Creating The Future We Want.

Fight Poverty With Education.

Poverty is the mother of crime. –Marcus Aurelius

In order to create the future we want, we have to work hard and passionately towards it. The mistakes that we do in our past are what make our future. We have to learn from our past mistakes, work hard in the present and the future is right at the corner smiling and shining like a bright star. We want a future that is peaceful, where everyone is treated equally and every single man and woman on the planet has access to education. And that future can be created by eradicating the mother of all crimes, poverty. We have to put our time, resources, energy and life in it. Eat, sleep, feel, and live like them for a day so we understand that this is how the poor live for 365 days a year.

 When I think about my future, I think about the 1.7 billion people who are forced to live in poverty each day. I want a future where I don’t see a single beggar on the streets because like Eli Khamarov said:

Poverty is like punishment for a crime you did not commit.

My definition of poverty says –

Poverty is the state wherein one is unable to fulfil the basic necessities of life. And by necessities I mean three meals a day, clothes and a roof on their heads.

I believe that poverty is the biggest problems of all. Justice, peace, equality are all things that come after poverty. When you don’t have anything to eat, clothes to protect and cover your bodies or a roof on your heads, what good will justice, peace, equality do?

To solve a problem, one has to know the causes of it. There are a lot of causes of poverty but one of the major is structural adjustment like cuts back on health, education and other vital social things. Food aid (when not given in emergency relief) also becomes a problem because it helps only for the time being and is bad in the longer run. And sometimes it is not given to help them. It is given to control them. Over population, high birth rates, lack of distribution of resources and education are some other causes of the problem. Some other factors include high rate of unemployment, unfair trade, corruption, poor governance and natural disasters.

I believe that the solution to all of the above mentioned factors which cause poverty is simple. Education is the key solution to poverty.  Educated people do family planning, thus reducing birth rates. One of the major factors is unemployment. That can be solved by increasing the country’s foreign exchange and opening new hospitals, new schools, new companies etc which will provide opportunities and is all done by the government. That way unemployment will decrease and the villagers will have a chance to improve their lives by coming to the city for jobs. Education gives you vision and a sense of how to deal with things.

Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names. Instead of giving funds and aid to the poor that is just helpful for the time being, we will set up an organization that will give free education. We will not do something that affects/benefits only the present generation, we will educate them that will benefit them for generations. We will not improve their lifestyles and their lives. We will give them means, skills, training in different things and provide opportunities of doing that by themselves. We will motivate them to stand up for themselves and work for their future and betterment. We will give them a hope to have a future like ours. Instead of working for them, we will work with them to have a future that all of us can share and cherish.

Organizations like, End Poverty 2015 Millennium Campaign, CARE (Defending Dignity, Fighting poverty), Action Against Poverty (AAP), IFAD (International Fund for Agricultural Development by United Nations) can help us in our cause because they believe in the same thing. i.e. eradication of poverty.

Doing all this is not easy and it cannot be done in a year or even in a decade. But I believe that if we do all this, we may not be able to change our present but we will definitely change the future. A day will come when there will be no poverty in the world even if we are not there to live it.

Like Khalil Jibran I also believe,

Poverty is a veil that obscures the face of greatness.

This is the essay I wrote for the UNESCO competition and I have to say, it is by far the worst essay I have ever written. What is happening to me?

...SAP...

Day 5, June 28, 2012. Keep going.

Theo.

Once after Jacob had raged through my rooms like a tropical storm and destroyed most of what was important to me, my mother came up to commiserate. Deep down, he loves you, she told me.

How do you? I asked.

I don't, she admitted. But its what I have to believe to keep going.

                                                                       -An excerpt from House Rules by Jodi Picoult.

Isn't that happens to all of us? Sometimes in life you do not want but you are forced to believe things that keeps you going. That makes you stronger. You believe that someones loves you when that is not the case. You believe that that Marks and Spencer Cashmere Sweater looks good on you but actually burgundy looks horrible on you. You believe that you can get into Harvard but in truth you can not even apply for it. You believe that you can do it, that things are always shiny and bright and that life is a fairy tail when its actually not. But you have to do it because you do not want yourself to be hopeless. You do not want to wake up and realize that you lost. 

We all do it. Although at times we do not admit it. We hate to admit because it shows that we failed. But in my opinion failure is good sometimes. It actually shows that you are not perfect and that you do not always have to be good. You should always be who you are. People ask how do you do it? How do we all do it? I believed I could do MBBS and succeed in it but I know I cannot. I know its not what I was made for.

Like Theo, it takes a lot of compassion and courage to believe what is not true. When everything else fails, you have to believe what is not true but sometimes it becomes essential to do so. Sometimes that is all that keeps us going.

...SAP...

June 24, 2012.

June 24, 1963.
A girl was born and at that time nobody thought that she will grow up to be an amazing lady and that she will change the world of many people around her. That girl happens to be my mom today. I don't know what you say about the person who has always been there for you, tolerated your crap and actually gave a shit about you. No matter what I do, she is always there for me. When I was little, people asked, who do you love more or who is more amazing? I always replied without thinking, My Dad. Now when someone asks the same stupid question, I reply, Can you choose between a Mercedes Meclaren F1 and a Ferrari 458? No you can not. Because they are both awesome and breath taking. Same is the case with my mother and father.

She is heaven on earth. She is like the rainbow which comes out after the rain. Just like the rainbow consoles the sky after getting wet by the rain, she consoles me after I fight with my friends or get lousy grades. Ofcourse she yells and shouts first. Difference is, a rainbow has seven colours in it. My mom has millions of colours in her. She is like a fully bloomed rose whose fragrance makes you crazy even from a mile. She is like this Chanel Coco Mademoiselle perfume whose scent is still in your clothes even after you have washed it.

I remember  how she didn't give my class the Best Decorated Class Of The Year Award because she was the judge and I happened to be her daughter. How she always calls me a crazy mentally ill person infront of my friends. How she scolds and lectures a kid she doesn't even know on the importance of studies. People make friends in a few minutes, she makes friends in a few seconds. She is so full of life and such a lively person. Everyday I look at her and think how lucky I am to have her in my life.

Today is her Birthday. We all surprized her by baking a Giant Cookie and topping it with all kinds of stuff. Well technically Moawiz had already told her.

Hundreds of drewdrops to greet the dawn.
Hundreds of bees in the purple clover.
Hundreds of butterflies on the lawn.
But only one mother the wide world over.
  - George Cooper

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!! The Most Amazing and Extraordianry Lady I have ever met. I am PROUD to be your daughter.

...SAP...

Day 3, June 9, 2012. "Be The Moon"

Whenever I look out of my bathroom's window, I see the moon smiling at me, sometimes giving me a wide grin, sometimes just a tiny smile. After having a bad day or a good one, when I look at the moon and its different faces, each one more beautiful than the other, I forget the entire bad day or I remember every single detail of the good one.

People say that the moon just looks beautiful from far, but when you go near it all you see is the ugliness, all the spots and bends in it. But thats not what I think. It depends on what you see and how you see it. I think that the moon is beautiful, inside out. Like all of us, it has its fall outs and back draws but thats what makes the moon what it is today, Pure and Beautiful.

You know, in ancient times, moon was used as a navigator. All the sailors and travelers used to find their way, whether at the sea or in the desert, because of the moon. It is said that you can never loose your way and get lost if you follow the moon. Whenever moon didn't use to come out, all the sailors and travelers used to be lost. Moon was the torch and the light which showed them their way. They depended on the moon to come out and show them the way on dark nights.

We all are like a moon. We all depend on someone to show us the way. Whether it is happiness, success, trust, friendship, hope, belief or love. We don't want to loose our way, so we follow our moon not to get lost in the darkness of the world. Thing is that simultaneously, we all are the moon too. We don't know this but we are the moon for someone. Somewhere, someone depends on  us to give happiness, to share success, to trust and be trustworthy, to make friends and be a good friend, to hope, to believe in yourself and others. We will never get lost just like the sailors and travelers, if we all follow our moons. And we wouldn't let someone else loose their way if we be the moon. So I say, Be The Navigator that shows someone the right path, Be The Light that gives someone hope, Be The Smile that lits up someones face, Be The Moon that makes someone believe. BE THE MOON.

...SALP...

Day 2.

My life is upside down.  I told mom that I don't want to do medicine and she was not happy is the least of it. I don't know what to do about it. I hoped that she would understand. I tried my best to make her understand. Becoming a doctor is her dream, not mine. She asked me then why did I chose Pre Medical. I didn't how to answer her. We both knew the answer to that one. I think I did it because I am a coward and I was afraid to go make my own journey. And I ended choosing the subjects that my friends did. I am going to talk to dad about it. I am sure he will understand. He used to say, follow your dreams and your heart. Make your own destiny and your own paths. You don't have to follow someone else's paths.

I think when you have the potential to do  lot and when Allah gives you so much. Then a person does not regards those things and wastes it. I know that I have a lot of talents and I am capable of doing a lot. Alhumdulilah. I am not bragging. I just don't know what to do with them. Its like I am wasting my life. I want to do something useful with it. Something bigger than being a doctor. Although I have no idea what profession I will choose, one thing I am sure about is that I want to be a writer and write a book someday. I want people to feel the passion in my writing. I want them to be inspired by it. Like today I am inspired by a lot of peoples writing. I don't want people to pick up my book, read it and put it down. No, I want them to read it, feel the passion and inspiration, get up and do something positive and always remember the passion and inspiration they felt by reading my book. I think thats all for today.

...SALP...

Book Review: My Feudal Lord

Finished reading My Feudal Lord by Tahmeena Durrani. I was actually waiting to read it but after finishing it I didn't like it that much. Tahmeena has exposed the feudal system in Pakistan. Not that there was any need of doing that because people know how politics is. But then I guess not all of them do. Some of them are blinded by the fake promises that politicians make. In her autobiography, she has written about all the bad things that she herself did. The worse part is that after admitting that, she justified her misdoings. I don't think that having an affair while married to a very nice guy is justifiable. How can you say that you fell for another guy because you never had a childhood and you only married your husband to get away from your mother? That you never really loved him. That it was just an illusion. Okay. We do wrong things all the time. But when we are accepting them, then there is no need to justify your actions. You know you did wrong. End of discussion.

She describes her 14 year marriage life period with Mustafa Khar as a very tragic experience. It is a story of corrupt politicians and their lives. How politics eats up families. How it destroys your relationships. Takes away your beliefs and in the end you are left with nothing. Politics is like this marsh in which you just go on and their is no way out. Its this addiction like alcohol or cigarettes.

But I have to say, the woman had great power to do what she did. To raise a voice among the people she lived in. Her journey began from Lahore, took her to the dirty streets of Kot Addu, then the country side of England, even in politics to save her husband, more like herself and it took her back to where it all had began, Lahore, the City Of Lights. She still remains the elegant, sophisticated and beautiful lady she once was.

...SALP...

Isn't this quote true? I have always believed that it is upto you to live a happy life. Life gives you hard times all the time. The trick is to live such that you not only get past all the hurdles but do it with a smile on your face. Our personalities reflect our behaviour and then ofcourse how we live our lives. We don't have to live our life in misery. We can find happiness even in that misery. It is upto us to live a happy life or a miserable one. Indeed happiness is you.Happiness is us.

...SALP...

Day 1.

Last year I, Sumaica Asad, thought about making a blog simply because I love reading books and I love writing too. so I thought what better way of not only improving my vocabulary but also my writing skills. I made a tumblr account but me being lazy kept me  from updating it often and I became bored with it. But I am here now. after an year starting my journey of blogging.
To be honest, I have always loved books. And everything to do with them. And reading books urged me to write as well. I just hope that the journey that I am starting today, be a successful one for me. And I learn a lot of things.
...SALP...