Tag Archives: Life

Death

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Death has been on mind lately a little too much. More so than usual.

April 9th, ’18 – Not sure why it was on my mind when I first those words above, but today I am writing specifically because of a recent death, but more generally because . . . . .

All life will eventually end in death. That is a fact. For us, human beings, death probably has more of an affect than it does to most other beings. Or so we think / believe. Our religions don’t even mention the after life for beings that are not human.

My own personal experience with death came when I was not 10 yet. A great grand mother of mine passed away after a long illness. She was very close to me and my family. But being the age that I was, I didn’t really feel the loss that I should have felt. I was more caught up in the whole “process” of dealing with her death. We went and visited her grave almost everyday for the next few days (maybe weeks). At least the next 40 days at least.

Not till very recently did I find out that some of my friends didn’t necessarily experience the death of someone close to them at as an early age as I. Not sure why I was so surprised.

Death on the Living

While

Early Death?

If there really a right time from one’s life to come to an end? Not too long ago the life expectancy for humans used to be about 30~40 years. Now that is twice as long.

Irrespective of how long a life is the appropriate length, I suppose life that choose to end ourselves are examples of early deaths.

The other day I heard something about only 26 people surviving from attempting to take their own lives by jumping of the golden gate bridge. Most, maybe all 26, of them said later that they wished they had not chosen to jump the very moment they did.

– manzoor

2 Way

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We don’t realize this but most things in life are bi-directional. Communication, relationship are 2 that comes to mind off the top.

When we communicate we often pay more attention to what we say and what we hear and not enough on what the other is saying or maybe hearing. Just because I say something does not guarantee that the other heard the same.

Relationships are even more complicated. We all know it takes “give” and “take” in all relationships. What we sometimes fail to realize is how skewed our perception of “give” and “take” are. If we were “machines” and not “human”, what we “gave” would be exactly what the other “took”. But since we are human beings, what we give is way bigger than what the other got. Just like what we “took” is so much smaller than what the other “gave”. This comes from our own bias.

But it is quite surprising that so many relationships do work out, while so many don’t. There isn’t necessarily any magic recipe that causes some to work out.

All happy people are happy the same way. Every sad person is sad in their own unique way.

I don’t really agree. I think every happiness, every sadness, every each emotion is unique. They cannot be duplicated or replicated. They can be imitated to some extent.

– manzoor

Validation

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Was listening to NPR as I headed out to work as usual. When on Morning Edition Claudio Sanchez began “Lessons From The School Where I Failed As A Teacher“. He was trying to find out if he was a good teacher. Towards the end of the show one of his students said “I think you were a good teacher, I feel affection and gratitude for you and the other teachers. I mean I don’t have any feelings that you let us down.” It may not sound like a huge compliment, but it made me think – if everyone I met in life felt that way about me I would consider that a life well lived.

I am sure I have hurt many but I do honestly feel that I have not really meant to hurt or harm them.

– manzoor

How has this Changed You?

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I was watching something on TV that had to do with a host asking the guests how running for the Election had changed them.

Of course, running to be the president of the United States, just running for the office, has to significantly change a person. But every day, in our every day activity we too are changed. Maybe not as profoundly. But slowly, very slowly.

If it is not changing you even slightly over time then maybe you are not challenging yourself. Maybe you should consider experiencing something new. Put yourself in someone else’s shoes.

– manzoor

Regrets

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I have often said, even claimed, that I have no regrets. And I do honestly believe that to be true. Not that I do not wish that some of the things were different.

But it’s not really regrets that I am writing of. I realized earlier this morning that I have to a point in my life when I have

– manzoor

Kindness of Strangers

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I’d only been in Austin a couple of weeks. I am still getting to know everything. If I am not mistaken it was the very first time I went to get McDonald’s for dinner all by myself. I didn’t know the meal deal. Come to think of it I don’t think I knew that McDonald’s came without fries or a drink. In any case, I did not have enough cash on me to get the meal and was deciding which to NOT get – the drink or the fries. The man behind me, very politely, told me to go ahead and get the meal. He covered the $0.40 or so that I was short.

A more recent event – as recent as Thanks Giving 2014. I was at Whole Foods picking one last item – which turned into a “couple of items” by the time I got the front counter 😦 Since I was planning to get just one item, I of course didn’t have a cart with me. A woman was right behind me and she only had a single item (I forget what it was). I let her get ahead of me while I was fumbling my stuff. To busy / distracted with all my stuff I didn’t notice that she paid for her and mine and had left before the girl at the counter was able to let me know that my things were already paid for. It was close to $30 worth of different cheese, pasta etc.

I did thank the man at the McDonald’s but never got a chance to thank the woman at the Whole Foods. I have thought of both of them many times since and have thanked them for their kindness. They are but just a couple of examples of the millions of very kind people we are all surrounded by.

BTW, this article would be grossly incomplete if I do not mention our neighbour the police officer who came to our door on September 11th and gave us his card with his cell phone and pager number and told us to call him if we ran into anything. We never had to, but the gesture is something that will stay with me for ever.

– manzoor

P.S. I was checking out of H-E-B this morning and saw the latest Reader’s Digest that made me write this today. To be fair, I have been meaning to write this for a very long time.