Wednesday, September 30, 2015

As You Grow Older..

I'm sure we've all heard the phrase "life is short" when we were little children, and we took a brief pause to think to ourselves, and quickly disregarded the fact thinking "I've been alive for only 8 years and it feels like it's been ages!". Well, if you didn't think that way, I did, and so did the majority of other little children.

Over the course of your childhood you are definitely going to hear this quote, "life is too short", and you'll never truly understand the meaning. Few people understand it early on, and I'd like to categorize myself as one of those people. Life truly is short, you might think it isn't but as you grow older, you'll eventually get to realize that just because your first 15 years of life seemed slow, doesn't mean it really is slow.

We all go through experiences. Whether good or bad, they inevitably leave a permanent mark on us. They leave a memory, as we refer to it, that we get whenever we think of that event or thing. As you grow older, you'll grow full of memories, good and bad ones. You'll grow full of memories of old gossip you had with friends, inside jokes, good and bad days, loved ones' words, your first poo on the toilet, your first time eating using a spoon, and a lot more. These memories eventually build up your childhood, teenage years, early-adulthood, and so on until you're not much more than an old wrinkly grandpa sitting around his little grandchildren, thinking about their past.

As you grow older, you'll realize life is a lot more than just sitting around and playing with your little toy soldiers. Your responsibilities grow the older you get and eventually one day you'll be thinking back at your childhood in your mid-30s, thinking "those were the days", as your thought is shortly interrupted by "Daddy! Can we go get icecream?". It is a little sad to be thinking this way, it might be cheerful for other people, but in truth we're all going to be like that one day.

As you grow older, you'll realize it becomes less important to have more friends and more important to have real ones, and you'll understand the true meaning of friendship. Friendship is not when you go over to a friend's house and watch a movie or two then leave. Friendship is a life-long relationship where you build amazing memories with an individual. Your true friend is the one you're going to be sitting with in 30 years while you both look back at old memories and say, "life truly is short". 

Yeah, life truly is short. Whether it's your grandfather, grandmother, your mother, father, or whoever it is telling you that, just believe them. One day you'll look back at what they said and you'll completely agree, and you will say the exact same quote to your children, and they will think the exact same thought, "Life is so long! You're just old!" Little do they know.. 

Saturday, September 19, 2015

Self Exploration, and an Introduction.

Many stereotypes circulate around certain cultures and regions, like the common stereotypes perceived by first world countries about the Middle East. My name is Tariq, I am a 15 year old Middle-Eastern teenager. No, I don't live in a tent, I don't live in the far ends of some desert in Saudi Arabia, I don't own a camel or a goat, and most importantly, I'm not going to walk into a shopping mall and scream "ALLAHU AKBAR!" then explode.

I live a typical teenager life, filled with speculations and self-questioning which won't get me anywhere. One of the common questions that pop up on my head is my future, which quite frankly isn't the clearest thing as of yet. I aspire to thrive and succeed in things I love; music, computing, writing and much more. I'm still exploring myself and my own mentality, trying to get a grip of what my true core-character is, and trying to accustom to who I truly am.

Many teenagers slip into the ultimate inevitable doom of depression during this phase. They're oh-so uncertain about everything, and all seems so dark for them, as if life has closed all its doors. Everything suddenly comes to a halt, and they realize that they aren't quite happy with how everything is turning out to be. This is failure.

On the other, brighter side, many actually succeed in handling all the stress and downsides of what the "teen" phase does to you. It's not always sad times, really, you're actually living one of the best times you'll experience in your entire life. As one ages up, his/her responsibilities stack up and increase more and more, eventually to the point where you hear older people say "one day you'll be as old as I am and you'll realize how much of a blessing youth is".

Youth truly is a blessing, however only if you make it that way. You're basically shaping your character and inner-self up for the future you have ahead of you. Every person you interact with, every decision you take, every thought you have and every mindset you take eventually leaves a permanent mark on you, inevitably having an effect on your personality.

The past is done and dusted, live your present and plan ahead for your future, because only you can achieve what you truly want. :)