Reflections from a visit to the dentist

Readers,

I went to the dentist yesterday morning and thought that I would share some reflections with you all.

The first point that I think is worth making is that my teeth were not hurting or damaged. I went for a check up that I have been trying to do twice a year for the last few years. Prevention is better than cure is an old saying that many are able to quote, but very few execute in their behaviour for many areas of our lives.

The second point is that my appointment was supposed to be at 9, but I didn't actually get seen till 9 10 which resulted in me getting to work a little late. This made me realise that I should always allow more time at appointments to cater for others poor time keeping.

It also reminded me of the importance of maintaining my own punctuality because I would not want to be the cause of someone else being frustrated and late for meetings scheduled after mine.

Finally, I love the feeling of teeth cleaned by the dentist. It costs less than £20, leaves your teeth looking much healthier, your spirits lifted and your will power a new lease of life to start taking the sort of care of your teeth that you know deep down inside you ought to.

Have yourselves a blessed day and try and pop down to the dentist too if you are overdue :-)

The power to leave people and places in a better condition than you found them

Dear readers,

I have heard the saying "leave every place better than you found it" many times over, but yesterday evening it hit home for the first time.

I bought some milk from the supermarket on the way home from work and asked the sales assistant for cashback with my transaction.

When the receipt printed, he handed me a pen and asked me to initial the receipt next to the cashback. As I duly obliged, I realised that the pen was purple.

I jokingly asked the gentleman why he had a purple coloured pen. He laughed and told me that it was not his. He had borrowed it from his female colleague working next to him. I smiled and walked away with my milk.

As I was walking away, I heard him laughing with his colleague about the purple pen and that is when it hit home.

I had unwittingly left that person in a better conditions than I found him. I found him smiling and left him laughing.

This left me feeling really warm and fuzzy inside and keen to experience the same feeling again.

We all have ups and downs, but making a point to regularly make others happy even if only fleetingly are the moments that make the world a special place to live.

I wanted to share this experience because perhaps it might inspire others to actively try and leave places and people in a better condition than they found it.

Peace

New year resolutions

Dear readers

A new year beckons and so does a new opportunity arise to become a "new you".

Many people fail to realise that every day represents a new life in the mind of the wise.

In any case, a lot of people will be making resolutions and so I thought that I would share some thoughts on how to make the most of the good feeling that envelopes this time of year.

1) make a resolution if you are in two minds. You have an infinitely better chance of fulfilling your resolutions if you are able to articulate them and motivated to actually write them down.

2) make a maximum of 3. The more you make, the harder it will be to maintain them all and the moment one fails, the house comes crashing down.

3) write your reasons for wanting to achieve the resolutions and the consequences of failure to do so. This will give your aspirations the legs and heart to grow to fruition.

I wish you all a prosperous 2016 and would love to hear any thoughts or new year resolutions that you would like to share that you feel could help inspire anyone readings.

God bless.

Reflections on attending my first ever funeral

Readers,

At the ripe old age of 32, I experienced my first ever funeral yesterday and would like to share some of my thoughts and feelings with you all.

The first point that I would like to make is that witnessing a lifeless body placed in a box, lowered deep in to the ground and then covered up with mud and stones is probably the most humbling experience I have experienced in my life and would recommend everyone to go and witness a burial as soon as possible if you have not already done so. It certainly helps to put life and it's temporal problems into context.

The second point I would like to share is that knowing someone has died and watching them be buried are two very different things. I acknowledge my mortality daily when I pray 5 times, but the emotional response to watching a burial was something that I was not prepared for and my own emotional response took me by surprise.

The third point I would like to share is one of change. The witnessing of a burial has challenged me to question my own productivity. I have always known that I should be sowing more productive seeds with my limited time on Earth, but my goodness if ever a reminder of how short life is was needed, the message was received.

Finally, I was lucky that the first funeral service I attended was for a comparatively distant relative. Though it was my father's blood brother, he lived quite far away and so I rarely met him. I am determined to forge a closer relationship with the cemetery by trying to visit at least once a month. This will hopefully build up my character to be able to cope with human mortality in the future.

Thanks for reading and I hope that this post hasbeen of some benefit to you.

If today was your last day on Earth, what would you do?

Readers,

I have heard of so many deaths in the last few days ranging from babies to elderly men who have arguably had "a good innings".

The reality is though that death is never greeted with anything but shock and disappointment from friends and family.

We live in a world where death is guaranteed and yet we wilfully neglect to acknowledge that each day we wake up in the morning may well be our last.

How would you classify a successful day?

Does it include telling your loved ones that you love them?

Does it include savouring the taste of the food you eat?

Does it include reading something to enhance your education and spiritual growth?

Who do you want to be when you die?

The question worth asking every night is "am I closer or further away from the person I wish to be on my last day on Earth?"T

How often do we engage in contemplating about our own death and in effect the quality of our own lives?

I would like to end this post with a quote from the Prophet Muhammad  (peace be upon him and his family)

"The most intelligent person is the one who remembers death often".

The importance of asking "why"

Readers,

How often do we question the reasons behind the things that we do?

When we are young, we are naturally curious to want to know the reasons for everything. As we get older, we become more content accepting many things on face value.

My manager shared a beautiful story with me a week or so ago that I would like to share with you all that illustrates this point very well.

There was a young girl who observed her mother preparing a lamb stew every couple of weeks. Before her mother would put it in the oven, she would cut off a bit from the corner and throw it away. This was done every single time her mother prepared this dish. Then one day, this young girl asked the mother why she would always cut off the end piece and throw it away. The mother was taken aback. She had to admit that she didn't know. The reason that she did this was that she saw her mother doing it and was merely copying her. She told her young daughter to ask the grandma the reason.

When the young child next met the grandmother, she asked her the same question about why the end of the lamb was always cut.

The grandmother replied that when she was younger and preparing the dinner, the oven she owned was not big enough to fit the whole lamb inside, so she had to cut a bit to make it fit.

I found it a beautiful and inciteful anecdote which I considered worth sharing.

"Why" and "because" are two of the most important words in our vocabulary so let us never forget that and strive to use them as regularly as possible, because if we don't, our actions will not have a solid foundation built on knowledge.

The power of questions

Morning everyone

Have you ever stopped to consider how awesome the power to ask questions is?

One of the main ways that we learn anything is from attaining answers to questions that we ourselves have posed.

As children, we are blessed with an unlimited supply of curiosity that drives us to constantly ask questions. "But why?" is the favourite choice of words from so many young children who are beginning to find their way in life.

The sad thing is that as we get older , our will to ask questions seems to diminish for so many of us as we get busy surviving day to day.

I would like us all to reflect on a few questions about our power to ask questions.

1) How many questions do we ask daily?
2) who do we ask these questions to?
3) What benefit do we get from the answers?
4) What information are we lacking because of the failure to ask questions?
5) who can answer these questions?
6) when is the best time to ask?
7) What has stopped us asking until now?
8) who is to blame for my ignorance?

I would like to end this post with a couple of quotes and a short reflection of my own on the quotes.

1) knowledge is power.

2) knowledge is a lock and it's key is the question.

Power is one of the most sought after and admired things in the world and yet the key to its lock is available to each and every one of us, but we don't care to utilise it.

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this and it has inspired you to ask more and better questions.

I will hopefully be back in the next week or so with a new entry.