23 things I learned in the past 23 years

We all want someone to start the process of revolutionary change. However, we are not willing to put ourselves out there and generate positive changes.

I have recently identified a lot of things that I really want to do, make, learn and I made a plan to execute them.

So I thought it would be a good idea to look back at the things I have learned for the past 23 years of my life to identify what I need to learn by the end of this year.

Here are 23 lessons I learned in the past 23 years:

1. There are always going to be people who are smarter, better looking, more sociable, and just all around “better” than you. To be happy, simply accept yourself and be productive to be the best version of YOU.
2. Parents give up their freedom to raise us, and deserve a golden medal for that. Make sure to take the time to let them know how much you appreciate what they did to raise you up.
3. Don’t stop playing! I know what you will say: Some things stop being fun; like spinning around until you fall but there are other things you never grow out of.
4. Do what you love and you won’t have to work a day in your life.
   
5. Travel. I have never looked back on a trip with regret.
6. Don’t be in a rush. Do things in your own time, no matter how early or late other people think it is.
7. There are two types of friends in life: the kind that when you go away for a long time and come back, it feels like nothing’s changed, and the kind that when you go away for a long time and come back, it feels like everything’s changed. Some friendships aren’t forever and it’s ok.
8. The things that are hard and scary to talk about are vitally important to talk about.
9. The people who I respect most – personally, spiritually, professionally – are the ones that took risks. Be brave.
10. Read more and learn new things whenever you can.
11. Surround yourself with those who push you forward and believe in you.
12. Listen and be open to other’s opinions.
13. Stay wary of drama, it’s bad for your health.
14. The secret to getting through life it is to keep looking forward and trying harder.
15. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Learn to laugh at yourself.
16. Be respectful of others and yourself.
17. Pick your battles with great care. But once you’ve chosen them, win.
18. Learn to eat better, get enough sleep, exercise regularly, cut out/down on some of your more unhealthy choices.
19. No one is perfect. Just be honest with yourself, look carefully at what you’ve done wrong, and then, learn to let it go.
20. Give back to your community, city and your country.
21. If you’re healthy, you’ve got everything you need. Stop crying about an unreturned message and get some perspective.
22. The World doesn’t care ! Do what makes YOU happy and stop worrying about what others might think !
23. If you read the internet enough, you will start thinking that World War III is imminent, that corporations rule the world through some conspiracy, that all men are rapists, that all women are lying, that arabs are terrorists, and on and on. Life is simple, people are good, don’t consume everything the media feeds you.

Today, I am thankful for…

What are YOU grateful for Blog friends ?

Today, I am thankful for my little sister.

Talking to her is like looking at myself in a mirror, we share mannerisms, we finish each other’s sentences, we read each other’s minds and we laugh at the same things which is always a good thing.

I am thankful for her constant support, her original passion for cooking, her love for sundays, her obsession with the Vampire Diaries (God knows she cried her heart out when Stephan died).

I am thankful for the fact that she will tell me what she likes and dislikes in me, that she continues to see in me what I could never see in myself and that she always acts like my big sister even though she’s 4 years younger than me.

My little sister is smarter, stronger, more beautiful and more poised than me.

Yesterday, she told me: « You know what ? I would have loved you even if you weren’t my sister » and then hugged me for a long time when I replied: « Well, I love you so much because YOU ARE my sister and I wouldn’t change that for the World. »

That’s the kind of human being I was blessed with. I have expressed my appreciation towards so many people over the past 3 years on my Blog but not even once to my little sister Jalila.

I know you’ll probably read this by the next 10 minutes. Get off Facebook and go read a book.

I love you to bits and pieces and I will be thankful for you, forever and always.

Hind.

PS: Jalila and I love horses. Just saying.

Computer air high fives.

 

Bring back our girls

One year ago this month, Boko Haram‘s whose name means “western education is forbidden” released a video announcing a new, reprehensible front in its bloody attempt at forced Islamism: his fighters will begin abducting girls and selling them.

On April 14, Islamic militants stormed an all-girl secondary school and seized the students. On Monday, a video was released showing the leader of Boko Haram claiming responsibility. State officials report some of the girls have already been sold off as brides for as little as $12. Others were reportedly forced to marry their abductors, and taken to neighboring Cameroon and Chad.

We are talking about school girls who are 12 to 18 years old, girls who have been kidnapped from their school in northeastern Nigeria nearly three weeks ago.

Journalists and bloggers from all around the World have been writing columns partly to apply more pressure on the Nigerian authorities, who seem uninterested in the case, and partly because they are offended by the contrast between the global media uninterest in the even greater number of missing schoolgirls.

It is important to note that what’s at stake is not just these girl but also the parents who are going to become scared to send their girls and even boys to schools in this area where only half of adults are literate. The country will slide further into illiteracy, economic difficulty and backwardness.

I believe that education is  very important but it is not just about building schools, it’s also about ensuring security so that parents feel safe sending their children to school.

Weeks after their abduction, 276 out of 300 nigerian school girls remain captives of this extremist militant group that threatened to sell them into slavery and the shocking number is still a piece of bad news that people refuse to listen to.

Somthing needs to be done. However, when you pressure western powers, particularly the American government to get involved in African affairs  and when you champion military intervention, you become part of a much larger problem. You become a complicit participant in a military expansionist agenda on the continent of Africa and this is not good. Remember #KONY2012 ?

According to one report, in 2013, American troops entered and advanced American interests in Niger, Uganda, Ghana, Malawi, Burundi, Mauritania, South Africa, Chad, Togo, Cameroon, São Tomé and Príncipe, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Lesotho, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and South Sudan.

So my question is what can us do to help the situation without asking for more U.S. military involvement in Africa ?

If you must do something, learn more about the amazing activists and journalists like this one and this one who have risked arrests and their lives as they challenge the Nigerian government to do better for its people within the democratic process.

If you must tweet, tweet to support and embolden them. Don’t join any government and military in co-opting this movement started and sustained by Nigerians !

Youtube video of the day

Do you have what it takes to handle the World’s Toughest Job?

It requires more than 135 hours per week, constant mobility, keen coordination and adept communication.

12 years a slave

Kidnapped in Washington city in 1841 and rescued in 1853.

It is the heattbreaking true story of Mr Solomon Northup who went from being a free man to a slave for… 12 years !

The movie on the other hand conveys some penetrating truth about America’s original sin. It wasn’t easy to watch and I believe it shouldn’t be.

The unflinching, unconfortable, brutal scenes about slavery and the journey of survival for freedom earned this piece of art 3 oscars and made of it an entirely necessary modern classic.

To make a long story short: This is one of the best autobiographical stories I ever read and definitely the best TRUE STORY movie I have ever seen.

Give it a go, it is totally worth it.

Computer air high fives Blog friends.

VLOG: Women who made Morocco proud

VLOG: Top 5 favorite travel books

What the world eats in pictures

This photographic report exposes the proliferation of processed foods in the western diet and in the diets of many developing countries the world over.

These images are from the book ‘Hungry Planet: What the World Eats’ by Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluision.

It’s an inspired idea, to better understand the human diet, explore what culturally diverse families eat for a week. Their portraits feature pictures of each family with a week’s worth of food purchases. We soon learn that diet is determined by largely uncontrollable forces like poverty, conflict and globalization, which can bring change with startling speed.

Thus cultures can move, sometimes in a single jump, from traditional diets to the vexed plenty of global-food production. People have more to eat and, too often, eat more of nutritionally questionable food. And their health suffers.

Mexico:

Britain:

North Carolina, USA:

Australia:

Germany:

Italy:

Canada:

France:

Japan:

China:

Kuwait:

Turkey:

Mali:

India:

Chad:

Ecuador:

5 of the World’s Most Beautiful Libraries

For the last couple years, Jill Harness has been rounding up the world’s most beautiful libraries by continent. Here are 5 of the most beautiful libraries in the World,, in no particular order.

Trinity College Library, Ireland

Image courtesy of Irish Welcome Tours’ Flickr stream.

Aside from being absolutely gorgeous, with two story dark wooden arches, this is also the largest library in all of Ireland. It serves as the country’s copyright library, where a copy of all new books and periodicals must be sent when they apply for copyright protection. The library is also home to the famous Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript created by Celtic monks around the year 800.

 Bibliothèque Nationale de France, France

Image courtesy of Wikipedia user Zubro.

The National Library of France has expanded greatly since new buildings were added to house the collection in 1988. Even so, the old buildings on the Rue de Richelieu are still in use, and are utterly gorgeous as well. These buildings were completed in 1868, and by 1896 the library was the largest book repository in the world, although that record has since been taken from it.

The Library of El Escorial, Spain

Image courtesy of Jose Maria Cuellar’s Flickr stream.

This library is located in the Royal Seat of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, the historical residence of the king of Spain. Phillip II was responsible for adding the library and most of the books originally held within. The vaulted ceilings were painted with gorgeous frescoes, each representing one of the seven liberal arts: rhetoric, dialectic, music, grammar, arithmetic, geometry and astronomy. These days, the library is a World Heritage Site, and it holds more than 40,000 volumes.

Handelingenkamer, Netherlands

Image courtesy of Jackie Kever’s Flickr stream.

The library of the Dutch Parliament contains every record of parliamentary hearings and discussions. Because it was built before electric lighting made the storage of books a lot safer, the building was constructed with a massive leaded glass dome in the ceiling to allow in light and minimize the need for candles and gas lamps inside the library.

Jay Walker’s Private Library, USA

Images courtesy of Aaron « tango » Tang’s Flickr stream.

Priceline.com founder Jay Walker’s gorgeous wooden library, filled with an array of historical and pop culture artifacts, has been labeled by Wired as « the most amazing library in the world.” As if the gorgeous etched glass, labyrinthine design and multiple stories of book shelves weren’t impressive enough, the collection of rarities stored in the library is completely mesmerizing. Between books bound in rubies, a Sputnik, a chandelier from Die Another Day, and a list of plague mortalities from 1665, visitors to the private library might just have a hard time leaving.

Of course, with all the thousands of libraries in the world, this list of beautiful libraries still leaves out plenty of gorgeous architectural marvels. If you feel your favorite library was left out, feel free to tell everyone about it in the comments.

A Woman Who Is Changing The World

Shiza Shahid began volunteering in women’s prisons at 14 years old. At 16, she began a year-long experience as the only female volunteer in an earthquake relief camp.

It probably goes without saying that by the end of her teenage years, she’d figured out a lot about life.

Now she runs the Malala Fund, which advocates for girls’ education all over the world. Shahid’s views on life and what we can do to if we really want to make a difference are pretty kick ass.