Of service and humanity: A message to all doctors

Being a doctor requires a certain degree of social and communicative skill, after all, as a specialist friend says, you are not a doctor without your patients. But truth be told many of our doctors assume a 'god-sent' status and forget how to relate to their patients as fellow human in need of health care. Many of us are able to share stories about certain doctors who have forgotten the beauty of service and the reason they are doctors that they treat their patients with little or no humanity, like to one my mother recently met when she had her knee looked at by a specialist who has lost the love for the profession that he would dismiss a patient’s concern by not addressing it. But then again, thankfully, there are those, like my daughter's pediatrician, who despite seeing over 20 patients in one session, can still speak with care and courtesy to the 23rd patient who comes into her office. I truly wish whoever considers this crucial profession takes into consideration the demands of service in its true sense. Otherwise go make money in some other profession.

Written in response to Che Det's blog entry on DOCTORS

Life and living: Part 1

Having a sense of faith, in this day and age, is not an asset, but at times appears to be a liability. We live in an age that sees the strong tension played out between having an unquestionable sense of faith in the unseen and needing a strong rational scientific explanation to anything and everything. we also live in an era that resists an acceptance of the another life after this and urges the best living of the here and now as it is the only life we've got. But once in awhile we need to be reminded that albeit today is important as it gives an opportunity to live out another day the best we can, we also, i feel, need to remember that today's actions feeds into tomorrow's possibilities and that tomorrow can be lived in this life or another, upon death.

Watching the African American Muslim actor-comedian Omar Regan’s interview on youtube recently i am reminded of the importance of taking the demands of this life in one's own faith-filled stride. I love the way Omar Regan appears to take the demands of living as a Muslim in Hollywood in his own Muslim-stride. He does not become someone else but as he says tries to live life with good manners and good character, which are the essence of Islam. Added to which, a strong sense of humor is crucial in such a chaotic world. In a nutshell, yes, one ought to live the best life today. But as I see it that day becomes a lot more positive when lived not just for the day but for the future possibilities it hold when lived with awareness of one’s connection to a higher being.


check out the youtube clip when he was interviewed during hajj season by AlJazeera
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3epjNnT9K_E

Facebook and all that ...

On the Oprah Winfrey Show Facebook a few months ago there was this post asking viewers to put in their thoughts about how facebook has changed their life. The following are some of the questions:

1 How has Facebook changed your life?

2 Have you reconnected with long lost friends and family members through facebook?

3 Did you find someone very special to you that you thought was lost forever? Did you find love on facebook and eventually get married?

4 How has Facebook changed your life?

5 Do you spend hours and hours on Facebook? Are you constantly checking your friend's status updates? Do you write status updates every hour? Do you constantly poke people or send them "good karma" all the time?

6 Are you spending too much time on Facebook?

7 Do you regret posting something on Facebook?

8 Did you post a status update that you thought was silly but now you regret it? Did someone see an embarrassing photo that you can't live down? Did you find out a secret when someone posted information on your wall? Did you write on someone's wall and now you're thinking "why did I do that!"

9 Did you reveal an embarrassing secret you wished you hadn't on Facebook?


The thing is none of these questions appear significant to me and I began to wonder if perhaps I have been using the tool wrongly.

I did not get on facebook to get reconnected with long lost friends. I didn’t get on facebook to inform others of my private life, quite happy keeping it private really. Neither did I get on facebook to network with new people. So why did I get on facebook, I ask myself bemusedly?

I got on facebook for purely personal reasons – to be updated on the latest event/thought happening in the lives of some public figures I admired and wanted to keep abreast with. I also wanted a site where I can send some of my favourite songs, interviews, movie clips, lecture series that I got off youtube for ‘safe keeping’. It’s my electronic journal or as I call it on my facebook profile, they are a collage of my interests. I don’t do it to inform others but I choose to create a collage for my personal viewing. Albeit there are a meagre amount of people I consider my social contacts, in general I ‘hang out’ with the people I don’t otherwise meet or are in contact with. I wonder if that means I am abusing the facebook service just a little?!

Some relationships are meant to break up.

Some relationships are meant to break up. We all assume that when two people come together and say to one another, ‘I want to share this journey with you’, they will be together for life. But my personal observation of this, is not so.

I use a simple illustration of two of my former students who were known at the school as best friends. For over two years they are always seen together, and they appear to share a common bond. Lecturers and students took it for granted that when you saw one, you will inevitable see the other. One would speak her mind at any given moment, in a candid manner that illustrates her strong sense confidence and agency. The other appears more at ease ‘being’ rather than ‘saying’. Yet the other, as I observe, did not overtly take the effort to discover anything beyond the immediate. But last year everyone noticed that these two very close friends were not very close any more. Long story short, they went their separate ways. Many of us tried to explain the break up in our own ways. Some said the one took something from the other, some said the one was very clingy and did not allow the other to do things on her own.

Now almost a year later as I see them both separately in my office, I see something positive about both of them. The one who was outspoken has continued her journey and will undoubtedly develop into a strong and formidable individual in her own right. And the other, who was ‘seen but not always heard from’ has since begun to discover newer interests and has since developed a wonderful ability to express her creativity in her chosen art. She speaks her mind not in the conventional manner of speech but through visual imageries. I am pleased to see that like her friend she too will leave the university having discovered her sense of voice and is now ready to develop her identity in a more positive manner, not as attached to another but as a person in her own right.

Some relationships are meant to break up, for the good of all. These two ladies will now have a chance to give more of themselves to themselves and to the world at large without anyone feeling the discomfort of being.

'We are who we choose to be.'

I did something at work yesterday which I felt in my conscience was right. I wrote an email in respond to something that happened and sent it out to the people who needed to hear it. Of course I was called in by the boss a few hours later. Of course I felt down because of it. But I could not articulate what I was upset about. Was it because the people I sent it to did not appreciate what I was trying to say (well then this wouldn’t be the first time!). or was it because I knew what I did was not wrong and I should not get a ‘slap on the wrist’ for it.

I then spent the evening feeling lost in myself, like I’ve lost the ability to make the right decisions based on the things I feel is right. At 38 going on 39 the last thing anyone wants to feel is uncertain about her/his gut feeling. And here I was feeling like I did wrong just because the people in ‘power’ didn’t appreciate my actions.

Then today, like everything in my life thus far, I stumble upon a short clip on youtube that reaffirms my belief in my own actions. It is an interview Tavis Smiley had with Will Smith (one of my favourite person alive), in which Will says, “We are who we choose to be”.

I choose to be that person who sends out that email. I choose to accept that what I did was right and for the better of others. I choose to be a person who solves issues I am faced with and not accept problems as a given and accommodate it in my life. To my boss who wanted me to accommodate the particular problem we were faced with and take it as a ‘privilege’ and not a ‘chore’, I say this: I choose otherwise.

Dealing with the Demands of Work Life.

I have been in my chosen profession for over 14 years now and am looking forward to another 14, god willing; and this is what i know for sure about me and work life so far - that i can get thrown into situations and have to deal with people of many walks of life with many hang ups of their own and i keep seeing this one pattern - i can deal with it and move on. i can get upset with my co-workers or even employers for their lack of work ethnics or lack of professionalism or generally lack of leadership skills but i am still able to work with them. i can loose my cool in the comfort of my office or space or vent my frustration to the 'chosen' few and still be able to face them with a straight face and speak in a civil manner. i use to call it 'being hypocritical' but now i call it 'dealing with the demands of work life'.

Whose the favourite

Yet another question being posted by my morning djs as I drive to work switching between stations to catch news and views instead of the music ( I honestly prefer my playlist instead of the ones on the air, but let's not go there at this point):
Did your parents have favourites between their children? Were you the favourite or the black sheep of the family? If you are a parent do you have favourites? Do you tell them they are the favourite?

I know the answer to this for me; i grew up being the black sheep of the family for various emotional, intellectual and perhaps physical reasons. I felt that I did not get the equal kind of attention that my other siblings did from our mom. I am not airing dirty linen here but making a point. I have since my twenties been very articulate about it with my mom and she has since (over the last 5 years) been very conscious about the way she treats each and every one of us. But all the same I have very vivid memories about the neglect I felt I was subjected to as a child in comparison to my siblings, and my mom, God Bless her, have come out and admitted to some of these things and i love her even more for it.

Yet if we ask ourselves can we honestly say we don't have favourites among the people in our lives? Between aunties or uncles - surely there is a favourite. Likewise between grandparents, between our teachers, between friends, between cousins, between nieces and nephews etc etc – each group of people presents us with possibilities in which we identify some as have more ‘significant’ in our life that others. We like and perhaps even love them all but there are a few who will stand out in our mind as our favourite uncle or aunt or grandparent etc. Equally as a teacher i do have students in each class who i think well of not because i think they are good but because they exhibit a character that makes them different from the others, and they endear me to them.

So i suppose I do understand my past in this way: i was not as articulate as my sister or as bright as my sister and brother or as beautiful as my sister or as outgoing as my sister; in a nutshell, unfortunately for my parents i was not what one would consider a child that shone from day one of life. I was a late bloomer and with others in the family to focus on and with so much commitments and responsibilities, I suppose it is understandable that one child is 'lost' in the frame of family life. I was fed, I was schooled, I was given the necessities of life but I felt devoid of recognition. I was not recognised for anything specific largely because I did not have any specific qualities to be recognised for; I was a below mediocre, below average in almost everything. Yet that ‘burden’ is something of my past that I have been attempting to accept and move on from in different ways - in my own person, in all my students and in my daughter – to recognise the qualities in myself and others which I feel makes I and them ‘special’ and the ‘favourite’ in my own eyes. I guess I want to live on the premise that I don’t need recognition from someone before I feel significant (easier said than done I know!).

I accept that I am not my mom's favourite and I accept that I cannot change that, but that does not mean I cannot have a healthy relationship with my mom today. The past does not define our sense of relationship, our inability to accept the shortcomings of the past will constrain our current state of care for each other. So i will not be the one she thinks off the most, so what? So i might not be the one she thinks well off when she recalls her children's childhood. so what? At my recent convocation, as i was putting on my robe and walking to the hall, she said this : the one who would cry when i ask her to do her reading or her school work is now a doctor; we both had an emotional moment! Must be wonderful for her to put that ghost to rest, that the one child who she thought might have difficulty amounting to anything in life due to my 'slowness @ lembab @ mangkuk (Penangite might know this word)' is now a significant member of academia. Once she and i are able to move beyond our rememberance of the past we can be more open to each other -- I find comfort in that knowledge.

House

I was listening to my usual breakfast show as i was driving to office last week, and the topic that was being discussed was this: If you could be in a tv show that best describes you or your personality, which would it be and why?

I use to play these types of psychological games at college with questions such as identify three animals that you like most and why; answering the question somehow gives one a perspective of the self that one would not be aware of.
So, now older and a litte wiser I embark upon answering the question which tv program would i like to be in? Well the fact is i dont get to watch much tv thanks in part to Ra'isah and her playhouse disney, and also because honesty i just am not into tv series as i hate being tied to any non-human such as a tv show that i would end up wanting to keep track of week after week irrespective of my other commitments -- been there, done that.

All the same, i do have a favourite character on TV that i somehow am hooked on, Gregory House (Hisham gets the series for me on line so technically i am watching it on tv :)). Perhaps its his bluer than blue eyes or tall lanky stature, or that choy smile he pulls when something unexpected crosses his path, or that quip tongue of his that always has something or other to say about something or other; i don't know exactly but i will say this, i love that he is so good at what he does that it does not matter what people think of him or the way he carries himself. He does not need to justify himself to the world and yet has an important function in it. I don't see myself in the character in anyway but i do have a strong need to want that sense of purpose in life - being so good at what you do that it appears as if you are almost born to do just that. My search continues.

Doa to put into practise

I got this list of doa from a dear friend of mine today along with a raya wish and i thought it best to share it with everyone here. Hope it be of benefit to all visitors of this blog. Take care and may we be guided always. -- waterfall

Bismillahirrahmanirrahiim (In the name of Allah the most merciful and the most benevolent)

1. Allah is He, than Whom there is no other god;- the Sovereign, the Holy One, the Source of Peace (and Perfection), the Guardian of Faith, the Preserver of Safety, the Exalted in Might, the Irresistible, the Supreme: Glory to Allah. (High is He) above.

2. Truly, my prayer and my service of sacrifice, my life and my death, are (all) for Allah, the Cherisher of the Worlds:

3. Our Lord! Truly Thou dost know what we conceal and what we reveal: for nothing whatever is hidden from Allah, whether on earth or in heaven.
4. Who created me, and it is He Who guides me;
5. Who gives me food and drink
6. And when I am ill, it is He Who cures me;
7. Who will cause me to die, and then to life (again);
8. And who, I hope, will forgive me my faults on the day of Judgment.

9. Our Lord!" (they say), "Let not our hearts deviate now after Thou hast guided us, but grant us mercy from Thine own Presence; for Thou art the Grantor of bounties without measure.

10. Our Lord! bestow on us Mercy from Thyself, and dispose of our affair for us in the right way!"

11. Our Lord! we have indeed believed: forgive us, then, our sins, and save us from the agony of the Fire;

12. Glory to our Lord! Verily we have been doing wrong!

13. My Lord! Grant Thou forgiveness and mercy for Thou art the Best of those who show mercy!

14. My Lord! Advance me in knowledge.

15. My Lord! Bestow wisdom on me, and join me with the righteous;

16. My Lord! Truly am I in (desperate) need of any good that Thou dost send me!
17. Ease my task for me;
18. And remove the impediment from my speech,
19. So they may understand what I say:

20. My Lord! I do seek refuge with Thee, lest I ask Thee for that of which I have no knowledge. And unless thou forgive me and have Mercy on me, I should indeed be lost!

21. My Lord! I seek refuge with Thee from the suggestions of the Evil Ones.
22. And I seek refuge with Thee O my Lord! lest they should come near me.

23. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the heavens and Lord of the earth,- Lord and Cherisher of all the Worlds

24. God bless our Master Muhammad (pbuh) who opened what had been closed, and who is the Seal of what had gone before, he who makes the Truth Victorious by the Truth, the guide to thy straight path, and bless his household as is the due of his immense position and grandeur.

25. Allah, bestow Your Choicest Blessings upon our Master Muhammad Peace be Upon Him and upon his extended family and his progeny according to the number of all things known to You. I seek the forgiveness of the One but for whom there is no God, The Truly and Perfectly Alive and The Self Sustained and I turn to Him with repentance. O The Truly and Perfectly Alive O The Self Sustained

Being blessed - my silver lining

You know you are blessed when family, friends, colleagues and students keep you in their thoughts in your hours of need. Since the news of my miscarriage got out, I have had nothing but encouragement and support, kind and thoughtful words, words of wisdom and most of all gestures of love from so many individuals. A colleague of mine said to me today, she's disappointed on hearing the news because she thought she would soon be an aunt to my baby; I love that a total stranger, who works with me and has only gotten to know me these last few months since working with me on a project, has taken me to her heart enough to think of me in this manner. I also love that students to whom i was a total stranger 10 weeks ago, hold me in their minds and hearts and take the trouble to leave me messages of hope and recovery. I love that a former student who is now a dear friend would take the trouble to get me the right herbs to eat and drink these 30 days in order for my body to recover what it had lost. I love that despite my lost and my sadness, I feel and can see the blessings around me. We should all be so blessed. God is great!

Emotional compass

When i had my miscarriage on Friday the 29th of August 2008 after 9 weeks carrying a fetus in my womb, i tried to be stoic about it and told myself that it's what God had intended for us. But when i saw Hisham break down in front of me i knew things were as bad as i felt. All the same, my sister is right when she said to me that evening - we are measured not by the number of children we have, but by how well we raise those that are in our care. That's the priority. Having said that, i will acknowledge this much; my husband in part is my emotional compass. When things get bad, as its sometimes known to happen in life, and i feel like having one of my blow ups or melt downs, i look to him for a reality check. And this latest episode in our life is bad but we'll get through it and god willing try again, and succeed.

Recognising one's self worth

Watching Carrie Underwood being interviewed by Oprah, I had a light bulb moment.

Carrie Underwood carries herself with that grace and softness that’s endearing. She holds herself in and not let what’s happening around her affect what goes on inside. She’s almost an observer of life, albeit an active member herself.

When Oprah ends the interview with a string of accolade, Carrie merely acknowledges the former with a smile and a thank you. It’s almost as if the praises are already a known fact to her. She does not appear to need others to tell her that she is this or that, because in her mind she already recognises her self worth.

My “aha” moment is this: recognise your self worth – are you a good teacher, are you a good mother, do you strive to do good in life, do you appreciate what God has given you, do you recognise the abundance that is you life? Acknowledge these things to the self and recognise them for what they are – precious gifts. And live in the moment and leave it at that. Waiting for others to recognise and acknowledge the value of me will be akin to wasting the life that is before me.

w.

Silence

The value of silence is overrated:
it tells nothing
yet
proposes everything
based solely on
the imagination
and expectation
of the other;
so
when lost for words
keep sister silence
your companion
and let others
imagine and believe.

So who is this guy? A Mother's Commitment

So, who is this guy
You’ve found for her?
He know anything about her?
What she look like?
How much she make?
How hot tempered she is?
How stubborn she is?
He care?

So who is this fellow
You’ve asked her to meet?
Who think he can take up
The responsibility
Of a wife
And later
A family,
Just maybe!

So, who is this joker
You want her to see?
Who she later must
attend to
Hand and foot
Day and night
For the rest of her living years!
Ah! So this is he
Who I doubt know how to make
A decent cup of tea
And household chores
Never in his vocabulary
And she must say yes to
And let things be!

For us

it is the invisible touch
of the distant souls
that understands not
the consequence,
yet comprehends
the innate intentions,
that bind us one
in this sacred act
of womanhood.

Human in being

We are made for the Heavens
not necessarily fitted for Earth.
We forget where we came from
we loose sight of our goals
we disregard our natural instincts
we turn deaf to our inner voices
we loose touch of reality.
We become human in our being.

Still waiting

She enters the room
looking lovely and lost.
The dress she wore
made her glow in the dim light.
She looks around
and finds no friendly faces.
She picks up a drink
and walks to a corner.
The music plays on
the night grows old
as she watches the couples dance
to one tune
then another.

She gets a nod
from across the room -
its time to go.
As she stands to leave
he walks through the door;

The old

the biscuit in the bottle
is now soft.
the crunchiness
is lost
in the stale air.
it no longer holds
any value
to the man
who bought it
sometime back.

he picks it up
and throws it to the dogs.
they swallow it whole
without thinking twice.

Old faces

see the faces
that bear no sorrow

watch the eyes
that memory's borrowed

what's left
of us tomorrow

but these old,
faded photos.

Father (first published in NST)

i went to my father
and told him,
'i would like to be married.'

first he went quiet
and that got me worried.
oh dear, thought i
perhaps he thinks me
too young
or that i should complete
my education
or that my sister has to
marry first
or that we could not
afford a marriage

almost a full minute later
with all seriousness
he uttered
'would
next
thursday suit you?'

(in memory of those who have helped me laugh back at life.)