Uncategorized

Rereading

Bardees, Leave a comment

I hardly re-read any paperback books. The only books I usually re-read are audiobooks because I miss a lot of the content first time round. However, this is my 4th year reading The Daily Stoic. This is such a good annual read that I highly recommend.

Whenever I see something underlined or highlighted by my past self I get mixed feelings. Sometimes I feel “I hardly changed, this part still amazes me“. Other times I feel “That does not resonate with me anymore“. Many times I wonder what I was thinking when I circled a passage many times. I always highlight new parts that stand out to me but did not before.

Rereading a book is a lot like rereading old journal entries where you meet a younger version of you. You feel you changed a lot and not that much simultaneously. It is a beautiful feeling. That’s why I’m more convinced I need to take book notes because they are also a documentation of who we are when we read those books.

Rereading

Notes to self

BardeesLeave a comment
  • Find more ways to teach groups, this is one of my most favorite activities. Public speaking career in the horizon?
  • Re-design the habit of writing daily, negative feelings are becoming more than the positive. Or, again, maybe it’s the weekend late night writing effect. Or just change the frequency to 6 days a week? Still thinking about this.
  • I did a super job today, good job me (don’t forget to tell yourself that).

Notes to self

Pre-Summer Sprint

BardeesLeave a comment

A new work week is upon us, and it is the onset of the last school term before summer vacation. Working hours are back to regular, lunch breaks are back, vaccinated employees can come work at the premises and lockdown hours are delayed to 11pm in Jordan. Life is so close to the way it was once upon a time.

That means, we have a few weeks to do something remarkable before we free up our calendars again to spend time with loved ones who are coming from abroad or whom we are travelling to.

What remarkable thing will you accomplish?

Pre-Summer Sprint

Two-Step Verification

BardeesLeave a comment

Just please. Activate it on all your important apps and spare yourself and people around you unnecessary future trouble. Check the security settings on your apps. Do it now, it will only take few minutes.

Two-Step Verification

Speak Up

BardeesLeave a comment

First Day of Eid for my Muslim friends. I went out in the morning to run an errand. It wasn’t 10am yet and the neighborhood kids were out in the street in groups, dressed up so nicely in their Eid clothes, sisters matching and sometimes not. I was happy for them and the day they have ahead.

Then, my heart clenched.

Kids not 3 hours far from me, woke up to destruction of their homes and a missing parent or sibling. The last day of the holy month of Ramadan was the day when they were supposed to be eagerly waiting for Eid. Instead, Palestinian kids in Gaza witnessed traumatic fear and agony that no kids ever have to go through.

This has to stop. What’s happening to our brothers and sisters in Palestine is inhumane. Please spread the word.

#SaveSheikhJarrah #GazaUnderAttack #FreePalestine

Speak Up

New superpower

Bardees, , Leave a comment

I read a lot, however, I noticed that since starting writing here daily I have been reading differently. I am noticing the various writing styles and the expressions used so much more. I re-read sentences just to take in how clearly and concisely they were written. It is as if I am acquiring a new superpower, a new set of eyes. What a treat.

New superpower

The Key to your happiness

Bardees, , 1 Comment

When my husband and I were on the 9-hour flight back from our far east honeymoon, I got tired of watching movies so I decided to listen to an audiobook. It was The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship by Don Miguel Ruiz. It taught me that when we go into relationships, we usually give the key to our happiness to our new partners: “Here it is, it is now up to you. My happiness and misery are all in your hands.” But, that is the biggest lie we have believed based on the movies we watched and the fairytales we grew up reading. Nothing outside of us holds the key to our happiness. It’s too much of a responsibility, a burden even, to give to anyone.

Can you feel the irony of me learning about this as a new bride? The message was so loud and clear that it made me understand why it was so easy for me to get disappointed by my unrealistic and unmet expectations of what new husbands should and shouldn’t do. It was hard to hear, yet liberating.

The timing, in fact, always amazed me. It could not be any more perfect. This lesson was the wedding gift I needed to integrate as we were about to start our new life together.

The Key to your happiness

Light & Easy

Bardees, , , Leave a comment

“Imagine if the hardest thing you have to do at your job was light and easy. Instead of dreading the year-end report you prepare for the leadership team, what if it felt light and easy? What if the budget you had to present at the sales conference was light and easy? What if standing on the scale was light and easy? What if the parent-teacher meeting for your high schooler was light and easy? Take anything challenging in your life and think what would happen if you retired the frustration you have about it and instead replaced it with a soundtrack that said “light and easy.” I scribbled those three words on a Post-it note and stuck it on the window I look out every day at my desk. From here on out, the writing process was going to be light and easy. That was the new soundtrack I was going to listen to.“
~Jon Acuff, Soundtracks:The Surprising Solution to Overthinking

I am really enjoying listening to this book, Jon is so funny too. I love this part about Light & Easy and thought I would use it to make today’s post easy.

Go read this book, especially if you are an overthinker. Even if you are not. It will give amazing mantras that you can tell yourself to move upward in life.

Light & Easy

Morning Flow

Bardees, , , Leave a comment

I spent 90 minutes this morning preparing, almost studying, the notes for my new podcast episode about Atomic habits (the part about the 3rd law of habit formation). While doing that, I opened the webcam of my laptop and recorded a video of myself. In the video, I said: “Remember Bardees, how perfect you feel right now.”

I made this video as a documentation of the flow state I was in while researching and studying to share knowledge and my own experience in the podcast, which I spent 60 minutes recording afterwards (including few interruptions here and there).

It’s good to rediscover what we’re good at and enjoy doing for hours at a time. It’s so rewarding to do deep work and get to experience flow.

When was the last time you experienced flow?

Morning Flow

Whiteboard Love

Bardees, , , , 1 Comment

What’s the most important thing I need to do today?

This is a wonderful question that keeps me focused. I wrote it in on the whiteboard in my office right in front of my desk. I will keep it there for a while until I need to change it again when it gets blended with the environment.

The first thing I asked for when I started my current job three years ago is a whiteboard to write inspiring quotes or questions on, like I had done in my previous job. Come to think of it, it’s been a while since I thought how grateful I really am for this space I am inhabiting 8 hours a day. It’s the first office I have with a door, a whiteboard and an evergreen plant.

I never wrote a To-Do list on my whiteboard. I have my planner for that. My whiteboard is to inspire me and whoever passes by my office or checks my social media.

In fact, my early Instagram feed was photos of my whiteboard quotes, not always taken in the highest quality, but always motivating and never boring quotes like this and this and this

I also kept all the quotes I picked and wrote on my whiteboards throughout the years in a Google doc so I wouldn’t repeat one by mistake. When I started this job, this doc came in handy as I referred to it to write quotes again.

What’s on your whiteboard?

Whiteboard Love