My Skeptical Thoughts by Suleman Nasir (book club suggestions .txt) 📕

Chapter 20

The Home to Our Souls

“Our body is a well-set clock which keeps good time, but if it be too much or indiscreetly tampered with, the alarm runs out before the hour.”

–Joseph Hall

Our bodies are the record of our bearing towards them; they register how we minister to them. Similar to our homes, wherein we reside, our souls are the tenants of our bodies. Human body is the paragon of God’s entire array of creations, to which there is no equal. This formidable gift also entails the obligation of nursing and fostering it. Any food that we partake of or any drink that we imbibe leaves a positive or unpalatable touch on our bodies; to put it differently, we are what we eat.

Food is to man, what fuel is to a vehicle. Nutrients lent by food serve as a man’s driving force. It is the energy acquired through food that keeps a man alive and kicking. But if one satisfies his belly with the food that is deleterious and ill-suited to him, it will not only bring his health to ruin but will also unleash a hurricane on his psychological well-being. Many fatal maladies not only sprout from single gene mutation, but also spring from a network of biological dysfunction; the foods empty of necessary balance of nutrients are a note-worthy factor in that dysfunction. Under-nutrition and over-nutrition are both menacing to our health. Today, more people die of gluttony than of starvation. Foods that we intake also leaves an impact on our mood and mental health. It can be labeled as food-mood connection. Foods, namely refined carbohydrates, junk foods, and soda et cetera, tamper with blood sugar levels and are culpable for inducing anxiety, depression and insomnia.

Our thoughts and emotions also exert an influence on our body. Negative attitudes, feelings of sorrow, hopelessness, and overthinking can foment stress, which upsets the body’s hormonal balance, depletes the brain’s chemicals, and puts our immune system into disorder. To take delight in a healthy mind and a body bursting with health, we must do away with negativity bias. Negativity bias alludes to the fact that we spend the better part of our lives ruminating over the minor frustrations, and disregard the many chances we are provided with to experience wonder, awe, and gratitude. We should not let our mind oppress over bodies.

How we value fitness, healthy eating, stress reduction, and sleeping all impact how much happiness we feel. Emotions are linked to many physical properties in our body. Just in the manner we cater to our homes and embellish it, we should maintain an eye on our bodies to keep them in the picture of health, for as long as we are alive, our body is the only home our soul is going to live in.

Chapter 21

Do What You Love; Love What You Do

“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”

-Rumi

To us, a stable and sustained career is a holy grail, and it should be. When it comes to singling out a career, one might stumble upon manifold qualms. So, the question blooms that what sort of line of work should we employ for ourselves? The answer is what the title suggests, that is, do what you love. What you do is an asinine and frivolous debate; how you do it is what really matters.

To Quote Martin Luther King Jr., “If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.”

One should resort to the vocation he himself takes delight in, not the one that is suggested forth by his kinsfolk. No profession or domain of work is debased or futile; every line of employment is an important cog which keeps our social and economic machinery running. One should pore over the lives of those individuals who pursued their passion and interests that transitioned them into virtuosos in their spheres of work. Mozart, Shakespeare, Leonardo Da Vinci, Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde, and a wide panorama of examples are out there to reckon with. Thus, Crux of the matter is that no matter what you do, success will be inevitable if your work is drenched in a fiery passion. The reason why those who tread on the heels of their interests and passion are more prone to success and better performance is because they take work as entertainment and leisure, thus resultantly, they shed a laser-like focus on their work.

We as an entity exert influence on our surrounding environ, be it directly or indirectly. I find the idea palatable that each one of us is tailored for a motive and is destined to carry out a specific purpose. We are saddled with the task to pinpoint and devote our allotted span diligently, from dusk till dawn, from cradle to grave to bring the purpose of our being to materialization.

Chapter 22

No One Is Your Than You

“Today you are you, that is truer than true,

There is no one alive, who is your than you.”

-Dr. Suess.

If we were to ask people whether they are living the life they had dreamt about themselves or not, chief portion of the answers would be in negation. Everyone would have a whole raft of excuses and reasons why their goals remained unachievable, and obstacles they stumbled upon, impregnable. The only reason that separates wheat from the chaff and that demarcates a fine line between ordinary and extraordinary is self-investment and self- reliance. Today, as we have advanced in every ambit; we have made other planets our second homes, dived deeper into the bowels of the oceans, landed on mountain-tops, learned to control the inclemencies of weather, and so on, yet our mental and psychological growth and evolution is progressing at a snail’s pace. In a world moving forward at a blistering speed, our personal lives are in a state of stagnation.

We, surely, have learned to invest in the betterment of our lifestyles, but we have still not grown cognizant to the idea of self-betterment. Most of the people nowadays, have delved in depression because their idea of a happy and satisfactory life pivots on exogenous and materialistic factors. I see happiness and progress as an endogenous entity; it springs from within us. By self-investment, one means grooming one’s personality. Personality is to man, what fragrance is to flower. It will be erroneous to think personality to be only linked with physical appearance; Personality is something we exude, by how we act, communicate and behave. It is something that draws a difference between us and animals. It is what makes us an “Intellectual Animal”.

To focus on one’s own life should be at the top rung of one’s priorities’ ladder. I see this world as an arena and everyone dwelling in it as a player taking stabs at outshining others. Would you come to a battle unarmed? To emerge unscathed from the arena of 21st Century, it is obligatory to stand out from the crowd; to make oneself a treasure trove of knowledge and a wellspring of skills. Instead of homing in on who did what and who said what, one should focus on how he/she can key his/her life to a higher pitch. Books should be read, skills should be learned, and no stone should be left unturned in contributing to our growth. Our education is reduced to merely awarding of useless degrees and certificates. Bags of students might be filled with heavy books, but their mental inventory remains hollow and empty. When it comes to survival, one is on his own and cannot hinge on others. So, for a frictionless life, one should be competent enough to smoothly sail through thins and lows of life, and it can only be achieved through self-reliance. Without these substance qualities, we are no less than mannequins who are attired in beautiful dresses, merely for a show, having no will of their own. Invest in yourself, it pays the best interest.

Another factor that thrust us to unhappiness is that our happiness is conditional and reliant on others; we chase others to make us feel happy, admired, and special. Romantic movies and literature, which were orchestrated for merely entertainment, have unexpectedly left a deep impress on the lives of people and have exposed them to a wrong and spurious definition of love. Romanticism has destroyed the concept of love. To find love and companionship is only part of the journey, but it is portrayed as the whole journey itself. Today, every person, be it male or female, adult or teenager, is bearing the throes and pangs of disappointed love. All those individuals who claim to be in love, inexplicably at some point curse their life, either owing to an intolerable partner, or having no partner at all, and all this manifests because we have been subjected to wrong love stories. Real concept of love is not finding a perfect soul-mate; it is to take them to one’s heart as they are and being embraced by them as we are. A Start of relationships is not a high point, which romantic culture assumes, it is only the first step of a far longer and arduous journey. These projected love stories are so different from our actual lives. We have learned to judge ourselves by the hopes and expectations fostered by the misleading concept of love; by its standards our own relationships are damaged and unsatisfactory. No wonder separation or divorce appears to be inevitable. Teenagers, predominantly, have fell prey to this façade of love. It is entrenched so deeply in our social milieu that the one who doesn’t have a fling or a romantic liaison with anyone is considered anomalous. Relationships that halt your personal growth are toxic. Evade them as soon as you can. How is it love, if it is only rendering you heartbreak, stress, depression, false expectations, and suicidal tendencies? It all boils down to one this that we should not let ourselves get lost in someone else’s life. Instead of being consumed by the idea of becoming one with one’s significant other, one must prioritize mutual partnership. Making someone else your everything in a relationship is not only unromantic, but also unhealthy for everyone involved. Others should be a part of your life, not your entire life. In saying that someone else is your everything is equal to saying that you and your life in itself is nothing. One ought to be independent, meaning that one must not depend on others for fulfillment; one must not live through others.

We are awarded with the precious gift of life only for once, why let it go down the drain owing to some toxic illusions shoved down our throats. Purport of all the aforementioned points is not to antagonize the idea of love and companionship. It is one of our basic needs and desires and is obligatory for our life. The main thrust of this chapter is to prioritize oneself, and one’s own happiness should not be butchered only to seek approval of others. All I want to impart is to stop chasing people, because when you stop chasing the wrong people, you give right people a chance to catch you. We should