Are you living for yourself or for the validation of other people?

Social media is amazing. It’s a platform where you can share your ideas, raise your voice etc. On the other hand it is also the most damaging aspect of our generation. Are you really living your life or are you living it in a way which shows people that you’re living it? We’re living a false extravagant life to receive validation from a couple strangers.

When was the last time you enjoyed a family vacation without caring about taking pictures for the gram? Because, how are people gonna know that you went and stayed in a lavish hotel, right?

When was the last time you cried your heart out on a breakup or tried to talk the problem out instead of tweeting or posting on social media so that somehow it can be seen by your ex or so it gets a lot of retweets and can give you a sense of pride? How can downing yourself on the internet in front of millions of strangers make you feel proud?

Ever been on a concert and not snap chatted the whole thing? Ask yourself, did you do it to document memories or to boast about it?

Ask yourself if it really makes you happy to take 100 pictures for the OOTD picture and editing it through atleast three different apps to get the perfect insta worthy picture. We just do it because we have to follow the trend and show people the glamorised version of our life, which in reality doesn’t exist.

What people show online isn’t everything. She posted a picture of salad on snapchat doesn’t mean she didn’t eat chocolates and ice cream because she craved them. A fashion blogger doesn’t always stay dressed. She also owns sweat pants. Just know that there’s more to the story than social media. There are days when that beauty blogger has pimples on her face and messy hair. There are days when the fashion blogger doesn’t get out of her pajamas. It’s all goody.

Whenever you’re scrolling through Instagram you get hit by a wave of depression that everyone’s life is really perfect and we’re here rolled in our blanket scrolling through Instagram. The fact is, it’s a falsified life that involves only their best moments which are filtered and edited. No one’s this happy, no one has a perfect life. They just don’t show the bad side of it. They put on a smile, hiding depression with it and we think their life is lit.

The next time you’re about to post on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter think for a while. Ask yourself whether you’re posting it just for the sake of some likes and fake praises or did you genuinely enjoy the moment and you want to share it with others. Make sure you live your life up to your own standards and not those that others have created for you to follow. Even if your social media profile doesn’t seem to be as blossomy or colourful as some other person, it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to show everything to other people. You don’t have to always stay dressed up with loads of makeup because any moment can be gram worthy so you gotta look perfect. Don’t hide your mess and show the best. Learn to be secure and proud of your own life and just stay low-key and stay happy. ♥️

As this year ends, I’m writing a note to myself, of all the things I’ve learnt and all the stuff I’ve been through so I don’t carry it all with me to 2019. What I’ve been wanting to say to myself from January till today is

1- PEOPLE COME AND GO:-

You’re not supposed to ask people to stay in your life. The one’s who want to will stay, no matter what the circumstances are. Don’t mourn for too long. Don’t question yourself, don’t tell yourself that you’re not worthy of them. Look at the positive side of this. The negativity has been removed from your life. And the right ones will always stay!

2- STOP BLAMING YOURSELF FOR EVERYTHING:-

Self blaming is paralysing. It’s the enemy of growth. You have to stop telling yourself that everything bad that has happened is because of you. It’s not. Stuff happens, doesn’t mean you’re the one responsible. You have to stop pointing a finger at yourself whenever someone leaves or changes their behaviour towards you. Just don’t dwell into self blame. Blaming your past for a limiting mindset does not change it. Be kind and compassionate to yourself.

3- NOT EVERY MESS IS YOURS TO CLEAN:-

As much as you like to save everyone around you, you can’t just pick up everyone’s shit. They have to do it on their own. You can only help other people to some extent. If you keep on cleaning their mess, they won’t realise their own responsibility, they won’t own what they’ve done. So just let them do it themselves.

4- KEEP YOUR HEART CLEAN:-

“Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God”. Keeping yourself pure involves keeping your heart and thoughts very clear and clean. If your heart is clean you’ll no longer feel guilt or worry about the choices you make and where life’s taking you. You’ll have a clear sense of direction. You’ll be eternally happy and satisfied.

5- LET GO OF YOUR PAST:-

We’ve all been hurt and we’ve all hurt people. All of us have regrets. But it doesn’t mean we have to stick to our past and replay everything in our head again and again. You have a choice to let go of your past. You just have to make that decision and stick to it. Stop playing victim and seeking for sympathy. You can’t undo the past but you can focus on your present and future.

6- FORGIVE PEOPLE AND YOURSELF:-

We don’t have to forget stuff other people did, we can’t. But everyone deserves forgiveness. Sometimes we get so stuck in our stubbornness that we can’t even imagine to forgive someone. Our ego doesn’t allow us to use the word “sorry” or “it’s okay”. But you have to tell yourself that if you want to move forward in life, you have to fully let go of the people/past that’s keeping you behind.

7- STOP EXPECTING:-

Expectations lead to disappointment. You have to stop expecting from people. When people upset us, it’s not because of how they behave. It’s because we’ve set a fantasy or standard of how they should and they behave differently from that. That’s what hurts. So, we have to stop fantasising or setting standards for people. You’re the only one that can do something for yourself. Don’t expect people to enter your life and change it. Do that yourself.

8- BE PATIENT:-

As they say, patience is the key to success and great things come to those who wait. Be patient for whatever you want and you’ll get it on time, if it’s right for you. Whether it’s your dream job or someone you love. Just do your thing with passion, humility and honesty. Don’t do what you do for an applause or for fame, do it because it’s the right thing to do.

9- DISTANCE YOURSELF FROM TOXICITY:-

There are a lot of people out there who don’t like you. They hate to see you grow. They pretend to be you friends but are actually worse than enemies. You need to know who these people are and distance yourself from them. They’ll always be barriers on your way to success. Get rid of snakes.🐍

There’s a bunch of other stuff I’ve learnt. Which is.

-learning to say no

-always telling the truth

-prioritising your needs

-learning from your mistakes

-embracing your imperfections

-beginning again, stronger than before.

The best lessons we learn in life are the ones we learn over and over again. We just need a lot of reminders and practice to operate effectively.

I’m so proud of who you’ve become as a person after being bent and broken. You’ve been beautifully remoulded. I hope you never break again and the next year and all the coming years prove to be amazing for you, and in your best interests!💙

I don’t know any person who doesn’t want to be successful in life. All of us want to reach heights, achieve our goals. The real question is, how many of us are actually able to? Or how many of us are working hard enough? Also, the people who are really successful today, have they never failed? It’s usually said that there’s a very deep connection between hitting the rock bottom (mostly failure) and success. Whether it’s a failed business, a failed relationship, hitting the rock bottom is when we learn our life’s greatest lessons on the basis of which we build our success. There are two kinds of people.

1- Those who fail and give up. They get extremely negative and think that if they’ve failed once they can never do anything again. It’s not their cup of tea. They don’t pick themselves up. They just sit there and mourn and cry about their failure.

2- Those who fail and challenge their own self. They challenge their failure and want to defeat it now. They work really hard on their weak points and one day, they get what they want. They achieve success. Like it is said “as you sow, so shall you reap”. They worked hard. They got their reward.

Whenever we talk about success and failure, we get one example from everyone. The example of an ant. I’m sure you’ve all heard about it. If you place your finger between the ants food and the ant, will it go back and look for something else? No. It will find a new way to get to that food. Whether it’s from between our fingers or elsewhere.

If an ant can try and try again, why can’t we humans? Why do we let our failures make us so weak?

Everything takes time. Whether it’s success or building trust in a relationship. We can’t just think of ourselves on stages giving ted talks while we’ve been just sitting there day dreaming. We’ll have to work hard enough. Countless efforts. Sleepless days and nights. Until we don’t reach that place.

Don’t let failure come in your way of success. Always ask yourself a question. “What’s the worst that can happen”?

1- You’ll have to waste 2-3 years of your life? Is that the worse scenario? So what? Just think of the days when you’ve reached your goal and you’ll be sitting there proudly. Knowing that you got what you’ve always wanted. “Age is just a number”.

2- Your parents will disown you? First of all, parents can’t disown their kids. They will love you unconditionally even if you don’t do anything for the rest of your life and are a complete failure. But don’t take advantage of that. Just work hard, hard enough that one day your parents are really proud to call your their child. Trust me, it’s all worth it.

3- What are people gonna say? The answer to this is, people just need something to say. They need a topic. Whether it be someones failure or someones failed marriage. They won’t stop. There’s one way to shut people up. And that is, your success. The day you’ve become someone successful, the same people will come to congratulate you and ask your for favours.

Now. When you’ve failed a test, even if it’s some test that was to define your entire career, a life or death situation. I know how heartbroken you’ll be. But that won’t last long. Mostly a month or two. What we can do is, either cry or give it another try if we really want it.

I’m not asking you to run away from your pain. Just sit down and think “what is this pain trying to teach me”? Use that pain as a driving force.

Don’t judge yourself. Don’t tell yourself you’re not worthy enough of doing whatever it is that you want to do. Work as hard as you can with compassion and enthusiasm and leave the rest on God.

Give yourself credit. Acknowledge your efforts, your resilience. When you start to do so, you’ll love yourself despite the failure and you’ll know that you worked hard enough but maybe fate had something better for you.

Lastly. LET YOUR FAILURE GO. Do not hold on to it for long. I’m not asking you to forget that time. It’s a powerful reminder of all that you’ve been through. It has shaped and strengthened you. What you need to do is to stop the desire of going back and fixing things. You’ll have an urge of doing something over because you think you’ve got to know it better. Don’t do that. It’ll just make you weak and indecisive.

Slowly and steadily, walk towards your destination. And you’ll end up having whatever you want and one day you’ll be at peace with your job and your life.

I know this got really long. I’m sorry. A personal suggestion from my side is, read stories of people who’ve hit the rock bottom and then got to the top. People like J.K Rowling, Abraham Lincoln, Walt Disney and much more. Listen to Ted talks. All of this helps. Knowing that you’re not the only failure makes you stronger than ever. ♥️

Have you ever wondered why you’ve fell so low on your priority list? It’s because, we’re so busy caring about everyone else that we forget our own self. We don’t have enough time to care for our health, emotions or body. But how many of you think it’s right to neglect yourself and put others on top of your list?

Many of us think that if we put ourselves first, it’s gonna be a really selfish act and people are gonna call us a narcissist but why do we care about what people say? They take care of themselves, they are their first priority and they expect us to abandon ourself. How is that right?

When we start putting ourselves first, our life is gonna get way easier. For instance.

1- We’ll become more emotionally stable. We won’t depend on people for making our life decisions. Whenever something goes wrong in life, we’ll hand the situation to our own self and take control instead of relying on others.

2- We’ll know what’s right for us and what’s wrong.What relation is toxic for us and who’s sincere. You won’t compromise your self respect, your mental health and your emotions for other people because you matter to your own self.

3- You won’t care about fitting into the “oh so high” standards of the society. You’ll dress up for yourself, you’ll eat whatever you like without the fear of being judged. You won’t have to mould yourself into someone that you’re not. You’ll have the freedom of choice and expression. If anyone condemns it or tells you they don’t like you, you won’t care because for you, you’re the top priority and you love it that way, don’t you?

4- The most important thing about prioritising yourself is, you’ll get to know the real faces of many people. You’ll know who’s worth it or not. Some people want us to keep pleasing them and taking care of their needs and everything, forsaking our own self. You’ll know that it’s not your job to please them, to fit into their standards or do whatever they want. You’ll see who’s genuine to you and who actually likes it that you’re caring for your own self for once.

5- If we do what we love, we’ll stay charged. We’ll radiate positive energy. We won’t feel drained and empty all the time. Feel good for yourself. It doesn’t mean you’re denying others or acting selfish. If we start taking good care of ourselves, it’s gonna alter our relationship with the people around us as well. They’ll experience a happier version of us.

As they say,

“CHANGING THE WORLD STARTS WITH CHANGING YOUR OWN SELF”

Its time we start loving and caring for ourselves, our health. I’ll end this by saying,

“Loving yourself starts with liking yourself which starts with respecting yourself, which starts with thinking of yourself in positive ways”. ♥️

Millions of us belong to a subculture known as “military brat” or “army brat”.

Proud to call myself one, belonging to a parent who’s in the army and never got to stay at a place for more than 3 years. From shifting schools to making new friends to meeting up with the old ones on long course get togethers, we all grew up.

What’s weird is when someone asks us where we’re from, most of us can’t name some specific place because we’re from “umm, everywhere?”(DONT ask this question from a military brat, it sends us in an existential crisis).From being hated by civilians(because according to them,the cars we use, their petrol is filled by the taxes they pay. And other luxuries too haha) to getting asked by them for favours because “your dad’s in the army, he can do anything by just one call”

Us army brats and civilians will always have a love hate relationship. And I’ll cherish it forever.

As an army brat, you’ll always know names of aunties by their husbands names like aunty Usman, aunty basheer and the names of uncles by their positions, like CO uncle, G2 uncle. And I think it’s beautiful.

Dad’s friends would call on the army number saying “bhabhi bhai say baat karwa dain” and it’d get super awkward and you’d think whether or not to tell him that you’re the daughter.

Our ultimate summer holidays are in army messes in the north(naran kaghan mostly). Napier lodges, wolf lodges and God knows how many other lodges are army spots for holidays and are mostly booked, but a little “sifarish” from a senior does work.

Visiting dad’s office for the tea break and just for the tea break is one thing all of you have done. Misusing his PA number for paying your mess bills (which used to get you grounded but who cares) is another. Attending bingo nights every weekend, chaand raat bazaar, eid Milan parties are something you all eagerly waited for.

CSD was your go to place, your mom would write you a list of things every other day and you’d cycle to CSD (picking up almost everything but what your mom asked you to)

Your chacha cycled back from the dhobi with your and your fathers school uniform on hangers over his shoulder singing some old 80’s songs.

You all would eagerly wait for the light to go out (although no one loves load shedding) so everyone would come out of their homes to play and cycle. The aunties would walk in groups and gossip about their husbands coming late from work and how sick they are of their in-laws.

The one thing which could give our moms mini heart attacks was the chacha going on a leave and not getting another chacha for replacement.

Our favourite nights would be the ones where we would sit with dad and listen to his PMA stories, the way he got ragged in the mud and how their phones would get caught by seniors. The villain in the story would be the Adjutant.

Going to airshows and parades has to be everyone’s favourite thing. Teasing your civilian friends for those guest tickets is the second one. Waking up at 6, very enthusiastically to attend it and passing out at the couch after coming home has to be our favourite memory.

Your greatest fear would be posting. Moving a whole family and all the belongings seems to be adventurous but in real, it’s not. Although we do get paid for the expenses. The packing, the tickets. Everything. But still, it’s really emotionally disturbing and physically tiring.

The pro is, we get to experience many different cultures, people, languages. We easily adjust in any and every environment because that’s how much we’re used to it.

As much pros as there are, there are equal number of cons. You don’t get to see your dad for months. Your mom has to manage the household and she goes crazy because there’s too much on the plate. When your dad goes on all these missions, a moment doesn’t go by without fear. Fear of him not coming back. Army brats are kinda used to living without their dads for long periods of time. It’s no new thing. But do they actually want it? No one does.

I still remember the goosebumps we used to get when dad sat us down and prepared us for his missions. He’d ask us to take care of our younger siblings and mom. We’d give him hugs, tonnes of them, and wouldn’t cry infront of him so he’d stay strong.

Anyways. Who can forget those late night curfews. Our limit to stay outside was till maghrib. No sleep overs at a friends place. Providing your whole squads information to your parents before you go to a hangout. What their parents do, what their siblings names are, what their professions are and what not.

And did I miss the polo clubs, the horse riding, the swimming competitions, the baking competitions. The concerts. The movie nights at the army auditorium (which back in the days would be a really big deal for us kids. We’d wait every Friday for it)

And the part where we tried out dad’s uniform (with cool names i.e SD and black patrol) and took tonnes of pictures and felt like we were the officers, not them.

There’s so much about military life which can’t just fit in here. I can go on and on about it forever. And as much as I hate some things (like losing friends because of postings), I would never trade it with anything in the world. It’s that beautiful.

Here’s a super proud and really senti army brat signing off.