instead of dwelling on what I did not. I had the ability to make the best of the worst circumstances and remain steadfast to my goal.
Remember how I constantly tell you both about the importance of making your way up in the world without waiting for your parents to pull strings? I believe it is best for children to work hard to make their dreams come true and to not have things handed to them on a platter. When you are home visiting us, Deepika, you make your own bed, clear the table after meals, and sleep on the floor if there are guests at home. If you occasionally wonder why we refuse to treat you like a star, it is because you are our daughter first and a film star later. The cameras that follow you everywhere and the arc lights will eventually fade and what will remain is the real world.
Strive to generate positivity around you even though you are too new and too small a player to effect a big change. You are in an industry where there’s always going to be big money, but I believe that it is important to try to be the best in whatever you do regardless of the money. The things that really matter in life are relationships, honesty, respect for your parents and elders. Material success is important, not fundamental to happiness and peace of mind. I can’t tell you enough about the rejuvenating power of prayers and a little faith. Spare a few minutes of your day to close your eyes and meditate, to think about God and you will see how much faith in His power will strengthen you. In the end, when your career is behind you, what remains is family, the friends that you have made. Live a life that is healthy and one that will allow you to live with your own conscience. Everything else is transient. And remember, no matter what, we are always going to be there for you.
Lovingly,
Pappa
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This brings me back to the conversation I had with Zayana,
Me: I could've been a princess!!
Zayana: Aisya, you really think if you were a princess you'd have the same values as you do today? That you parents would still be Amin & Nona and would've brought you up the same way they did?
...
I mean I would like to believe that if I were a princess, Mummy and Daddy would still be my Mummy and Daddy and I'd still be the same girl that I am today with just a different tittle in front of my name.. but Zayana is right, there's no telling that it'll turn out that way..
I am what I am today because of my parents and I have learned a lot from them. I learned to be a strong independent woman from Mummy, to be a good multi-tasker - whether at work or at home, Mummy balances it all. I learn to not always trust people but nevertheless be kind and always assume the best out of people from Daddy and no matter what, there's always a greater power with you - your prayers to God.
There is no telling that what they have thought me will be the same if I was born differently.. Like my life motto, whatever happens, it is the best thing that's going to happen for you - God is always the best planner. And the best I can ever have is having my parents as my parents.
Shah Rukh Khan recently got his honorary doctorate from University of Edinburgh, and I read his entire speech while laying in the hospital bed - you have no idea how bored Zayana was... Take note: The only way to shut me up is to let me have my Shah Rukh Khan dose. That always work.
Anyways, I thought I'd share the speech here - incase you know, it gets deleted or whatever and I can't trace it back:
It is indeed an honour for me to receive this doctorate today. “Humbled” is a word often used by people in my profession. I dislike the hypocritically obsequious connotation of it in these contexts so I’m not going to use it, but I will say that such occasions have a way of putting me right in my place! I get invited to conferences and inaugurations now and then to speak. When I receive the invitations, I also receive my brief. It’s usually about “success” and my “tips” on it (not my toes- those are covered by the “I will never show my toes” clause in my acting contracts. It’s my attempt at gender equality. My co-stars have no nipple clauses; I have a no toes one).
Most people believe Bollywood stars aren’t insightful about anything other than the fateful occurrences that made them stars in the first place! I’ve had the odd divergence from being taken for stupid though; recently I got an email from the International Association of Advertising It read, “Dear Mr. Khan, The advertising community would like you to address them on Globalization and disruptive marketing”. I spent the next 4 hours on Google trying to assimilate the “disruptiveness” of innovating a product to match its market? But it was one of those rare days when even Google can’t help you. A day when you need to leave Google and ask God for deliverance. But I have a film releasing soon, so I didn’t want to waste my quota of favours from God…believe you me, I need a big hit right about now. So I did the next best thing. I made a grand entry on my io hawk and told everybody, that there is nothing I can tell you that you already don’t know. You are such an august group of gathering…blah blah. Instead let me entertain you because you all deserve a break, and before the organizers could interject I started thrusting my pelvic into their faces and broke out into the one and only intellectual thing I know to do… The Lungi Dance. I got away with it without being “humbled” (it helps to be a better dancer than most advertisers ) and what’s more, they seemed to have a good time.
But that was a conference and this is a Doctorate from the prestigious University of Edinburgh. So I’m going to try to sound intelligent and insightful especially for you today. One of the subjects on the list of five I was sent for my speech today was: “Life Lessons” so for what its worth: here goes. Let me start at the very beginning.
Whatever I have learnt of life has been at the movies. Actually the first few films that I did in my career and their titles very nearly have formulated all that I believe one should pass on as Life lessons to students of a prestigious institutions like yours.
One of the first movies of my career was a movie called Deewana.
I fall in love with a widow, who I meet literally by accident in which I very nearly kill her mother in law. I marry her. Not the mother in law but the widow. The widow is not keen on the marriage because she still loves her late husband but she marries me anyway. My rich, mean father disapproves of this union and does what a mean rich father does…tries to kill the widow. I am naturally disgusted by his behavior and after a long two page stand off with him, I leave the house for good. Then for some reason apart from the fact that I ride my motorcycle without holding the handlebar I have an accident. Seeing me so forlorn and sad in the hospital bed my ex widow wife falls in love with me. There is something about sick men that always attracts women to them. The sicker the better. Then again by a chance of fate I rescue a stranger at night from a bunch of goons, and guess what?? He turns out to be the original husband of my ex widow wife, who hadn’t died inspite of his inheritance hungry uncle’s best efforts. Evil uncle then kidnaps me and my ex widow now not so ex present day wife to get hold of his nephew. I escape his clutches and come back with my wife’s undead husband to rescue her. By now she is strapped to a bomb and after a liberal round of fist fighting kicking and screaming the evil uncle is blown to smithereens by the very same bomb that he had strapped on status confused lady of the film. But not before the sacrificial ex-husband has done a kamikaze, unstrapping his ex-wife and set the bomb off killing himself in the bargain. All obstacles removed, our hero lives happily ever after with his beloved wife.
I’m not sure why the movie was called Deewana (which in Hindi means madness of a particularly nice/romantic kind) but I have a feeling it had something to do with the guy who came up with the plot!! So, here’s my first life lesson, inspired by the movie title Deewana: Madness (of the particularly nice/romantic kind) is an absolute prerequisite to a happy and successful life. Don’t ever treat your little insanities as if they are aberrations that ought to be hidden from the rest of the world. Acknowledge them and use them to define your own way of living the only life you have. All the most beautiful people in the world, the most creative, the ones who led revolutions, who discovered and invented things, did so because they embraced their own idiosyncrasies. There’s no such thing as ‘normal’. That’s just another word for lifeless.
Soon after I acted in Deewana, I became the hapless hero of a movie called Chamatkar. This movie had a more believable plot line. I get cheated off all my money by my best friend slash, conman and find myself asleep in a cemetery only to be awakened by the ghost of a murdered mobster. A ghost that only I can see and nobody else. I am very perceptive that way. Anyway the mobster ghost helps me get a job as a teacher through his ghostly good offices. I fall in love with his daughter from a wife that has passed on after being duped by his flunky. Together, the ghost and I organize a cricket match, yes I was doing that even before I owned a cricket team, and avenge the various misdeeds done to us by bashing up the flunky and the conman, forgive them and let each other descend into the respective abodes where we belong. He goes back to the grave and I go away with the babe. Now ‘Chamatkar’, means miracle: right and straightforward without any nuances. So, my next lesson is the following: If you ever find yourself cheated of all your money and sleeping on a grave, do not fear, a miracle is near, either that or a ghost. All you have to do is fall asleep! In other words, no matter how bad it gets, life IS the miracle you are searching for. There is no other one around the corner. Develop the faith in it to let it take its own course, make all the effort you can to abide by its beauty and it will not let you down. Use every resource you have been given, your mental faculties, the ability of your heart to love and feel for those around you, your health and good fortune: all of the thousands of gifts life has given you to their maximum potential. Honour your life. Honour each gift and each moment by not laying it to waste. There is no real measure of success in this world except the ability to make good of life’s endowments to you. Sometimes life’s gifts arrive wrapped in all the wrong damned wrapping too, at which point we have to learn to do two things with them: recognize them for what they are and gamble on our fear that they might be disasters.
This brings me to my third life lesson inspired by two movies in which I played the anti-hero: Darr and Baazigar. Twenty years ago, in the Indian movie industry, roles were very clearly defined. They provided the security of your stardom in a sense. If you’d been successful playing an “angry young man”, you’d pretty much be angry and young for the rest of your career. If you’d been a police inspector in three movies, odds were, you’d be one in the next 33 too. This applied to female stars as well: wives were wives, seductresses-seductresses, mother in laws- mother in laws, and so on. Few actors would have willingly switched from romantic heroes to obsessively violent lovers. I took the leap…not because I was particularly brave, but because (a very dear director friend of mine sat me down and told me I was ugly. And being ugly necessarily meant I do bad guy roles. I wasn’t the romantic hero types, he said, actually he used the words, that my face was not chocolaty enough, whatever that meant). So, I started to eat a lot of chocolate and while waiting for it to take effect, I jumped into bad guy roles. Darr means fear in Hindi and everyone always tells you that you ought to be brave so I’m not going to bore you with that idea.
Instead let me tell you this: Being brave means being shit scared all the way to the party but getting there and doing the Funky Chicken in front of all your teenage kid’s friends anyway. Let me just add on behalf of all the fathers of the world who have embarrassed their children by doing this…it takes a lot of bravery resolve and grit to do this. So do it. Don’t let your fears become boxes that enclose you. Open them out, feel them and turn them into the greatest courage you are capable of. I promise you, nothing will go wrong. But if you live by your fears, everything that can possibly go wrong will go wrong and you wont even have done the Funky Chicken.
While we’re on what everyone tells you to be, let me also say that all the planning in the world, won’t take you where you want to get to. It’s fine not to know what you want to be twenty years from now. Most of those who had it all figured out became bankers anyway.
Oh this will appear on YouTube right? There goes my next big loan for the film from my friendly neighbourhood bank.
I did a movie once called Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa, in which I was the victim of a lover’s confusions and my next lesson is precisely that. It’s ok to be confused. Confusion is the route to all the clarity in the world. Don’t worry about it too much and don’t ever take yourself seriously enough to be so clear about your own ideas that you stop respecting other people’s. Our values are our values, they don’t make us any better than anyone else, at best they make us different. Always try to see the other person’s truth because like every movie has a story, every human being has one too and you have no right to imagine that yours is better than anyone else’s. You can leave that silliness to my esteemed colleagues and me!!
And if you thought the last two stories I told you were crazy, here’s another one in the reckoning for the Oscars for weirdest screenplay: Guddu.
Guddu was my name in a movie about loving and giving in which basically, I have an accident (yes another one) but this time instead of almost wiping out my future mother-in-law, I wipe out my girlfriend’s eyes. Many convoluted sub-plots including a life threatening brain tumour, a legal battle for the right to donate organs and a fast unto death, my lawyer father, my religious mother and I are battling over which one of us will donate our eyes to my blind girlfriend. In the end, I recover miraculously and my mother dies donating her eyes to my girlfriend and we all live happily ever after.
Life lesson number four rears its head: Give of yourself to others. And while you’re at it, make sure you realise that you aren’t doing anyone any favours by being kind. It’s all just to make you feel that sneaky little twinge that comes from being utterly pleased with yourself. After all, the one that gets the most benefit out of any act of kindness or charity that you do will always be you. I don’t say this, as many see it, in a trans active or karmic way. Its not an “I do good, I get benefit” equation with some white bearded figure taking notes from the heavens above. It’s a simple truth. An act of goodness becomes worthless when you assign a brownie point to yourself for it, no matter how subtly you allow yourself to do so. As benevolent as your gesture might be; someone else could have made it too. Regardless of how rich, successful and famous you become, don’t ever underestimate the grace that other people bestow upon you just by being the recipients of your kindnesses. You might be able to buy your friend a Rolls for his/her birthday but its no substitute for a patient hearing of your sulky rants on a bad hair day.
Sometimes things just happen, as encapsulated in another movie title of mine: Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and you know what? They don’t always add up (that would be ‘One Two Ka four’ as the list of titles continues). So my fifth lesson is this: when life hits you with all the force of its resplendent rage, the Rolls isn’t going to give you comfort. A friend’s grace will, and if you can’t find resolution as easily as you would like to, don’t panic. Everything evolves as you go along, Chalte Chalte as we say in Hindi (and yes, that was another movie I did but no more mad plots for God’s sake!!) Even disasters eventually resolve themselves. Give life the space to move at its own pace, pushing it ahead only by way of being kind to yourself when you are hurting or in despair. You don’t always have to figure things out or find an explanation for the circumstances you are in. It’s more prudent to accept that sometimes there just isn’t one. “Ram Jaane” (God knows), as we say in Hindi and as a priest responded to my orphan-child character when i asked him, what my name was, in a movie of the same appellation. The boy plodded through three entire hours of film referring to himself by that fatalistic phrase and why not? Who says that what we call ourselves is any definition of who we really are?
And that’s lesson number six for you: All the names you give yourself, or those that others call you, are just labels. You are not defined by them no matter how flattering or uncomplimentary they are. What defines you is your heart. Ask The Artist Formerly Known As Prince!! And learn a thing or two from him, if you don’t believe this insanely sexy Indian Superstar standing in front of you. And I say this out of experience because if I was to go by what all I am called on Social Media I would be an old desperate manipulative has been star who swings both ways while making crap movies, and these are just the good mentions.
If you aren’t charged up about doing something, if you don’t have what in Hindi we call the “Josh”, the fire in your belly for it, then don’t do it. It’s a waste of your time and more importantly, of those who pin their hopes on your endeavours too. Redefine yourself if you have to but do it on your own terms and just get on with it. In fact, like my character in the movie My Name is Khan, don’t forget where you came from and who you really are. It ought to be the compass by which you navigate through life’s vicissitudes. The North that keeps you oriented despite a series of misfortunes or a shower of privilege.
One of the biggest hits I made was an unexpected one and for once the plot was neither meandering nor barking mad. I was the coach of a beleaguered women’s hockey team that went on to overcome its struggles and win a world championship. Its title was Chak De, an inspirational martial cry that Sikh soldiers used while lifting logs in order to make bridges across rivers on their campaigns against their enemies. It implies the will to get up and get on with it, which brings me to life lesson number seven: whatever it is that is pulling you back, its not going away unless you stand up and start forging your own path with all your might in the opposite direction.Stop whining and start moving, so to speak. Sadness and happiness have the same quality of transience. Life is a balanced exchange of one with the other.
And this is lesson number eight: Don’t attach yourself to either (sadness/happiness), they’re both going to change with the same certitude. Take them with the ephemeral spirit of their impermanence and manage them with a healthy dose of good humour. Laugh at yourself when you are despairing, shed a tear or two when one of my movie plots makes you hysterical with laughter (we did actually consider Guddu donating a single eye to his blind girlfriend and both of them waltzing into the sunset eye patch to eye patch).
Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham was the title of an Indian style family drama in which I was one of many heroes and it means just that: to be happy sometimes, and sad others, is the very beauty of a life lived in full measure. Why fail yourself by desiring one emotion and detesting the other?
You know, I’ve acted in over 50 full length movies, if I took you through a journey of each title, we’d be sitting here forever and you’d all end up fast asleep (this wonderful venue being most un-cemetery like notwithstanding) so I’ll wrap up with my last two lessons.
Live from the heart. Dil Se. Love. Love people, love the world around you, love animals and birds, and big cities and mountains, love dreams, love life, love your work, your friends and your enemies even if you feel least like it. Most importantly, my friends; love yourselves. Embrace all that this life has in store for you, let your heart be as deep as the deepest ocean and as wide as the farthest horizon. Know that it is limitless. Love is not an excuse to grab or to hold or to own or to barter. It is the only excuse you will ever have to call yourself special. And if someone you love lets you down, don’t fault yourself for not trusting him, fault yourself for not trusting your love enough to forgive his/her trespasses.
You never know what the future will bring, whether there will be a tomorrow or not. I died at a shockingly young age in a movie called Kal Ho Na Ho which means exactly that. And I wasn’t even a smoker!!! I never let my two older children watch it to the end, we even filmed a whole alternate ending especially for them. But now they have grown up and like all of you, will soon be embarking on a wondrous journey of their own. Instead of trying to protect them from life, the wiser and older version of me grabs every chance to tell them: live as hard as you can in this very moment. Live now. Live today. You may not see it with your youthful eyes, but NOW is as much time as you will ever get. Because tomorrow we will all be dead. And just in case there is no cycle of rebirth etc…why take a chance. I don’t want to end this on a cynical note by reminding you about the reality of death. I want to let you all know that how important your today…your now is. Study hard. Work hard. Play harder. Don’t be bound by rules…don’t hurt anybody and never ever live somebody else’s dream.
Remember however many times you go wrong, no matter how many times you fail, despair, feel like this world is against you….in the words of Bob Marley…at the end everything is gonna be alright. And in my words: “Hindi filmon ki tarah life mein bhi, anth mein sab kuch theek ho jaata hai. Aur agar na ho, toh woh anth nahi hai…picture abhi baaki hai mere doston.” ("Just like in Hindi filsm, in life, everything will be alright at the end, and if it's not alright, it is not the end") Take it as the only truth you need to know. Take it and believe it because the most unlikely to make it in Bollywoood is telling you this…the most romantic hero who doesn’t look anything like chocolate or taste like it.
“Now” all you bored professors out there in the first row, come on up: lets do the Lungi Dance!!!
-end of speech-
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I swear, this man speaks to my soul! :') Watch his full speech here:
I'm saving this speech for a rainy day. You know, when I feel like I need him to talk to my soul again.
Also this man turns 50 today!
Damn, I sure do hope my future husband & father to my future children look as good as that when he's 50..I just have one issue with this cover, couldn't they take Gauri Khan on the cover instead?! Gauri is just as hot as that VS Model -_____-' #onewifewoman #getyourhandsoffhim!
I'm addicted to social media. Second thing I do every morning after replying my messages is to check on Instagram. I'd check my Instagram to the last post I saw previously (& if I'm out the whole day.. Well, except when I'm out the whole day, who has time for that?!).
Although it's actually an article about advice on dating, I think it should be applicable to everything in your life. Why just stop at dating or relationships (friendships included)?
The Law of “Fuck Yes or No” states that when you want to get involved with someone new, in whatever capacity, they must inspire you to say “Fuck Yes” in order for you to proceed with them.
The Law of “Fuck Yes or No” also states that when you want to get involved with someone new, in whatever capacity, THEY must respond with a “Fuck Yes” in order for you to proceed with them.
This is done to prevent you from being with someone who's not excited to be with you (or to prevent you from being with someone you're not excited to be with = settling).
Now, you tell me, why can't the Law of "Fuck Yes or No" be implied to everything you do in life? Don't just YOLO life, put in some passion in things you do rather than just depending on your adrenaline at that moment. Let it be able to drive you for a long term, rather than just a one time thing.
Letting go. Letting go has never been my strong forte. I don't deal with people leaving me that well. I don't deal with leaving people that well either. I just don't deal with leaving that well, period. I am without a doubt, one of the most easily attached person in my life. I like the comfort I get with the familiarity of things. So when people leave me, or I have to leave, that destroys the familiarity that I am used to. Therefore, I don't deal with it well.
I had a phase where letting go was just something impossible for me to do. But my parents would always remind me this, "Whatever God has taken away from you, trust in God that God is going to replace it with someone/something much better".
Of course that sounds like the cheesiest line ever, especially when you're so emotionally scarred. But seriously, try it. Just for a brief moment, let yourself believe that something better will come your way, if you'd just let this one go without any hard feelings, without any negativity and put your trust in God. Let yourself see "the better days", and believe in God. God is The Most Loving towards His servants and above all, He loves those that put their trust in Him. Try it, and I can guarantee you that slowly, slowly you'll deal with letting things go better.
At least that happened to me.
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Sometimes you just know when something isn't right. When something is about to go wrong, you'd feel it. As this continuously repeats itself, that special sensor of yours become stronger and stronger. Eventually you will actually laugh first at the sight of a storm coming while thinking, "I knew it" with a little smirk, in your head because you're right for the 10,000th time. But what you do not realise that as time progress, with every little "I was right" smirk comes also disappointment. With every disappointment, your walls get higher, your guards are more alert. And then suddenly you realise that your walls are so high that you're left confused as to whether your sensor is alerting you of an actual storm coming or you're just afraid of a little whip of fresh air.
Give lots of compliments, even if you’re shy. Everyone else is too.
Change. Get a haircut, try new perfume, get new sheets. Become better than you were before.
Eat healthier. Learn to cook something fancy.
Get up earlier and watch the sun come up.
Wear soft clothes, take a bath, drink something warm.
Meet someone new, even just a friend.
Become closer with your friends and your family. Call your mother. Cry with your best friend. Tell everyone how much you appreciate them.
Keep your room clean. Buy some candles. Let the natural light in.
Make a list of reasons why you’ll be better off without them. Believe they are true, because they are.
Listen to new music.
Write everything you’re thinking and feeling. Write letters. Write happy letters, sad letters, and angry letters, even if you’re never going to send them.
It’s okay to be sad, but not forever. Sadness is not as beautiful as music makes it seem. Lack of sleep makes your eyes droopy, not deep. Wake up every morning and tell yourself you’re going to have a good day.
Go to the library. Don’t forget to look in the music section.
Remove them from your life. Get rid of the things they gave you if they make you sad. They’re not worth it. You will never be happy if you continue to hold on to the things that make you sad.
Make new memories.
Try to find something to appreciate in everything you do or experience.
Being alone is okay, you don’t have to surround yourself with people.
Become your own best friend. Buy yourself coffee and drink it alone in a cafe. Take your time.
Learn to love every bit of yourself.
Found this list on Tumblr, & I think it's a good list. It doesn't sound so impossible. Baby steps to at least making you feel better if not helps you become a better person. Bolded some of the things I need to improve on. Such as letting sunlight enter my room. I think it's time my "cave" stop becoming my "cave", afterall the days are slowly getting longer now :) YES TO THE END OF WINTER!
As for learning to cook something fancy, I made a vow to start cooking more this year. Afterall it IS my last year studying abroad and God knows I never cook when I'm home.. So when else am I gonna test my powers in the kitchen kan? And truth to be told, I don't think I'm a bad cook, Brahim packets aside.. I swear they hate me.. My cooking for the last few days:
Sambal sardin.
Nasi lemak.
Tom yam fried bihun with Thai fishcakes.
Well, I've only been back from Paris less than a week okay! (Obviously this new resolution of mine to become a domestic goddess is a new one.. :p)
I am also becoming less clingy, ask Banana (she's the clingy one now..)! I spend less time now in her room. Ask Zoe too! I've been ignoring her for days to a point where she messaged me today: "Why don't you want to talk to me anymoreeeee? :(". I swear, my friends are so clingy! :p
As for change... Getting new bedsheets.. Well, can I get new clothes instead? :D No? Okay, bye... :(
Found this on Tumblr and thought it was worth sharing because it is so adorable!
I probably had my favorite interaction ever with Flynn Rider today. He was just super sweet and funny. He was just chilling by himself out in Fantasy Faire so I went to see him.
I asked him about where Rapunzel was, he answered that she was out and about and that he should look for her. He then asked me where my prince was. I say oh, I don’t have one. AND THEN HIS FREAKING RESPONSE (and hand on the shoulder in the picture):
Well be patient. He is out there somewhere. Us guys sometimes have to get ourselves together before we find our princesses.
He also said to me, I really like your hair! Is it always this cute or just when you are meeting handsome men?
Can somebody take me to Disneyland PLEASE?! I need to have conversations with these people! They are so "in character" it's so adorable!
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16 November 2013
Whatever you lost through fate, be certain that it saved you from pain.
Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.
Be patient where you sit in the dark. The dawn is coming.
Patience does not mean to passively endure. It means to be far sighted enough to trust the end result of a process. What does patience mean? It means to look at the thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and see the dawn. Impatience means to be shortsighted as to not able to see the outcome. The lovers of God never runs out of patience, for they know that time is needed for the crescent moon to become full.
Only the Hand of God can remove the burdens of your heart.
I can be without anyone, but not without You. You twist my heart, dwell in my mind, and fill my eyes You are my joy. I can’t be without You.
Rumi
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6 November 2013
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She said, ‘I’m so afraid.’ And I said, ‘why?,’ and she said, ‘Because I’m so profoundly happy. Happiness like this is frightening.’ I asked her why and she said, ‘They only let you be this happy if they’re preparing to take something from you'.
"I’m going to make this really simple: marriage isn’t for you. You don’t marry to make yourself happy, you marry to make someone else happy. More than that,your marriage isn’t for yourself, you’re marrying for a family. Not just for the in-laws and all of that nonsense, but for your future children. Who do you want to help you raise them? Who do you want to influence them? Marriage isn’t for you. It’s not about you. Marriage is about the person you married"
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To all who are reading this article—married, almost married, single, or even the sworn bachelor or bachelorette—I want you to know that marriage isn’t for you.No true relationship of love is for you. Love is about the person you love.
