I recollect reading somewhere that if we need to bring about changes in our lives, the first step would be to change our thoughts about our life.
“Unfolding Thoughts” – Original fine art from The Border of a Mind Studios.
If you would like to change your life, you must first change the way you think about your life. Thoughts are not just thoughts. They are bridges and doors and entryways and foundations. They magnetize and repel. They can build a house and tear it down. They can energize momentum, or keep you idling within your own little world forever. Thoughts are investments, and they are decisions. The mind will generate an endless series of options-some inspiring, and others terrifying and so you must choose. You must choose what you will return to, what you will believe in, what you will place weight on. Because thoughts create feeling, and feeling creates desire, and desire creates action, and action creates reward, and reward creates more desire, and before you know it, a thought became the torch that led you down the path that is your life. If you would like to change your life, you must first change the way you think about your life. There never was another way.
Although not perfectly recollected in many situations, deep down I truly believe that gratitude and calmness are key to many peaceful delights in this world. Writing in awareness of all my imperfections, reflection on what we have has much more compassionate adherence to it rather than taking up futile thought attachments by pondering on what we don’t have. The weight of comparisons would weigh us down and robs away happiness. What has come to you has come with time and purpose. What is to come is written. Wait for the script to be unfolded and be very patient if that’s not the story you thought of. And in between what has come and what is yet to come is this moment. The moment you are now scrolling through this piece of writing. The experiences of last year has reaffirmed this truth over and over again and has scribed it deep within myself. I’ve been in hospital bed due to illness away from everyone all alone and unchained from all responsibilities, promptness and rushness I’ve been used to both personally & professionally. I truly never had such an opportunity to recollect and put back my thoughts on the overall scheme of things. I was relieved of the notion of trying to control the clock of my life and schedule it on my terms and had this forgotten realization that I’m playing the central character of a personalised flick called destiny which is already scripted. It emboldens a comfort that not a single thing is actually in our control even though deep down we believe we have control over several things. Keeping distress and resistance away from the unfolding divine plan of what’s happening is the longing that I strive for now. As with the famous saying, nothing really goes away until it teaches you what it’s supposed to. May Almighty bless us with contentment and fulfillment. I’m grateful for the time you’ve taken in gazing at my writings.
When your thoughts resonate well with someone else, that’s a beautiful moment. I was listening to the thoughts of a very famous singer’s view on privacy and how precious it is. Basically he was asked about his family, but he preferred to keep everything private, which is very hard these days, especially for public personalities. Along with his brilliant music, I admire him for his wisdom as well. I’ll quote his wise words on this.
"First of all I'm a very private person, and secondly because it'd be disrespectful to them. Privacy to me is precious and it saddens me that it has become devalued as people eagerly share details of every aspect of their lives online and feed the social media machine but I'll tell my young listeners especially something that my wise grandmother used to say. "Before you speak, cook your words". Think about the consequences of what you are sharing. You can't put the toothpaste back into the tube. Whatever you put out there about yourself and anyone else would be there for ever. Think carefully whether will you or others benefit from it. Do you think it'll represent you in five or let's say 10 years time. You'll change and grow throughout your life. Valuing your privacy will allow you to have second chances and reinvent yourself without being followed by regrettable things posted online. To me, questions about my family are absolutely connected to privacy and privacy is something that I want to protect not only for myself, but those close to me. Because I have a career that has a public face doesn't mean that I have the right to share information about people in my life nor do I want to. Actually, just the opposite, I beleive I have an obligation to protect their privacy. I rarely share personal details about my own life, let alone those of my family. It'll be disrespectful to disclose information about them. It'll violate boundaries of trust. I'm a composer, a musician and to the extent that I want to be known, I want to be known for my contributions to the field of music, especially to reviving and continuing the rich legacy of traditional music still existing in this world. Because, in the end, it's the work that matters, not the person behind it. As long as that person strives to develop a character worthy of his or her goal. So when I find misleading false statements about myself in various sources, I don't feel the need to rush out and correct them, thus revealing more about myself and my close ones than we would want and straying to the realm of celebrity. I keep in my mind by this quote from long before the information age by Ralph Waldo Emerson " “Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.” For those who have asked about my family and other personal aspects of my life, I hope you will now understand my reasons for remaining silent when it comes to this."
” No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy . . . and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire..”
– Orson F. Whitney
Subtle Trials – Original fine art from The Border of a Mind Studios.
..Whatever we hold at the level of thought, emotion, and spirit translates directly into experiences of either happiness and peace or chaos and dissatisfaction.
..Eiman Al Zaabi
“Level of Thought” – The Border of a Mind Studios Original Portraits
That’s probably the longest hiatus that I might have taken after starting writing here. Mostly due to medical reasons, I was lacking the frame of mind that I need to be in this garden of thoughts. At the end of the road, there’s a bundle of joy around : ) Enjoying every bit of it, we are grateful to Almighty for helping us discover the purpose of why every little event happens the way it’s happening. We named him by name that means full moon in arabic.
This piece of art is inspired by a theme that I’ve always pondered on. The museum of our “minds”. Albeit it sounds poetic, each of us are museums of memories. The richness of thoughts in those museums doesn’t need dusting. Jan Mark puts it into paper quite brilliantly.
“Memory is your museum, your cabinet of curiosities, your ‘Wunderkammer.’ It will never be full; there is always room for something new and strange and marvelous. It will never need dusting. It will last as long as you do. You can’t let the public in to walk around it, but you can take out the exhibits and share them, share what you know. You will never be able to stop collecting.”
Often, all sort of sorrows, anxieties, hardships, and turmoil is to prepare us and to put a pathway for joy. As a famous Persian poet puts it, sorrow violently sweeps everything out of your house so that there’s space for new joy to enter. There’s beauty and gems of wisdom in going through hardships. It matures our souls and puts an appreciative spirit and a sense of profound gratitude in the blessings we count. Cultivating gratitude is key to several delights.
Quotes from this book resonate well. I have thought about this previously and it’s good to see somebody articulate it well. Often the best ideas albeit not making any rational sense are found to be catering to our psychological realms and aspects of the “experience” delivered by a product or service. The art of influencing people’s choices by bypassing reason is postulated. Very interesting!
…In many crucial areas of our lives, reason plays a vanishingly small part. Instead, we are driven by unconscious desires, which is why placebos are so powerful. We are drawn to the beautiful, the extravagant, and the absurd – from lavish wedding invitations to tiny bottles of the latest fragrance. So if you want to influence people’s choices you have to bypass reason. The best ideas don’t make rational sense: they make you feel more than they make you think
From Rory Sutherland’s “Alchemy”
“Influencing Choices” – Original Fine Art from the The Border Of a Mind Studios.
