Enjoy The Ride

I have given this a lot of thought, is there anything out there that doesn't require competition? Competition is positive and healthy to a certain extent. But when the competition becomes the goal, not a practice in a journey, when competing loses the bigger picture, and becomes the main picture, at one point, one can't help but wonder, what is this all about?

Then I started to imagine a work that does not require competition, does it even exist? I thought for a while it doesn't, you will always have a goal and a challenge, you will always want to achieve and do better, and if you don't compete with your co-workers, you start to challenge yourself even more. I got tired, I finally was able to imagine that kind of work, and then realize it. I started my own business, and even though I got a lot of competitors out there with lower prices, I focused on my performance, I gave it my best, and my business took off. I never gave any attention to my competitors, I wanted to do better because I took a chance on doing something that has value, that is rewarding, to my clients, to myself, rather than to a big corporation that set goals for their employees and the employees start the competition without knowing where they are heading. I always look for better ways to improve my business, by working hard and being authentic in what I present, not by trying to beat up my competitors, and here's the song that I came up with:

http://apps.facebook.com/ilike/artist/Tony+Rabbat/track/Enjoy+The+Ride

Enjoy the ride

Let's sketch a picture                                   

take a brush and strike some lines                            

Don't worry about guidelines, or designs                        

paint your thoughts and what you feel                        

Let's do it together and make it real                            

Let's write a song

don't think of rules and commercial sound

or catchy phrases going round and round

play your tunes and how you feell

let's send a message and make it clear

Not everything has to reach the top                            

not every move we make has to compete                        

Have we lost the meaning of simple fun                                       
it's ok to try and be incomplete                                

not everything has to be pop                                

or trendy and up to date or up beat                            

Take the lead, I don't have to be the one                        

I'll enjoy the ride                                    

in the back seat                                        

let's take a walk

put your shoes on don't over think

are we gonna watch the sunset over a drink

is it gonna take an hour or forever

it's not the destination, it's being together

Let's have a talk

how have you been how are you now?

are you happy and content? that's all I care about

let's catch up over a cup of tea

just be yourself and I'll be me

Not everything has to reach the top

not every move we make has to compete

Have we lost the meaning of simple fun

it's ok to try and be incomplete

not everything has to be pop

or trendy and up to date or up beat

I'll take the lead, you don't have to be the one

just enjoy the ride

in the back seat

I don't want to worry too much                                

I don't want to worry at all                                   

am I going too slow am I in a rush                            

always pursuing a higher goal                          

I just want to have simple fun, let's keep in touch                    

Let's laugh and dance let's just lose control                           

Not everything has to reach the top

not every move we make has to compete

Have we lost the meaning of simple fun

of enjoying the ride, not just where it leads

not everything has to be pop

or trendy and up to date or up beat

they'll take the lead we don't have to be the one

let's enjoy the ride

in the back seat

http://apps.facebook.com/ilike/artist/Tony+Rabbat/track/Enjoy+The+Ride

 

Intimidation ... a sign of weakness

They always look at me and say that it doesn't have to be complicated, and then they tell me exactly how I'm going to handle it. I say I agree it's not complicated, all we need is this or that  document from the court and we can proceed. They lose patience, you can tell from their body language, then the cliche comes immediately (it takes about 2 to 3 minutes from the time they introduce themselves) "Listen, I'm a lawyer and I know and I can ... " Yawn.

I politely apologize for the inconvenience they have to go through, however we run everything by our  own legal department. They start the bully technique. It gets really ugly and loud. Then after showing me how angry they are since their threats didn't work, they say that "it's not personal, it's business".

They always leave  dragging behind them their empty threats, walking out of those large corporations with their red faces, cursing and cussing every employee who works there, not realizing that just because they have a degree in law, it doesn't mean that the world has to run its course according to what they have learned. they also don't realize that "intimidation is a sign of weakness". But what's pathetic about all that, is them not realizing that their real battle is not against us, the little victims who put up with all the unnecessary hostility, but that they're actually fighting with each other, because the guy on the help line from our "Legal" Department is also a………… Lawyer.

She lowered her glasses and gave me that really evil look and with a voice full of anger she said  "DOCTOR Hickey". I was taken aback, not because of the title, which was irrelevant to what we were handling, but because of her demeanor. She threw her coupon book at me and screamed her heart out that she didn't want people from India calling her at 9 AM on a Saturday morning. I handed back her coupon book and said to her "Ms Hickey, I am trying to handle your request to the best of my ability, but you're not exactly making it easy" And oh boy, she heard me saying "Ms" for the second time. She threatened to get me fired. I gave her my manager's name and his manager's name. I just wanted her out of my sight.

She came back and told my manager that her problem was not with the people in India or with the mis-posted mortgage payment. Her real problem was with me not calling her "Dr. Hickey" And here's how she felt entitled to that title; her logic, and that is being quoted from her complaint to my manager, was "I have worked so hard to get this title, to be where I am today, I was ahead of my whole class, I teach in a very respectful university, and I work in a very important hospital. So if I'm being addressed, I should be addressed by 'Doctor'".

Now here's what I'm confused about, so when I'm dealing with an engineer, should I call him/her engineer so and so, and when I'm dealing with a pharmacist, should I call them pharmacist so and so? Since when do we have to call each other by our titles? I wasn't aware of that mandatory protocol. But that justification has another problem Dr. Hickey. Even though you have worked so hard to earn your degree, do you know how hard everyone who comes your way has worked to get to where they are whatever that is. You don't know how hard I have worked to be an Assistant Vice President? Yet I never asked you to call me by my title. You don't know how hard the waiter who served you dinner has worked to be promoted from a bus-boy to a waiter. You don't know how hard that nurse has worked to earn her degree and get accepted at that particular hospital. You don't know how hard that cleaning lady is still working to provide for her sick son whom your degree didn't heal. So is that your justification why you wanted to be called a doctor? Do you really think that just because you are one, you can feel superior and disrespect people left and right!!!

Bottom line whether you have a PHD in medicine or law, you don't demand respect, you earn it with the way you carry yourself and treat people, and please............ don't leave me a hickey without at least making love to me first ;)

Betty's Spirit

I met Betty for the first time over dinner a few years ago at the house of my best friend's family. My friend asked me to talk with her real loud directing my voice towards her left ear. I did and we had a pleasant conversation and I was amused by her spirit. I suggested to her to buy the cordless headset that enables her to listen to the TV real loud without waking up her husband. She did and was very happy to be able to enjoy her TV shows and not worry about the volume.

I met Betty again last year, she remembered me and we talked about whatever two strangers would talk about over Thanksgiving dinner. It was wonderful seeing her again, even though I learned that she had just lost her husband who was her whole life and now she's alone facing the world with its challenges all by herself.

And this year I met her over Easter Dinner, she was very happy and we playfully fought over a certain dish that my friend's mom makes so well. Betty asked us to go over to her place and meet her little chihuahua Loulou whom she rescued from the annual Bow-wows and Meows that My friend does to promote awareness about adopting pets instead of buying them. But Betty wouldn't listen to any compliment about how she saved Loulou's life without responding that Loulou is the one who saved her life.

As we were walking, she asked us to slow down because she couldn't walk fast. We arrived to her place, just up the street, and Loulou barked her heart out at us. It took her 10 minutes to warm up and approach us, God only knows what she's been through before Betty adopted her that made her distrust human kind that much.

Betty was happy, so happy you can tell. Very simple woman in her 60s, suffers from Migraine, back pain, hardly able to hear, uses thick glasses to see and walks slowly because of her health issues. She grew up in an orphanage and had no chance to know or meet her parents. Had an abusive first husband who treated her so badly, then she married a better man whom she painfully lost to cancer. She lives on her own, hardly gets any visitors, rents out a room to help herself pay the bills, takes care of Loulou and survives every day with a smile on her face.

I know there are many more people with more health challenges, more pain in their lives, but what strikes me about Betty is her spirit. She's content, she's happy and she wants nothing but to take care of herself and her Loulou and be able to live her life. Very simple woman, real, genuine and so loving. We hugged before I left as if we were family. Some people are just like that, they love you and let you in and want nothing from you. Betty, you are an inspiring woman, I have so much respect and admiration for you!

Nostalgia

My life has two chapters, 26 years in Syria and 10 years in the US. And it feels like that I left a 26 year-old man in Syria hanging. There's a place in my heart that had stopped aging at 26, it's a big place and it got lots of good memories, even bad ones. But that place feels so real to a point where the kind of memories don't matter, it's the warmth, the strength, the pride, the authenticity and most of all the love it brings, that matters. I love that feeling and I visit that place everyday. So if you tell me "Move on", I tell you "I don't want to, because my past is my playground, I go there when I'm tired, I go there when I'm happy and when I'm sad. I will always visit it because if feels good, it feels right, it feels home".


When you hear an 80s song, or see a picture that has a funny outfit or hairstyle of yourself, before you try to hide it, think of how you felt when you were listening to that song, when you were wearing that outfit and that BIG hair, connect for a second. Enjoy the memory.

Today is the Good Friday, today is a day I spend physically in the US but mentally and emotionally in Aleppo, and if I don't do that, then today is like any other day, so to make it special, I visit my playground.

I left a 26 years old man in Aleppo when I left my home town for good, I protect him and I let him remind me of those 26 years every day. Every old picture, every old song takes me there, and I let it do that because it keeps me going.

That's whom I left behind, and I miss him.

Pick your Battles

Two phrases I heard over and over in different occasions, but never really listened to the words in them. When those were addressed to me at the right time, in the right context, they suddenly had a brand new meaning, and they made a change in the way I dealt with things onward.




She was a waitress, he was the owner's 1/2 brother, I was the bus-boy. I was proud that I hooked up the waitress who was a friend of mine to the job, I was proud of my seniority being there for 2 months, when she was there for a week, while it was only the 3rd day for the owner's 1/2 brother.

As a bus-boy I was in charge of setting the tables, placing the candles, the plates, the ashtrays before we opened. I always followed the instructions to the T. Nobody interfered in my extremely complicated and high-technical kind of job, busing tables that is, till that afternoon.

He arrived and shifted all the tables and the settings around, right after I was done arranging all and before I got the chance to look at my accomplishment with pride, as if I was an event planner who was ready for his celebrity client to walk in with 100s of guests. No, that was not the case, the owner's 1/2 brother felt superior to all and found his way around everything, his lack of taste attached enough damage I thought. I bit my tongue that day and re-arranged it the way I was instructed next day. Again he arrived and shifted everything around. I asked him why he was doing that, he said because he didn't like it the way I set it. I went to my friend/waitress and complained to her, she shrugged her shoulder and said "eh, why the headache, let him do what he wants" and she walked away. Such a simple sentence right! but it kept me wondering, why was I so anal about getting it the way his brother, the owner, wanted? it's not like it was going to save the lives of our soldiers at war or protect a certain species from being distinct. I let IT go "WHY THE HEADACHE!" and I let a lot go too.



I was a manager at A bank, she was a manager at B bank, and she recruited me to join the bank she was working for. At that point she was non-re-hirable at A bank where she worked before and where I first met her, I had no idea.

When I was managing my new branch, I was overwhelmed with how different it was compared to what I knew before. She came to highlight for me the differences she had to adapt to when she had the transition. While we were working and I was complaining, she looked at me and said with a stern tone "pick your battles".

I wasn’t sure what it meant but I started to prioritize my new challenges and learned to ignore and ignore and ignore. God bless the ignore technique, if it’s used right, it can be so healthy.

Five months later, after trying to clean up so much of the unethical behaviors I found around me, under me and over me at that bank, I picked my battle, I picked what’s left of my dignity and I picked my personal belongings and left. I left the company and went back to my previous bank, that was the battle worth fighting for.


Those two lines I heard above, I carry so dearly with me going through the different walks of life, not as much those who said them. Sometimes it's the ones you have the most casual relationship with, who say the most profound things that you might have heard before, but only at that moment, put into prospective.



So now I pick my battles, and if I have to go down, I go down fighting. But I learned that there’s so much going on that deserves the right amount of ignorance. Why the headache when we can avoid it.

My Mother

Here's my childhood story with my mother:

My mother, a lovely elegant friendly and smart lady, was a fairly strict young woman in her twenties and thirties, she had no choice but to while raising four kids back to back on foreign soil, starting at age 21 and getting her work done by age 27. She took a stand after her youngest and said to my father that her job of delivering babies and giving birth to those tiny creatures was over, so if he wanted more kids, he could go elsewhere. Well, that didn't work well for dad since he was Catholic, our very neighbors were able to marry four women and he couldn't do that, how unfair life can be sometimes! Well, after we grew up a little, I'm sure he changed his mind about having more of us, I mean think about it for a second, kids are adorable when they're laughing and while they're sleeping, sure before they walk, but once they walk (and mind you four of them), your place loses that adjective known as "home", yet you wouldn't have it any other way, would you!

While dad was busy at work, Mom had to deal with raising all four of us. She was smart enough to raise us in a way that allowed her to have time for herself and dad. She was dedicated to her family, still is, and had it under control. She made sure that she asked all four of us (here starts the sarcasm) what kind of Sandwiches we preferred to take to school for snacks, or if we preferred a pocket money to buy whatever we felt like, what kind of lunch we would like to have when we come back home, how would we feel about playing in the train station yard till sunset, explained the mentality behind not playing in the streets every evening, why we should wash our feet up to our knees after coming back up to our apartment before entering our bedrooms or sitting on the furniture. She discussed with us the benefit of education and asked us to select the subject that we were most passionate about to spare some of her own time to develop that in us and see where it goes. She then explained to us the middle eastern mentality behind the Macho man, the head of the family who goes to work first thing in the morning and comes back at night when we're almost in bed, why displaying emotions was considered a weakness. And of course, she insisted on taking our approval for the way we were going to spend the summer vacation, the places we were going to visit, the kind of restaurants and food we were going to explore. The best part is that if we were not in agreement, or if we had mixed feelings about a certain thing, she would say "let's sit down and talk about it" or if we're not ready to talk she would say "You know what to do when you're ready to discuss this, for now I understand you need some space". It was all perfect until I woke up hearing her, screaming her heart out about my shoes being on the floor while she was mopping, with her hair up and tight she looked like a principle at school or a nun at a catholic church, she was a cleaning freak, and really really disciplined (something she sure knew how to pass on to us). I woke up and picked up my shoes off of the floor immediately. I hated Mondays and Thursdays, the days she had the deep cleaning of our five bedroom apartment, all by herself, then later on with the help of my sisters. Her smile became estranged on those two days, oh boy, dare you say something like “I don’t like artichoke for lunch” you were going to eat it and say something like ” woooohoooo Artichoke and Rice! Ymmmmmmmmmmy”

So yeah, I make fun of the past and I cherish the past so much, mom had it her way or the highway, we had no choice but to obey her rules, and those were many, like “this is lunch, deal with it or stay with no food, we are going there and you’re coming with us, that’s final, God help you if I learn from your siblings that you threw away your sandwich in the trash (the convenience of going to school with your siblings) it is what it is, you do it your way when you live on your own, oh really! that’s too bad, go to your room, or, what kind of kids are you, have mercy on me!!!! huh?”. She also said things like “how many times do I have to tell you that you need to make your bed before you take off", "aren’t ashamed of the way your drawers look like", "of course you can’t find it, look how messy your closet is” and part of that, extended to our friends who had a kick out of it “I said no phone calls from 2 to 4 pm, we take naps at that time", "let your friends experiment at their own apartments before they give you their wise advices”. Relatives never suffered from our visits, dad was too embarrassed to drag four children with him into his social activities so he simply never did, and mom had us sit next to her on the couch (when we fitted), and with one look from her in case we got loud, we froze on that couch and caused no damage to any one we visited. Still, mom had her sarcastic sense of humor; she would make fun of us and crack us up at the same time. Looking back, I have nothing but respect and admiration for what she's done and how she did it at such a young age on.

When dad was unemployed for years, mom never compromised a thing, she worked even harder and never complained, she learned, out of the blue, how to sew, how to knit, how to embroider, she mastered them and made sure that no Christmas or Easter goes by without her children wearing new clothes. She managed to find affordable markets and shopped far away from home sometimes to make sure that the most delicious food is served on our tables (Even with Artichoke, she would always say something like “try it again, now that you’re older, your taste and preferences change”, never got tired of that line)

The truth is, all four of us adore mom, she was our queen and still is, yes she had no opportunity to get high education at school (it wasn’t much of a fashion in her days) and yes all four of us were blessed to go to schools and universities, however till today we go to her with questions knowing how authentic her life experience is and how loving and giving she is. Maybe she wouldn’t get the answer to 9 x 9 immediately but she would tell us what to do when one of our kids is sick, how to clean something without damaging it, how to budget our monthly expenses, how important drinking green tea and working out is….etc

In two days we celebrate Mother’s day in the middle east, March 21st is officially the first day of the spring and what a better way to celebrate that starting with a day of appreciation to all mothers. My mother, all the respect to her, found a system that worked, a strict system when we were kids, a friendlier approach when we got older, and being best friend with us now. Happy mother’s day to all mothers, thank you for declaring the beginning of Spring, and to my mother, we love you so much, always have, always will, God bless you

A Prayer

"When I kneel down to pray, I thank God for my health, for being able to see, hear and talk, for being able to move, walk, touch and feel, for being able to accomplish simple daily tasks on my own. And I thank him for surrounding me with good people, people whom I can count on in tough times and enjoy their company anytime. I thank God for having a roof over my head and food on my table. I got all the basics covered, I'm a rich man. 

I neither care nor question what religion my God is, what political party he supports, I just ask him to remind me to treat people with respect, to have more tolerance and be less judgmental. I ask him to love people through me and love me through people. I don't pursue being popular, I just want to be able to draw a smile on every face that comes my way.

For all the talents and skills I was not blessed with, I ask God to make me enjoy what I don't have, in people, yet share what I have with them just like they share their gifts with the world

When I pray, I not only thank God, but I ask him to remind me never to take any of the blessings for granted, I ask him to keep me appreciative of what I have every time, not just after running into someone who is suffering, for it shouldn't take a dying man to make me appreciate my life, it shouldn't take a sick man to make me appreciate my health, it shouldn't take a hungry man to make me appreciate the food on my table, it shouldn't take a homeless man to make me appreciate the roof over my head, and it certainly shouldn't take a miserable man to make me appreciate the happiness I have and try to create around me every day. I'm able to smile, to breathe, to have a normal life, and I trust that I am where I'm supposed to be today, tomorrow brings its own blessings"

 

I thank God when I pray, that is my prayer