To our countries !

The most difficult thing you face in this life when you feel that you are strange ... that you are sincere and honesty is defect .. you dream and the dream is a shame .. you are kind good and kindness is naive ... that you love and love is weakness ..in the eyes of others ..

Lonleness

Lonleness ..
Is to be with whom you love but you do not find who embraces you Lonleness .. Is to live with them as if you were in a dark cave Lonleness .. Is that you hear them and understand them, and you will not find anyone who hears you and understands you Lonleness .. Is to live an illusion you do not wish it to end Lonleness .. Is to live dreams do not come true Lonleness .. Is to love someone who loves others Lonleness ..
Is to wish to get closer to your beloved one but you are surprised by their distance from you !

Today, I will publish a love poem by the great Egyptian poet; Farouk Goweedah. He  is a contemporary poet who has written a lot of poetry in different topics. Goweedah is famous all over the Arab World. His words are very delicate and his style is so simple and passionate. The poem is in Fus’ha " standard Arabic " and is called,  which literally means “In your eyes is my address“. However, I translated the title as “I Live in Your Eyes ..” The poem is a conversation between the woman beloved and her man. The woman fears that her man will forget her and he promises her an eternal love.

I Live .. in Your Eyes ..

قالت: حبيبي .. سوف تنساني

She said: My Love .. You will forget me

وتنسى أنني يوما

 And you will forget that I, one day,

وهبتك نبض وجداني

 Have granted you my heart  

وتعشق موجة أخرى

And you will adore another wave

وتهجر دفء شطآني

 And you will leave my beaches warmth

وتجلس مثلما كنا

 And you will sit, as we used to

لتسمع بعض ألحاني

 To listen to some of my tones

ولا تعنيك أحزاني

 And you will not care for my sorrows

ويسقط كالمنى اسمي

 And my name will fall as hope

وسوف يتوه عنواني

And my address will get lost

ترى.. ستقول يا عمري

So, my Love, will you say

بأنك كنت تهواني؟!

That you (once) loved me!?

* * *

فقلت: هواك إيماني

So, I said: Your love is my faith

ومغفرتي.. وعصياني

My forgiveness and my disobedience  

أتيتك والمنى عندي

 I met you with hope

بقايا بين أحضاني

Remaining in my arms  

ربيع مات طائره

Like spring without birds !!

على أنقاض بستان

On the ruins of a garden,

رياح الحزن تعصرني

The winds of sadness squeeze me

وتسخر بين وجداني

And laugh in my chest.

أحبك واحة هدأت

I Love You .. like an oasis  

عليها كل أحزاني

in which all my sorrows have calmed down

أحبك نسمة تروي

I Love You, like an aura that tells

لصمت الناس.. ألحاني

 My songs to people’s silence

أحبك نشوة تسري

 I Love You ..  like ecstasy that runs

وتشعل نار بركاني

And fires my volcano.  

أحبك أنت يا أملا

I Love You .. you, Hope

كضوء الصبح يلقاني

That like morning light meets me.

أمات الحب عشاقا

Love has killed many lovers,  

وحبك أنت أحياني

And your love has given life to me.

ولو خيرت في وطن

And if I were to choose a home,

لقلت هواك أوطاني

I would say; my home is your Love.

ولو أنساك يا عمري

 And if I were to forget you,

حنايا القلب.. تنساني

My heart would forget me.

إذا ما ضعت في درب

If I lost my way, 

ففي عينيك.. عنواني

I would live .. in your eyes.

The chicken and the Falcon !! A point of view !

A chicken stood in front of a falcon
And  said to him:-
see that your number are few ... Come with us and enter the cage !!
There are those who feed us and do not tire ourselves by flying and searching for food  and there is no wolf  or fox or even hunters that threatens us all the time !!
.
The falcon laughed a lot and said:
When you fly high, "you feel the joy of dignity, dignity and glory
And when you live up, all people envy you.
And when you eat what you get after being tired all day long looking for food , you find the meaning of life
.
Do not you see that whoever feeds you from the remains of his food?
Slaughter your children and take your eggs and hold you all the time under the pretext of the wolf and other fears !!
The chicken laughed and said:
You speak incomprehensible words like
Ecstasy - pride - dignity - moral - life .. You must have been crazy or brain washed !
.
The falcon said to her:
I understand what you say because you were born in the cage and lived in it and its hard to change the culture of the cage 
And you will not understand what I say until after you get out of this cage 
and you learn how to live free and to fly high !

And she said to him
Why fly high and live high
Do not you see that your number is few ... Come with us and enter the cage
There are those who feed us and do not tire ourselves by flying and there is no wolf that threatens us
.
The falcon laughed a lot and said:
When you fly high, "you feel the joy of dignity, dignity and glory
And when you live up, all people envy you.
And when you eat what you get tired of, you find the meaning of life
.
Do not you see that whoever feeds you from the remains of his food?
Slaughter your children and take your eggs and hold you all the time under the pretext of the wolf
The chicken laughed and said:
You speak incomprehensible words like
Ecstasy - pride - dignity - Shoukhm - life .. You must have been mad
.
The falcon said to her:
I understand what you say because you were born in the cage and lived in it
And you will not understand what I say until after you get out of this cage
And the chicken is like many people .. !!

Leave if you want to leave !!! poem

 











    How difficult when you cry without tears and how hard to fall in love with a lot of fears
When happiness is nothing but illusion everything in life seem the same
I won't leave with no return
how hard to speak without your voice and how difficult when the light darkness is what you see
you feel happiness is faraway unreachable dream I am alone lost with hard time from a hurting dream
                                    Leave if you want to leave!!!

     I said I love you and I mean my words Today I say to you that it was my decision to be for you
I will wait despite my burned heart if you are not my destiny you will be my choice
If I forget my name I will not forgot your tears cry melted from your eyes tears
The time will be wasted and I will not betray your covenant even if you can't over come the suffering and the shame !!
                                  Leave if you want to leave. 
     I won't explain the love in my heart to you My heart will be patient for the sadness of sadness-es
I learned in your absence how to deal with suffering I learned in your absence how to hide my weakness
                                Leave if you want to leave. 
     To me you are like frolicsome twilight you hang around the whole ways of departure
Like a wounded sparrowhawk you traveled with no pavement of peace...
Assassinate all forms of connection and thunder with reminiscence
Oh my love
                             Leave if you want to leave.
     every time I remembered and called you the cry weeped  for hearing me crying
and every time I looked at you the memories destroyed my entire entity And the nostalgia made a short cut straight to my heart
And the trailer of memories returned to tear the cuts of my aches
Tell me my love ? what if tears streamed down ! down on the cheeks who would clear those tears out ?                             Leave if you want to leave.
     Tell me ? what if the phantom of breakdown chased me behind the whole way of loss ?
Where shall I find shelter ? and where the end will be ?
Tell me what if the birds left my sky.. heading to the skyline of ruins ..?
Who would bring the singing of Bulbuls again?
                              Leave if you want to leave. 
     How can I draw a way of eternal bestowal  .... without your hand that support mine ! if it ever stumbled with demise ?
Tell me who would draw me of the detail of his features: for me to see the truth after the vanishing of mirage ?
                               Leave if you want to leave.       
Who would bring me back prudence after being foolish .
.... for my sake ..listen to my speech as it comes in one tone, a symphony of remembrance that I made you own !!!
And don't ask me if I miss you and miss being with you instead, Look between the line of your hands you will find me a prisoner fighting between my destiny and my choice !
Breath deeply ! you will find me as a very little atom fighting its parallels to find its way to you
Close your eyes !my phantom won't vanish from your fantasy !!
                               Leave if you want to leave.
    When I run away from the world none sense to you... touch the air you'd definitely feel my present
I am part of your entity I am some of you, I am entirely you, I am you !!
Gather my dispersion ! and sprinkle it on the layers of substantial pain if you decided to leave !
light up the night lamp in the daylight hours as the day light won't look like normal day no longer in the eyes.
     Cover me with the garment of remembrance as the cold will then breach of warmth and break up the ribs of nostalgia !! Leave if you want to leave... But let your departure be to the land of reunion not the land of neglect and lose !!
Be a home to me as I am orphan with no home, homeless drizzle with pain, I am a wound  !!
I am a wound with the feature of a human ! so be to me The way being homes feels like

Goddesses in Every Woman

 Jean Shinoda Bolen’s Goddesses in Every Woman discusses the archetypes that have powerful effects on the way women define themselves. They stand for the forces and potentials inside a woman’s personality, and provide the basis for self-identification either through the predominance of one archetype or the combination of several archetypes at once. The understanding of the seven discussed archetypes provides the key to women for their self-knowledge and wholeness. The archetypes used by Bolen are based on the Greek mythology and as a Jungian she uses them to define female possibilities of personality. In this role, she addresses how these archetypes show up in the individual as well as the collective Western culture and influence women and society in positive and negative ways. The spectrum of archetypal possibilities reaches from the autonomous Artemis, distant Athena to the nurturing Demeter and creative Aphrodite, and explains how to decide which one to foster, cultivate, or overcome, as well as how to employ the power of these enduring archetypes to gain further understanding and control of one’s life. This knowledge is useful, because it helps women and their society to understand the existing stereotypes and enable the individual woman to rise above the predominant archetypes within her and gain awareness and control of these forces by employing them in the way that is most suitable for her. Understanding the mechanisms and behaviors behind archetypes also enables women to analyze and comprehend the important female relations in their lives.

I found it encouraging that Bolen detaches herself form the reductionist stereotypes that are most common in Western culture to describe a richer and more rounded potential of women. She calls women to take initiative to know themselves and become aware of their potentials, as opposed to comply with the roles others have defined for them in their lives. She calls on them to become heroines, and to start writing their own storyline in a conscient way rather than flying on autopilot. Women are invited to learn about the variety of their inner potentials to improve their own lives and the relationships with those around them, especially other females.

Bolen also emphasizes at the end of her book that a woman needs to achieve wholeness as her path to ‘home’. This conquest ends in the union of opposites or the inner marriage of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’, being active and receptive, being autonomous and intimate, in short developing a rich and well rounded personality.

For once, Bolen’s Goddesses in Every Woman provided me with a better understanding of the        struggle of women for their identity in the Western culture.

Having  girls of my own, I appreciated the insight into the potential forces within a woman that she is encouraged to explore in order to achieve self-knowledge and self-actualization. It is important to encourage our daughters to explore their possibilities and potentials with the awareness and self knowledge that enables them to look behind the ‘obvious’ and explore their deeper inner being to help them to overcome narrow stereotypes and roles that are tailored to small and limited to fit their wholeness.

I personally believe that it is a good thing to remind women of the reality that they are more likely to face ‘natural’ life stages of being throughout their life time than men are, because of their ability and the accompanying psychological needs of women to be mothers and caretakers. Very often the image most represented in the Western culture is the woman that ‘lives like a man’, independent and successful. While this is absolutely possible to achieve, it comes at a prize, as well as the decision of having children, which carries the potential to dramatically change a woman’s life in many unexpected ways. I appreciate the reasonable and realistic way Bolen addresses these life stages and points our awareness to them.

I struggle to achieve my dreams and not to avoid failure.

Going back to study and finish my degree in a complete different field than what I have studied before has been a long time “dream in the making”.

I am a professional engineer, just like all the males in my family are. Besides this “family tradition”, I also proved early on to be particularly skilled in this field. This offered enough obvious reason to take this path. 

Not that I am unhappy about it, but I think I am now again at a point where I am really looking forward to a new perspective, new opportunities and challenges. I am looking forward to moving something else than networks and wires and means of communications. I would like to move minds.

Mine first, of course – that’s how it all starts! But in the future I am hoping to be a teacher to others and to teach at an academic level. 

I think it’s my love to share new ideas and my enthusiasm for speaking and teaching that drives me. It is also my ability to analyze and gain a deeper understanding for things, events and people.

About 10 years ago, I decided to start an addition to my engineering career. I opened a restaurant business, which was a new challenge in a completely unknown field to me. Of course, I was aware that I could always fall back on my engineering expertise, but I had made an investment –financially, personally and professionally - and I was eager to see it succeed. I put a lot of time, work and sweat in it to get it where I wanted it to be and maybe I should now be content and relax a little. But I don’t feel like this is the end.

I have been working in the food business for over 10 years now and I have to admit, that even though it proved to me that I am able to work with people of all kinds and paths of life, I ended up feeling sometimes that I am intellectually at a dead end. It seems to me that the usual folks who work in the food business generally lack education and often motivation. Let’s face it, for the majority that is sadly the reason why they are doing a kind of job that offers very little possibilities of promotion or development.  As much as having a business is a daily challenge, I am missing an inspiring atmosphere, where new ideas and perspectives about significant issues are developed and shared.

Over the term of this class, these thoughts manifested themselves over and over again and my decision to go for the degree and career path that brought me to Belmont in the first place got reinforced by the experiences and exchanges I had a chance to make here so far. It seems like I came here already quite determined and it seems that I am going to pursue what I came for in the first place.

Currently, I am working on getting things organized here at the school to the point that I will later be able to pursue my studies I plan to aim at a PhD in Political economics.

Over the past weeks it became clearer to me that there are two dimensions to these decisions concerning my –hopefully- future career path: 

First of all, it is the possibility to have a job that encourages a life of learning in an environment that fosters investigation, analysis and discovery of new information and knowledge. It also offers the opportunity to share and develop this knowledge with others, colleges and students. This dynamic meets my own desire to develop myself and to help others to develop. People take so much for granted without ever getting down to the essence of things. I would love to teach students to really learn how to analyze, think and draw conclusions on their own. Unfortunately, most people are intellectually passive; they are spectators rather than participants even in issues that affect their lives greatly.

This brings me to the second dimension: the fact that economy is the governing factor of our lives. It determines not only our financial independence but also sadly often our mental, psychological and spiritual freedom and offers or restrains the possibilities that these fields offer to our personal lives. Economy is at first sight the science of finance and money, but if you look at it closely it turns to be a science of people: their behavior, their spending, their needs, their desires…so many human traits are represented by this single word. However, the majority of people believe that they cannot understand or comprehend it, because they were let to believe over time, that it is a science that rises over their intellectual capacities. I believe that this is untrue for the greatest part. Economy is such a practical field, that it can be understood by many more than presently believe that they can – and I would like to make it one of my missions to give others more understanding about it in terms that they will be able to grasp the concepts and underlying mechanisms of it.

Further on, history has proven time and time again, that “money rules the world”. So economy by itself wouldn’t give you the complete picture why things happen in this world the way they are happening. If not paired with political insight, economy stays on a level of commerce without really revealing to us the true motivations of political decisions. Politics are made by countries to secure their interests –sadly often enough- above all other motivations. In order to understand the relations between monetary interests and political decisions on a national and international level, only political science can offer the tools and means of evaluation and analysis for the past and –most importantly- the future.

My own country Egypt has lived through an eventful that brought a lot of change and hope to many. It also created a lot of expectations and fears. But it proved –and that is surely reason for hope- that money doesn’t always rule and that people can change their destiny and the destiny of their communities and countries by standing together against what they perceive as deep injustice and treason towards them. When people are knowledgeable, encouraged, and brave, than great things can happen. And this is the part of political science that surpasses the “just material” part of life. I feel very inspired by these events that took place in the country I grew up in and I love. This inspiration carried me through the last year, sometimes wishing that I could do more than just publishing my thoughts and opinions in videos online to support the brave citizens of Egypt. It is also one of the factors that carried my decisions during these meaningful last weeks, when it became clear to me that my vision of a new career might become reality through entering the school and starting the first steps one at a time, class by class.

As much as possible, I tried to choose classes that foster my skills in communications and analysis. Those that I thought were most likely to encourage independent thought, tolerance and informed interest in current affairs, those which I thought will teach the mechanisms of defining a problem and contributing to its solution. This will surely be one of my criteria for the future choice of classes, as well as the imposed restrictions that I have to take into account in order to be able to continue with my phd.

At this point of my life, going back to school is a completely different experience than my first studies. Today, I have to consider, how to sustain my family while I am studying and I have to carry on with my responsibilities towards them, my business, and my employees.

At this age, the “puzzle of live”, the landscape, has changed a lot and so have the demands and expectations of the people around me. There are so many factors to consider that I never had to think about in my early years when the only responsibility I had was myself. 

In the 1990’s, I started a telecommunication business early while still at college in Cairo (Egypt) and ran it during the following 5 years. I experienced a lot of stress and pressure related to the professional part of my life. However, I enjoyed the ups and -even the- downs much more with a carefree attitude than I would be able to do now. 

I am a person who naturally takes on his responsibilities and is very serious about them. I cannot fail those who depend on me and I will almost do my up most to meet my promises and what else I am required to do. Whenever I am –due to a situation not able to fulfill my promises, I will make it up to the person, because I feel that I cannot leave someone disappointed or discontent with me. I set the expectations towards myself high and I won’t be satisfied until I meet them.

As I went, I realized that communication is highly important in this phase of my life. On one hand, with my family: Because when time is of the matter, efficient communication is essential. Explaining myself and involving them in my planning has become even more important.

On the other hand, excellent communication skills are obviously also extremely important when dealing with my employees. As I am naturally less time around to supervise them now that I am studying, good communication habits are key. Being with them in the phone instead of being physically with them, facing the problem directly and on site often requires good analysis skills and precise answers from my side. They also have to feel that I am still with them –through my empathy, and I am still in control – through my decisions.

Often, employees will feel nervous or even overburdened when left with the responsibility of running the business in the absence of their employer.  So it is important to have a sensible schedule to get into regular contact with them, even if they do not contact me. It is reassuring for them, when I check on them and I stay in contact, so they know they aren’t going to face difficult situations all by themselves.

However, my managerial style is still a goal oriented one. If you reach the desired result, than you did the job. Everyone is different and therefore does things differently. Quite often there is more than one way to do things right and I recognize that. I don’t like to determine every single step in a process. I will give the big outline and where I want things to go and how I intend to get them there. You need to be on the same page with me, than you know what is expected of you. I believe giving this kind of freedom to my employees fosters their sense of responsibility and creativity. I am still there to guide, if they get stuck, but I want them to try it on their own and their way first.

On the way I try to teach them alternative ways to get things done, so they can develop and design your own “best practices” over time. The more someone is successful the more I put trust in him or her and I am willing to add new responsibilities.

It is basically a healthy balance between the delegating, trusting and the controlling, guiding side of managing.

However, work ethics are absolutely essential for me and I strive for the most ethical behavior myself when I deal with my employees – and I will always expect the same from them. My restaurant is a place of business and nothing else. I expect professionalism paired with high personal standards.                            This is something I will let any newcomer know, before they even enter the kitchen. You can learn how to bake a pizza, but you cannot learn values, ethics, and proper behavior, if you don’t have them already!                 Meaning, I am more than willing to teach you the technical part, but I expect you to know the meaning of manners, loyalty and respect for yourself and others.

Unfortunately, the field of food business seems to be the playground for a lot of peoples’ personal agendas and personal dramas. I am human and I can feel their difficulties and pain. However, I don’t believe that it is professional to bring these things to your work place. These things should be dealt with on a personal level –as that is the level they emerge from. They, most certainly, have nothing to do in the work relation with your employer or your co-workers. Unfortunately, this causes a lot of disturbance and stress in addition to the professional pressure and leads to the termination of many work relationships. This is sad, because as an employer and on a personal level I highly appreciate long-term work relations for their reliability and trust.

But in spite of disappointments and difficulties in my current business, job, studies and life, I learned that there is always ease after hardship. And without wanting to sound “over the top” here, I need to admit that seeing the struggle of some other students here at the school and the difficulties they face on a personal and professional level makes me appreciate my own situation much more.

It is humbling to know, that your own difficulties aren’t really as bad as they seem at times. I am aware that I struggle and that for a part because I challenge myself more than I would have to. But it makes me feel thankful to know that I do have choices and that I am not just forced to go with the flow because I am lacking other alternatives due to a certain situation.  I struggle because of the choices I am making and not because of an external circumstantial power that forces things on me. I struggle to achieve my dreams and not to avoid failure. And this makes all the difference!!!