Spark of anger

Anger is a fire that can suddenly flare up inside us and gain momentum in no time at all. It is spark off by a remark, an incident, an article, a news, a noncommittal act or answer. Being angry is natural and normal. Everybody will feel angry once in a while. Is it how we react to anger that makes the difference.

Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him (pbuh), advise if we are angry while standing up, then sit down. If we are sitting down, then lie down. Or better still take an ablution (wudhu'). The fire of anger comes from satan, so taking an ablution will cool us down. A fire can only be handled by water, not by fire itself that will only make matter worst.

I'm married for almost twenty years now. I have never quarreled with my husband. Even my kids commented on that. They notice that when my husband is mad, I will just keep quiet. Giving in does not mean we lose; it means we don't want to do something that will only makes matter worst. Winning does not means having the upper hand all the time; winning means creating a relationship that bind us together strongly. When our spouse do not feel threatened by us all the time then we have a long lasting relationship. Of course we must clear up all the misunderstanding. Pick a suitable time to do that. A time when everybody is cool down and comfortable. A time when we are more rational. Surely when we are mad we are not rational.

How many times have we regretted what we have said or done? Mostly those things happen when we are mad, isn't it? So trust my words - just keep quiet when we or somebody else is mad. When we scold, make sure it is done to educate, not to let off our anger. For example, if I want to scold or admonish my child, I make sure I am not mad at that time. If I am, I will hold it to a latter time. Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said those who are strong are not those who are strong physically but those who can hold on his/her anger. So are we really a strong person? Hopefully our graph is getting better.

Give our best shot at holding our anger. May Allah helps us in our quest. Amin.

What makes you the richest man in the world

Walking down a street, watching kids laughing their heart out playing with each other, housewives chatting amicably, houses graced with flower that is tended lovingly by its owners, you see a picture of happiness. Happiness do not have a direct relation with money. Money play some part but but a significant one. A family living in a small house and having just enough to fulfill their needs but abundant with love might just be a lot richer than a family living in a mansion. Why? Because the first family got everything that they want and they are contented with their life. If you live in a mansion but craving for bigger house, more powerful car, so on and so forth, meaning you are still poor. Well, you don't have everything that you want, don't you?

In chapter Al-A'raf verse 144 Allah stated, "...... and hold on to what I have given you and be among those who are grateful". There is nothing wrong with striving and working hard for a better life. That is if you are contented with what you already have. Appreciate and be happy with what you already have. Don't let your vigor to struggle for a better future takes you away from your close ones. They are your real wealth. Don't confine wealth to just physical things.

Be the richest man in the world by appreciating and feeling contented with what you already have. Happiness is not out there or somewhere in the future. Happiness is here and now. Surrounding us. Don't wait until we loose what we already have to realize how rich we were.

To all of you out there, no matter what is your creed or faith, be the richest man in the world now. You might not have tomorrow. May Allah bless us all. Amin.

Listen more, talk less.

There is a reason why Allah created us having two ears but only one mouth, why a fetus in the womb can hear first around the age of four month before being able to see. It is better and easier to listen than to talk but yet we always prefer to talk than to listen. I guess this entry is an advise more for myself than for you, readers.

While listening, we are always thinking what we want to say back and thus, missing the point altogether. We are not really 'listening'. We are busy with our own thought.

Listening can help a lot. Someone planning to commit suicide can reconsider his/her decision if there is someone out there to listen to his/her problem. We don't necessarily have to provide a solution or an option. Just being there to listen means a great deal already.

Sometimes when we do listen, we choose to listen to the wrong person. Like listening to a praise from a person who have an agenda on us. Time and experience will tell us who to listen to.

The most important person to listen to is someone very close to us. Which we sometime overlook because we tend to take those close to us for granted. Like a mother failing to listen her child but have time for friends. Or worst still a husband having time to listen to buddies but not to the wife.

Listening means we care. I must make a point to listen more especially to my husband and my kids. There's a lot of space for improvement.

Good luck. May Allah bless us.

Give praises, accept critics.

Everybody like praises. After doing a difficult task, I feel half the exhaustion is gone if the work is appreciated by others. That's the very reason why I like to praise my colleagues. And of course my kids too. Or anybody around me for that matter. A praise will raise a smile that will lit the world. But praises must be given sincerely. What it means is that there must be a real basis to give the praise. An achievement, a job well done, giving the best effort in doing something, a good intention, anything praise worthy. No string attached. Sincerity must be the base of anything that we do. It is the foundation of a strong and lasting relationship.

For Muslims, we are taught to say Alhamdulillah or 'praise be to Allah' whenever we receive a praise. Nothing is possible without Allah' will. Allah has created human kind in its fitrah or original self - good and pure. Deep down inside we are good, if we didn't listen to the devil or give in to our greed.

On the other hand, we must open ourselves to critics no matter how hard or painful it is. It's the basis to improve ourselves. As an experience teacher, I have stop looking forward to praises from my students on how good a teacher I am. I have had enough of that already, having taught for fifteen years now. What I want to hear is where did I go wrong, how I should do it differently, what makes me unreachable to some students. I value negative comments from my students more than comments from my superiors since my clients are students, not my superiors. Superiors see from outside the window but my students are the one who can see my real weaknesses. I guess this one of the many reasons why I never teach the same way year after year. After all I get different sets of students every year and each one of them are real people; people with different background and exposure. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I am good. What I'm saying is I just want to do my best. That's what Allah want me to do.

Well, I hope whatever I say make sense to you. Please pray for me and I will pray for all of you too. May Allah bless us with wisdom. Amin.

Be a perfectionist, don't expect perfection

Be a perfectionist, don't expect perfection. Sound contrasting? Not at all.

Take a boss for example. He/she (referred to as 'he' after this - not meaning to be sex bias) must try to be the perfect boss. Setting good examples for the subordinates to follow. Subordinates will be conscious if they arrive late to the office if the boss is among the first to punch in every morning. What more if he is there every day or so beside the punch machine making silence observation. No words needed but meaning is well understood. If punctuality, quality of work, striving for corporate goal, working independently without much supervision, adherence to company's rules and regulation are important to the institution, then the boss must set the example first. Actions speak louder than words.

Be the almost perfect boss we can be. But never expect perfection from the subordinates. Unfair? No, not at all. No matter how perfect we want to be as a boss, we have our own weaknesses. The staff will realize our weaknesses soon enough. Encourage our subordinates to be the best workers they can be but if they fail here and there, accept it. Don't expect perfection. When we give room for their unintended failure, they will give room for our weaknesses. In fact, they will cover up our weaknesses. Then the chemistry will work on its own. Boss and subordinates will complement each other. Of course there are people who just don't want to improve. But over the years we will eventually see the improvement. They can't help themselves from being infected by the positive environment.

This is even more pronounced in a marriage. Be the almost perfect spouse we can be to our partner but never expect perfection from him/her. Everyone of us has our own weaknesses. Don't put our energy and time into thinking how bad our partner is but divert that energy into thinking on ways to improve our own weaknesses. As I said before in my previous blog entry, we cannot change the world but when we change ourselves the world will change too. Good luck. May Allah bless us all.

Diversify

Doing my first degree in business administration and doing my diploma in education in commerce and economy, I foresee myself completely in art stream and not science. Anyway, science was a bit difficult for me during secondary school, earning meagre result only. When I start my teaching career, I got to teach my options for less than two years only. Every school that I go, there are excess of commerce and economic teacher. I find myself to teach mostly mathematics and later on mathematics and english. I'm moving from art stream to science.

When PPSMI started in Malaysia and science and maths teachers are provided with laptops, I kept mine in a locked cupboard for a few months because it seem too complicated for me compared to my good old desktop. But eventually I took it out and painfully learn how to use it. It is when I stuck with a technical problem and had to ask for technical help from friends that I find I learn the most. I begin to look forward to new technical problem to learn more.

Then fate had it that I am doing my master degree in multimedia. Wait a minute, multimedia? Yes, sound unbelievable but that's what I'm doing now. I never heard about open source before doing my master degree but when my group was asked to pick a topic to do mini research on, I suggested open source. Why? Why not! To me that's the best way to learn, when you are force to do something. You have no choice but to embark on a new venture. From someone who don't know how to do animation in power point presentation (just simple presentation), I ended up doing a courseware. And it won gold medal in my university Research and Innovation Expo.

All these diversity has added a lot of interesting colors in my life. I never want to be the best; I just want to do my best. And as a muslim, doing your best is a one of the condition for Allah to accept whatever you do as something that will gain you 'pahala' or reward. And I try my best to be a good muslim and to set good example to others.

We need to let go our fear. Try something new. What have we got to lose? In fact we gain a lot of knowledge. And new skills. At least I can talk a bit about a lot of thing.

So why don't you do that something that you are afraid to do but you always wanted to try it deep down in your heart. Who knows, maybe you will like it after all and even excel in it. Good luck. May Allah bless us all.

True friendship

Who need a friend? Everyone. We are blessed if our best friend is our own spouse. What if our spouse is not our best friend? Work it out. Be the best of friend for your spouse and he/she will in turn be your best friend.

What is the meaning of friendship? Having someone with us in good and bad times, feeling of happiness having that person as our friend, the feeling that we are not alone. Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said that Allah lists seven types of people that will have Allah's protection during the judgement day and one of them is two person who meet and depart because of Allah. Friendship is very much valued in Islam and in other faith too. In Islam the highest test of friendship is when we willingly give what we like and love the most to our dear friend. Have you achieve that level with any friend of yours? I'm not so sure myself.

If you are still in the quest of finding your best friend, try being the best of friend to your friends. You will not be selected as someone's best friend or the other way round, but rather Allah will give you that best friend that you so long for. My prayer is always with you. May Allah bless us all.

Patience is sweet

To me there are basically two types of problems, one that we can solve and another one that we have no power to do anything about it (like the death of loved one). In the face of problem, think of ways to solve it. List down all the options that we have. Pick the best one and try it out. If it doesn't work well, try another options.

There could be many reasons why things didn't work out:

1. maybe Allah has something better in store for us,

2. maybe someone else deserve it better than us,

3. maybe we didn't try hard enough,

4. maybe we have overlook certain things,

5. maybe we take certain thing for granted,

6. maybe we didn't plan properly,

7. maybe in our haste we took shoddy short cut

In Islam, we muslims are accounted for our actions, not the results. What that means? It means Allah wants us to try our best, nothing less than the best. The result is not in our hand, but in Allah's hand. Just try our best and leave the rest to Allah.

For problems that's out of our control, have patience. I know it is difficult to be patience but it has its own sweet rewards. A worker that is not trusted and not given important job but remain patience and do his/her best, will be noticed sooner or later. When time has matured, that worker will be given his/her due respect. Just do our work properly and have faith in Allah's justice. A fruit a product of our toil is much more valuable that the fruit that we can easily buy from the market.

Just have patience. The sweet moments of reaping our sow is just incomparable. May Allah bless us.

Appreciate what we have

The abundant amount of water running through our tap is always wasted; until the day when our water supply run out. Our nagging mother is always a bother to us; until the day she die. The rain is always a nuisance; until the long drought season comes. We always complaint about our food; until the day we run out of money to buy some.

We are always complaining. Prophet Muhammad p.b.u.h. said if human are given a hill full of gold, he will ask for a second hill of gold. Which is true. Nothing seem enough. Nothing seem to satisfy us for long. It's not wrong to want for more, for better. What is wrong if we do not appreciate what we already have. Worst still if we can only appreciate it after it is long gone. Like our mother's love. So take the time to wish our mother happy mother's day and tell her how much we appreciate their sacrifices for us. Appreciate the old car that we have. Without it we will be a lot worse. Do you realize that things have their own 'feeling'. If we talk about buying a new car, our old one will start having problem. I always asked myself if I lose my loved one tomorrow, have I done enough to show my love for him/her? Will I regret anything? Is there anything that I postpone which I actually can do it before without any problem? Do I have any concrete excuse?

Being the best spouse/mother/friend/sister/brother..... to someone else will have its own rewards. If we try our best to be a good mother, we will get kids that will try their best to be good kids to us. Of course they will go astray every now and then, but overall they will be kids that we can feel happy about. Problems in life are like flavor in the soup, it add its deliciousness.

So appreciate what we have, while we still have it. It might not be around tomorrow. May Allah bless you.

Appreciate ourselves

Sometimes on special occasion we feel lonely and forgotten. Like on our birthday, mother's/father's day, anniversary, etc. That's because those close to us forgot all about it. It is surely nice if they remember it, meaning they care, but that's not always the case. Put ourselves on the stage. How many times we forget important dates ourselves? What did we do if we realized it after a week or a month passed? Or is there an important date that we completely forgotten ourselves? Our parents' birthday maybe?

We have a a few choices. First, on the morning of our birthday, send an email, sms, mms, to our loved ones to notify what they have obviously forgotten. Hopefully by the end of the day we will get some presents. Second choice, we can celebrate and appreciate ourselves. Buy something we like for ourselves. We don't need someone else to tell and convince us that we are special. We know it in our heart. Always reward ourselves after an important mission is accomplished. Like buying a new pair of shirt or blouse after completing an important task in office. Don't wait for our boss to appreciate us. We are good because we are good, not because our boss praise us. Looking from a different perspective, if our boss fail to recognize our work that doesn't make us a bad worker. OK. If that sound like going in a merry-go-round, this is what I meant....

We have to appreciate ourselves first. We have to love ourselves first. If we don't love ourselves, don't expect others to do so. Things have to start inside ourselves. We got to believe in ourselves. Every one of us are special. Allah send each one of us to contribute in our special way. Like pieces of puzzle. When all the pieces are arranged nicely together, then only the whole picture is complete. We might be just a small piece. But the puzzle isn't complete without us.

So appreciate ourselves. Give the best contribution that we can. A present forgotten doesn't make us any less special. Because we know we are special. May Allah bless you.

Don't keep things to yourself

Some people are very talkative. When they have problems they can easily share with their close friends. To have somebody to listen to you is good enough to relieve the tension. Provided that friend is a trusted one and can keep your secret.

But there are some people that are introvert and like to keep things to themselves. Looking at them, there is no trace of problem what so ever. It's like when we shake a can drink. All the soda and bubbles just waiting to burst out. When that happen, it happen uncontrollably. Things just went berserk.

We need to let it out. Cry privately if you can. We will feel a lot better after that. Who say crying is just for men? That's why men have shorter life span than women. Find a trusted friend to share the problem. Write in blog to unleash the turmoil inside you. Writing in a blog has become a favorite way to wind down. Talk to your plant or pet. Your fish will listen silently and will not make negative remarks. Or just talk to yourself as if someone else is talking and advising you. Jog or cycle to let go the pent-up energy.

For muslims, read the Holy Qur'an. The Holy Qur'an is for everyone, muslim or non-muslim. Reading the Holy Qur'an makes us attach with Allah. We can feel that Allah is watching over us. Everything that happen, happen for a good reason. In chapter 94 Al-Insyirah verse 5 & 6 Allah says , "Verify that every hardship is followed by something good. And verily every hardship is followed by something good" (my own weak translation from Malay to English). When we flash back, we can see that a lot of good stuff comes to us after something bad has happen. A marriage broke up only to find a better partner in a new marriage. A failed business is the starting point for a better business. A difficult childhood makes us a much stronger adult.....

After knowing this two verses by heart about seven years ago, I have learn to look forward for something good that will come after something bad happen to me. Sometimes I can see it immediately after the bad incident. Sometimes the light is shed to me after months or years. Nevertheless, once that 'something good' is revealed to me after the bad incident, I become more than glad. All these good thing will never cross my path if that negative incident didn't happen.

Hope you will look forward to that spark of shining light after your eclipse. May Allah bless you.

Conflict with your boss?

There are times when we do not agree with our boss. At times we feel that our boss does not listen to us. No matter what idea we give to our boss, he/she will always use his/her own ideas. We feel that there is no point to give idea after all. We even feel that our boss have favorites and we are not one of them.

All those feelings are both right and wrong. Right because all those things does happen. Wrong because it happen for reasons different from what we think. Yes our boss have favorites but not intentionally. There are some staff that always refer to the boss in their every move and ask for boss's opinions. Naturally our boss feel their opinions are valued. For those who can work independently and spend less time interacting wit the boss, naturally the boss seem less friendly with you. But trust me, the boss prefer staff like you but have less chance to show his/her appreciation of you.

For bosses that never seem to acknowledge our ideas but always stick to his/her own ideas, don't ever feel it is a waste of time to give opinions. Some people have very high ego and are difficult to acknowledge other people but silently they can value your bright ideas. We will find that silently they will carry out our ideas. We just have to learn to read the cues that when our ideas are implemented wholly or partly, our ideas are recognized. Yes it is a lot better if our ideas are acknowledged, I know.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, we won't ever find a work place that will satisfy us 100%. That is just a myth, not a reality. And we do not have the choice to easily change our work place. No matter where we work, each place has it own challenges and advantages. Enjoy the advantages to the fullest. Accept the limitations. It's nice if we can change our boss but that is not possible. We cannot change the world but if we change our self, the world will change too. Having the right attitude at out work place is one of the key to a happy working environment. A work place should be a place where to feel eager to go to every morning, not a place that you feel will kill you slowly. It is all up to us actually. We can choose to enjoy our work or we can choose to suffer while working.

Just concentrate on what way we can contribute, and how our presence can have significant positive effects on others. Every good deed has it own reward. Happy working. Remember to smile when we arrive at the office. It's a good way to start our work!