Category: inspiring

Categories
inspiring non-fiction

The Distance Between Us – My Interview With Dr. Nijher

We all have our days of reckoning: the day we are born, the day we realize who we are. For Dr. Navinder Nijher, it took two days for the latter. Unlike me and my friends, who remember 9/11 through the TV images, through our interactions with our distant locales, Dr. Nijher was on ground zero. Securing in body bags, his team collected torsos, arms of people who had jumped off the skyscrapers. To save a life from debris, they made life and death decisions like whether to chop a limb or wait for equipment. Stationed in the American Express Center with oxygen tanks and other supplies, they watched and worried about additional structures collapsing. Dr. Nijher had seen trauma before, such as gunshots. “But those victims still had their skin tone. Here, everyone was the same color.” Ashy. A weeping firefighter handed them his friend’s body in a bag and lunged back into the smoke. He refused their care, focused on helping others. Dr. Nijher never saw him again.

Dr. Nijher

That day, he was a doctor, a hero in scrubs, a colorless physician volunteer, who hitched a midnight ride via a boat to his hospital in Brooklyn, not home. Another on-call day later, he reached home past one in the night. In the morning, his roommate refused to let him leave without accompanying him. Strange, he thought. A day ago, he had cleaned open wounds at ground zero in what resembled a nuclear war zone. Why would he need protection from his roommate? Dr. Nijher hadn’t absorbed the news cycle that had fastened to the TVs across the globe.

He didn’t realize not only did he carry the weight of sights and sounds, the bloody flesh’s nauseous smell, but also the turban over his head. Undeterred and unable to let go, he snapped the aftermath pictures. Today, not in his scrubs, an average American wounded by the 9/11 trauma, he grasped the change when he stood across the attendant inside a gift shop.

When he asked the price to develop his camera roll in one hour, the shopkeeper retorted. “For you people, five hundred dollars.”

People filled the streets. They yelled Osama at Dr. Nijher. Two days. They differed as night and day, reckoning Dr. Nijher about who he was and who he wanted to be, the boy who grew up in the mountains of New York tucked far away from the Sikh community but protected inside his home’s bubble. He gave interviews, appeared in Newsweek, and crossed the country, speaking. Because that is who Dr. Nijher is: a hero.

I asked him today, twenty years later, have we healed as a nation? Do we know one another better? His calm and pragmatic response stunned me. Not quite. Dr. Nijher blames the lack of information for it. After 9/11, the Sikh community has outreached across the aisle better, but not enough, limiting it to the population centers. But where he lives, in Florida’s red rural county, north of Orlando—deep Trump country—there’s more work left, which doesn’t involve going from his gated community to the hospital or attending the Gurudwara every Sunday. Instead, we must better integrate with those who don’t know us or fear us. That doesn’t involve educating people or holding seminars for like-minded individuals, rather penetrating the very fabric of America through institutions like schools, sports, charities, local boards. Don’t live a disconnected life. Dr. Nijher coaches a sports team, which avails him with opportunities to do just that, break the stereotype, break the victim mentality, and assume responsibility for our American lives.

I thank Dr. Nijher for being willing to talk to me as I collected real-life stories on what it’s like to be a Sikh in post 9/11 America. While he hasn’t read my book, and this is not an endorsement, Land of Dreams, my upcoming fiction book, has provided an outlet for me as I delved into our divides. To diminish our distances is to reach across the aisle and learn about one another.

Releasing this June, my book House of Milk and Cheese (originally Land of Dreams) is an #ownvoices narration about growing up in an immigrant Sikh family in post 9/11 America. Subscribe at www.bookofdreams.us to win a FREE copy.

Image by Marisa04 from Pixabay 
image source – Ivanovgood from pixabay

Categories
inspiring writing

My Interview with K. M. Weiland

K.M. Weiland lives in make-believe worlds, talks to imaginary friends, and survives primarily on chocolate truffles and espresso. She is the award-winning and internationally-published author of Outlining Your Novel, Structuring Your Novel, and Creating Character Arcs. A native of western Nebraska, she writes historical and speculative fiction and mentors authors on her award-winning website Helping Writers Become Authors.

K. M. Weiland answered five questions for me. Here they are:

1. You have written both nonfiction and fiction. Does your success with nonfiction books like Outlining your Novel and Structuring Your Novel help you as a fiction writer? Does it carry some cons, too?

Definitely helps. My teachings on writing have all grown out of my own journey of developing and deepening my technique for writing my own novels. Writing articles and books about those techniques has forced me to solidify my understanding of concepts in ways I doubt I would have done without the opportunity of teaching others. If it creates any cons, it’s probably just the pressure of trying to live up to my advice!

2. How do you balance personal life with your consistent social media presence  and writing? Let me elaborate. Social media and writing are addicting. (especially for moms like me–I have three little ones at home), how do you compartmentalize your life?

I am adamant about not allowing technology—specifically, the Internet—to rule my life. It’s a necessary, and often wonderful tool, but it can easily become a harsh master. Still, that’s easier said than done.

I start by scheduling the time I spend reading or communicating on social media. Then two particular tricks I use to control how much I’m on the Internet are:

  • I turn the Internet off at night and leave it off throughout the morning, which is my writing time.
  • I keep my phone in a different room and turn it off when I’m trying to concentrate.

3. What about writing do you find as most challenging?

Uh, everything? 🙂 But, seriously, a major Achilles’ heel I continually struggle with is creating authentic antagonistic motivations. Since this is what drives the conflict and the plot, it can cause me no end of trouble. I’ve gotten much better at it, but feel like I have a long way to go.

4. In your experience, what’s the most common mistake new authors make?

I hesitate to call it a mistake, since I think it’s something we all have to learn as we go, but I’d say not recognizing that sound story structure is what makes a story run—especially when you use it to not just construct your plot, but to harmonize character arcs and theme.

5. What’s the coolest thing about calling Nebraska a home? 🙂

I’m actually in Missouri right now. But I miss the West a lot. Right now, what I miss the most, is probably the summers with no humidity. 🙂

K.M. WEILAND
Historical & Speculative Novelist | Helping Writers Become Authors http://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com | http://www.kmweiland.com

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Categories
inspiring moral Opinion

You Must First Believe in Yourself

Life has the audacity to bring the strongest to their knees. To be alive is to dream for a better life and be dissatisfied with what you have, isn’t it? Desires propel us forward, sure. But sometimes, they also make us unhappy with what we have without them. Take the professional world, for instance, the corporate world, where merit isn’t always instantly granted with rewards or recognition, it may not be a right place to be in a state of wait for someone else to recognize and give you that promotion. Because I can tell you, recognition of mistakes reaches you much faster than any months and months of arduous work under your belt. The only secret sauce to success is to first believe in yourself. Rest will follow even if it takes a little time and comes to you not in the shape, way, or form you had visualized.

What is self-belief?

Wiki: The concept of self-confidence self-assurance in one’s personal judgment, ability, power, etc.

It is a confidence in your skills, in your future, in your present, in your abilities when all else is failing (or not). When people doubt you or are too busy to notice, self-belief is a state of mind, really, that negates the need for second-hand validation and the belief that the positivity in your heart has and will continue to translate into success, sooner rather than later.

You MUST first believe in yourself because:

  1. Situations change
    The situations that bring us down, pass. The situations that lift us pass as well. What sustains is your opinion about yourself. Do not let that opinion vary by external circumstance because circumstance is fleeting and fickle.
  2. Positive beliefs materialize in positive outcomes
    Your self-belief when situation is tough manifests in the form of calmness in the face of adversity. Positivity is like a rock that keeps you standing sure-footed under hurricane-force winds. It makes your heart happy, your face glow, and people gravitate to such personalities. Success is inevitable for these people because self-belief keeps them contributing positively, and their productivity does not take a hit when life gets them low.
  3. Self-fulfilling prophecy of the negative beliefs
    Take the contrast, for instance, when you doubt yourself, that keeps you quiet in meetings, it can make you turn away because of cynicism. Cynicism that nothing positive will ever change in the world. That results in you giving up. People perceive you differently now as someone who is taking the back seat (maybe because you internalized something external to you). This is the definition of a self-fulfilling prophecy and do not fall in its trap. Snap out of it, catch yourself when cynicism grabs your mind, and say, I am just feeling a little low today. This is not the true me.
  4. Self-belief keeps you from internalizing the negative circumstances
    When you trust in your abilities (you are good at what you do and know how to learn where you fall short) and your external surroundings become negative, maybe, due to a negative person or outcome, the self-belief gives you the wisdom to disassociate yourself from the negativity. It is them, not me.
  5. Self-belief transcends in your belief in others
    We view the world with the same lens we view ourselves with. If we view ourselves as helpless, negative, nothing good ever happens to me, we see others the same way, and when they break this stereotype and get ahead, we burn in envy. Really. How does she always know how to say the right thing and get ahead? This is human nature. View yourself with positivity, and we reestablish your belief in goodness of humankind that good eventually prevails, hard work is rewarded, and if we put our hearts and minds, we get what our hearts desire.
  6. Self-belief teaches patience
    Here is a welcome side-effect of self-belief. It teaches you to wait. When nothing is going per plan, it is that sure voice in the head, that says, hold on, all is well. When all else is failing and failure is long and dreary, it is that therapy that keeps on whispering, keep going–wake up, take a deep breath, and give it your best, just one more day at a time. Sometimes, that is all that is needed. Sure, there are instances when doing the same things, will not yield different results. We need to pivot. While pivoting, self-belief gives you the patience to wait for the results from the pivot.

 

Finally, self- belief can be cultivated. It is not an entity we are born with or have lost because of a harsh childhood, or a similar trauma. The voice that guides you can be cultivated mindfully by changing a few habits of the mind and body.

Sometimes, all that is needed, is a razor-sharp focus on your strengths. Use your strengths. And, everybody has weaknesses. That is not your forte alone. Here are a few things that can be done to nurture self-belief:

  1. When negative voice rears its head
    Tell yourself, “This is not my true voice.” Simple. Ignore or challenge it. Prove it wrong. Be your own motivational coach. Make a list of things that make you happy, do them. Daily.
  2. Flip a weakness into strength
    Do not let your negative voice come in the way of self-improvement. While taking a class can fix a learning gap, sometimes weaknesses are soft traits. Those too can be channeled—stubbornness into mindful determination, anger into purpose and passion, sadness into a creative outlet, dissatisfaction into a drive. Get where I am going with this?
  3. Develop your Super Powers / Hero Training
    On a piece of paper write the name of a super hero(s). It could be your mother or the Hulk, does not matter who. Then write down what traits make them a super hero. Think about what each positive trait means to you. Prime your subconscious mind.
    When dealing with a difficult situation, what would your super hero do?
  4. Create a powerful vision of yourself
    Let nothing else blur the image you have of yourself. Self-belief is not arrogance or narcissism but simply tools by which you can self-improve and become the more positive self.

 

Attribution – Mark Tyrell

 

 

Categories
inspiring moral non-fiction Opinion

Ten Ways to Break a Predictable Routine

Habits make us, shape us, keep us grounded. We follow same routes to work relishing the comfort in the familiarity of repetitions.

But have you ever pondered what makes a vacation so special?

It is the ultimate reset of routines.

But why wait for a vacation to gain a reset. Daily, there are opportunities to do precisely what a vacation gives you. Try these ten ways to break that routine and have the vacation experience right where you are, doing exactly what you do.

  1. Go where the tourists go
    Take that boat tour. Go visit the local museums. Suspend your legs in a lake and watch the ducks float by. Take a picture like a memory keeper of unusual things. That is what tourists do what we do not in day to day. Go to city center, people watch.
  1. Do something you are afraid of
    Break your comfort zones, be it in applying for a more challenging role at work, signing up for a marathon, march for something you believe in. When opportunity knocks on your door and you start to wonder how you would juggle things around or learn a new skill, say yes. Learn that new skill.

    Can’t think of anything? Go Bungee Jumping or Sky Diving.

  1. Eat at a new restaurant
    Drive to a new restaurant at least once a week. Eaten at all around? Try a new dish or venture beyond your normal miles. Go on a culinary tour – like ice cream shops, coffee shops, frozen yogurt, French bakeries, Greek restaurants…what ever culinary outlet your neighborhood allows. Do not hesitate to expand the boundary in which you normally eat.
  1. Cook a new recipe
    Cooking is cathartic but cooking in a short amount of time because you must, is a chore. Break that chore by trying a new recipe just for the fun of it.
  1. Take a new route to work
    Auto pilot is great. But the awareness you possess while sitting over a giant canyon observing each contour, each hew of sunlight is worth tapping by breaking auto pilot on any given day.

    Once I took a back road to work because of traffic and the smell of wild spring flowers is still a fresh memory years later. New routes take you out of auto-pilot, force you to notice views we innocently glance over.

  1. Watch at least one sunrise and a sunset
    Instead of waking up at the same time, rise with an alarm on a clear day to just watch the sunrise and do nothing else.
  1. Read a book for the fun of it
    There is solitude in your outer world as you submerge yourself in a book. But your inner world bubbles with the contents of the book. Sometimes, you must dive into another world to escape your own just like watching a movie, and book is the perfect medium.
  1. Celebrate the little treasures
    Why wait for a birthday to celebrate? Celebrate the little things – like when you did something you were afraid of, or you cooked a new dish. In the little celebrations breathes life.
  1. Write a Journal
     Write in your journal. After all, if you have reached number 9 of my blog, you have already altered your life. If you have altered your life, chances are there is lot of emotions inside of the new sights and sounds you have heard. Write.
  2. Take a hike
    Tourists hike. Some active people do. But even if you are a couch potato like me, get outside, find a scenic trail and get on it. Do not walk to get your step count in. Walk to gain a new experience.

 

So, pause and think of all the routines you have grown to be comfortable in. Break them. It will alter your attitude and open new doors of opportunity, I promise.

Categories
inspiring moral non-fiction Opinion Poetry

What We Can All Learn From The Solar Eclipse?

It was that type of an event where a gaggle of women working out together pulled out their phones in the middle of a workout to check the weather for. The solar eclipse was a big deal. And as the astronauts, scientists and regulars like me cheered, the philosopher in me also chimed in with an emphatic yes, yes it was great, and I hope most people in and around its path took a moment’s pause. Yes, I hope we thought about what the solar eclipse meant not just in the grand, scientific manner but in life in general. With my philosopher hat on, witnessing the moon eclipse the enormous Sun taught me a few lessons.

All darkness is transient

Darkness falls and it moves away. In life, when the going gets tough and it feels like we cannot take the darkness another second, remind yourself darkness will travel out as hurriedly as it rushed in. Hang in there.

The enormity of life

Our lives revolve around a tiny sphere. Ever stood under the shadow of a giant mountain and felt small? Well, the solar eclipse reminded us of world outside of our tiny troubles consisting of real objects in motion, and how do such large bodies in motion maintain such order? How close are we to chaos, after all?

There are things beyond our understanding

It is okay to admit to blind spots and to realize so much of our own life is outside of our own control. It is easy to feel the control when focusing on objects around us, finding the right job, tackling work problems, finding the right life partner, but in the grand scheme of things, really, are we the masters?

Something so small can eclipse something so large

How can the little stuff bother great humans for life on end? A tiny Moon, 400 times smaller than the Sun, is capable of eclipsing it, taking from it its light, its power even if for a few moments. Conversely, never judge a person by how less they have. A small person can move great things by doing the right thing at the right time. Nobody is too small to succeed. If the small pebbles can hurt the most, small efforts can pay off big dividends.

So I will thank the solar eclipse of 2017 for reminding me how small I am compared to the grand scheme of the universe and lending a unique perspective to me, one that I will carry close to my heart as I get ready to face a new day in the morning.

 

 

 

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