"Accept It"

Tough times don't last, tough people do... When the going gets tough, the tough get going... When life gives you a hundred reasons to cry, show life that you have a thousand reasons to smile... Tough people are not born, they are made when no one is there to wipe away their tears... You were given this life because you are strong enough to live it... When everything feels like an uphill struggle just think of the view from the top... Don't be afraid of tough times because it gets you real friends and real friends get you through tough times... Hardships often prepare ordinary people for extraordinary things.
Learn that life is tough, but you are tougher.

On most days I am a strong believer of all of the above.

The list of this bite-size motivation is endless... Feeling down? Google to the rescue! I know, because I try to keep myself uplifted with these little numbers whenever I'm down or feeling helpless or having a bad day or feeling ill. But I'm noticing that it is getting harder and harder to believe all this motivational crap, and I think it might not be completely true... because I'm only human. I'm not Thor, or The Hulk, or Yoda. So, these days, instead of looking for motivation on Google... I'm trying this new thing called "Accept It". 

I remember recently when a car came out of nowhere and hit me on a Monday morning on a quite road in a residential area... I was shaking and petrified, and the first thing that came out of my mouth to the aged driver who had hit me (literally) in more ways than one..."I have five thousand problems and you've just added one more!" 

A little while later, as a dear friend tried to comfort me with an Espresso shot, fine chocolates, and a pep talk about how strong I am and how I've gotten through much bigger ordeals in my life... I continued to weep like an annoying, spoiled, stubborn child and blubbered, "When ten really bad things happen to you, and you cope with them, and deal with difficult things over and over again, by then you've had to get up ten times, and you've tried to stay brave and optimistic throughout... and then an eleventh thing happens and you just don't have any energy left to get up that eleventh time." Not important to mention... but this was all figurative speech. It was not the eleventh time... it was the twentieth... but then, my Math skills are quite questionable.

So anyway, these days I'm trying this new thing called "Accept It". And the real truth is:
Tough times don't last forever; and contrary to common belief, neither do tough people. 
We're only human.
- Jane Bravo

IWD 2015

Like many things we blindly celebrate in Pakistan... we celebrate Women's Day too. And by celebrate, I mean we create advertising around it to make brands seem global and futuristic, we do talk shows with celebrities and give out gift hampers at lunches, and go about our lives as if all is great and we have done our part in celebrating The Women. When the sad reality is that women are rarely genuinely celebrated in Pakistan. I think we need more than just a day to celebrate Women in Pakistan. I think it should be 365 days a year that we salute the female for the contribution she makes to out nation and our country on an on-going daily basis since the independence of Pakistan.

On 8th March 2015 I started the day with my maid Naseem, coming over on the dot at 8am. She's a small woman, hardly 30, she has five kids all aged under 10. Her husband doesn't work. He doesn't beat her. But he is into gambling and I think he is an addict too. She speaks of him like he is an amazing husband, and I try not to talk her out of it. Naseem didn't know it's women's day. No one celebrated her life.

And really it isn't about celebrating anything... it is about paying tribute, it is about recognizing that the weaker sex needs to be loved, and respected and cared for... and protected. I wish we learn to love not only our own wives, daughters, sisters, mothers, but that we learn to love all women and understand that they make the world a nice place. From the time we are born, women nurture us - our mothers and grandmothers, and sisters, and phupos, and khalas and our friends mothers and the teachers in school... these are the people who shape our futures. Let's give them the love they deserve.

I want to live in a world that loves women unconditionally, every day.
Be that world every day, not just on 8th March.

- JB