Sometimes you feel like you’ve just had enough. You want to stop and you think that if you do, everything else will. But then you realize the world goes on without people like you. It doesn’t need people like you because you’re too much of a perfectionist. Your requirements for high-standard work is way overrated and taken too seriously. Perhaps you should wind down a bit and let the relaxed professionals take care of things. You try to then you realize nothing seems to happen.

Then do it for who? No one is asking anyway. No one cares anyway. I’ve asked myself this question a zillion times in the last 10 years or so. And my conclusion is: you’re doing this for one person only – and that is yourself. It’s your self-commitment that drives your motivation to carry out and complete tasks with perfection and highest standard of quality. Who cares about their standards and their self-proclaimed titles? Who cares about what they and what they are not able to do? What matters most is what you can do and how much you can challenge yourself to carry out the ‘impossible’. This is all that matters.

Whenever you get down and cannot make sense of what’s going on around you, remind yourself, it doesn’t really make sense. Nothing really makes sense. We make sense out of things and we put actions into words and without our self-commitment and respect for ourselves, we’d probably never accomplish anything.

Keep positive! Think positive! Focus!

It was like the old days – when we all gathered together for a Sunday lunch. That had become more of a ritual for my family – having a special meal on Sundays that is. My mother would prepare many dishes in advance and my brother and I would help preparing the table for lunch. Sometimes we’d walk more than 4 km to buy soda for our special meals. It was a joyous occasion for us and I still remember how beautiful that was – looking back.

My Sundays today are just like every other day. Yes I’m married and have a beautiful son but I can never live that experience again. I would love to. It’s funny how life experiences that seem so mediocre to us today become unforgettable memories in our future. It wasn’t pleasant – walking up and down the hill in Sabtieh area just to buy few bottles of soda. It wasn’t. But I would still do anything to re-live that experience. It could be because it’ll give me another chance to reunite with my loved ones. It’ll give me another chance to tell my grandmother how much I loved her. Another chance to cherish the world God has given us at the time and the opportunities we had together as one family.

Now we are all separated. My mother lives in Lebanon, my brother in London, and I live in Thailand. We are thousands of miles apart and living separate lives. It’s like whatever happened in the past is just the past and will never become a reality again. It’s like life has passed so quick that yesterday seems to have never existed. My brother so immersed in his work and family, my mother occupied with my younger brother’s studies, and myself with my own family and work-related stress. While everything seems difficult in the past, I still would give anything to experience it all again.

I love my mother, brother, and my grandmother. That union between us was just unbreakable. We lived and experienced it all together in unison – the war, my mother’s work life, and generally our experiences in the community. We were a team. We had each other to turn to for anything in our lives. We used to talk and solve problems together. We used to have birthdays and celebrations together. We dined and ate special meals on occasions together. It was routine and I didn’t even appreciate it. I didn’t appreciate the days, hours and seconds that I spent with my beloved family. I wish someone warned me of what was about to happen. I wish someone prepared me for the day that my grandmother came back home feeling tired and looking pale.

She came out of a yellow car that had belonged to one of our community members. She had come back from one of her weekly tours visiting friends and family. She sat down on the sofa and asked me to massage her arm. I did! Then she lied down and looked extremely exhausted. She sat back up and asked me to massage her arm harder. It was numb! I looked at her face and I realized her mouth movement was not right. She was now suddenly murmuring words but I could not understand what she was saying! I rushed to the bedroom for mother. Something was not right and somehow I felt things were going to change. My mother then asked our neighbor to rush my grandmother to the hospital. It was a gloomy night, that one. I remember sleeping alone only hoping my grandmother would come back the next day. My brother was working late at a restaurant and so I had no one to comfort me. It was probably one of the most difficult nights of my life.

She had a very difficult time at the hospital. We all took turns staying with her. I was still a helpless person back then. I was not making money and I couldn’t pay the bills. What I could only do is stay with my ailing grandmother and comfort my mother. My mother was working and had to plan and prepare for everything to make sure my grandmother was well taken care of. She spent about 3 months at the hospital after which the doctors advised us to take her home. They said there was nothing they could do for her. She could recover at home under our care. She had just had a Tracheotomy and we had to insert a tube into her airways every few hours or so to clean the phlegm that should help her breath. We worried about this as the electricity was not all that stable in Lebanon. I remember praying hard so we didn’t find ourselves in a situation where we could not support her breathing because of electricity.  Trust me it wasn’t pretty.

With all this happening, we still had hope and we still believed that she was going to get better. We thought she was going to come back to us. She was going to sit on that sofa again and drink her regular coffee and watch movies silently (I forgot to mention my grandmother was almost completely deaf).

I woke up one day and found she was staring at me. She had this blank look on her face that just showed no emotions. It was like she was in a trance. That scared me to be honest. I ran to the kitchen to my mother and told her my grandmother was not doing fine. I told her my grandmother was going to die that day. My mother shrugged it off and asked me not to talk about my grandmother that way. I wasn’t sure what was happening. Following school that day, I came home to find at least 10 cars parked around our building.

She was gone! She was very cold then – when I kissed her. When someone dies, everyone around you comes together. They all come together to support you. Sometimes it’s even people who never ask about you when you’re in trouble. I don’t know what it is about death that brings people together. Suddenly our house was very popular. That old place where only four people communion-ed together and never actually had real friends in the last 9 years or so became a gathering area for people to mourn. They all seemed sad and it was suddenly like everyone loved and supported us.

Nothing worse than packing belongings of a recently deceased beloved one. We cried and cried while we packed her private stuff into bags, which we donated to a nearby church. I went through pictures she kept in her drawers – pictures of my uncle – oh how much she loved him! He was everything to her. He was in South Africa during her illness and years earlier and so she did not see much of him in her last years. She always spoke of him and waited anxiously for his visits. Now they were only pictures in a drawer.

My grandmother always said: “as time passes by, everyone eventually gets their turn”. And now it was hers. A grandmother is a grandmother to everyone. For me she was not only my grandmother but also a part of me – a part of my existence and that had just died and is now a small chunk of a large volume of past events. Who will remember the suffering and the hardship she had to go through? Who will remember the sleepless nights she had to raise my mother and uncle and the restless days she spent caring for us?

Life is so short and before we know it, everything is all over. It was over for her.

As we sat chatting on the roof in that dark gloomy night, I remember seeing a large boat floating in the sky passing us by. What was strange about this one was it was on fire. It was burning and it was all covered in flames. It was floating speedily to a far away destination. Suddenly, my grandmother sprang in surprise, raised her arms, and shouted to the floating boat. I don’t remember exactly what she said but I know she wanted on it. She ran after this glazing transporter and screamed both in  joyand agony. In her desperation, my grandmother then jumped off the roof of that strange building and fell down into the darkness and we would never see her again.

And that was when I woke up!

I scoured the Internet to learn more about the circumstances surrounding his death but could not find anything. I wonder what they were and if anyone could have done anything to change his mind.

I’m sure many of us have contemplated suicide. It’s a shortcut to a surely guaranteed demise. But is it fulfilling? What makes suicide good or bad?

The moment a person considers suicide is when they have given up. It is when they’ve developed hatred towards themselves. It’s when they think: “I hate the way I am. I don’t deserve living. I should go and let the world continue without me. After all, I’m worthless. What have I done to change the world? I can’t even manage my own life. ” This is the beginning of a thinking pattern that begins with suicide contemplation and finally and most probably ends with actual suicide.

Yes life is unfair. Life is difficult and filled with injustice specifically to the just. It is hard to those who work hard. It kills those who wish to live and it depresses those who crave happiness. But are those enough reasons for one to commit suicide?

If you’re reading this, please believe that the devil has paid me a visit and that we had a ‘good’ conversation together. It was mostly one-way in that I was mostly listening while he was being assertive. He was so convinced of facts that I couldn’t possibly even fathom today. He was eating away at my heart. This is what it feels like speaking to the devil. It is just heartbreaking.

Could this be true? What he was preaching - could it be true?

He knocked on my door a few times last year and I ignored him. I didn’t ignore him intentionally but it just wasn’t time for me to open up. And when I did, he went right in and straight to it. He had no time to waste and was all over me in a few minutes. He discussed my stressful life and emphasized my breaking points. He came up with revolutionary ideas. He described and summed up my life in a few flash cards  that sounded like it was nonsensical if I thought otherwise. Everything was so clear to him and he was only there to pass on his ‘wise’ message to me. He was preaching to me and he was trying to help me rid myself of all that bothers me. Yes he was my closest friend!

Dear friends, please believe it when I tell you – the devil may be your closest friend. No he’s not your worst enemy and he’s not your disrespectful neighbor or your jealous colleague – the devil chooses your loved ones to reach out to you. He chooses your closest friend and manifests himself through him/her. There’s one good thing in all this. Yes unknowingly I did let him in but I eventually did suspect his intentions. And now that I think about it closely, I’m sure it was him and I’m certain of his last intentions. Put it simply – he wants to destroy and break up what we have struggled together to build.

One of his best tools for such break-up is ‘resentment’. When you listen to the devil and when you ‘buy’ into his ways, you start resenting others. And when you resent others and feel like they owe you endless apologies, it’s then that the devil celebrates and triumphs in his victory. He kept trying to plant seeds of resentment in me but he only almost successful - just almost. Yes I did open the door at first and welcome him – but it wasn’t long before my heavy-loaded spirit felt agitated in his presence. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Whenever you get that feeling of uneasiness when you’re around someone or something and you just want to get out. That’s exactly how it felt. For days he insisted on breaking my soul and he strenuously tried to convince me that I was his best friend and that he will always be there for me – unlike the other “imbeciles” in my life who were only there to crucify my soul. He promises to be there and promises that all will be fine - with him on my side.

The devil promises. He promises heaven. He promises riches. He promises glory. He promised me things in my life and he was promising me things today too. You then struggle to realize those promises and when he doesn’t deliver, your faith in him grows strangely stronger. This happens because you won’t give credit to the devil for promises he has kept. You want to believe that it was God that has bestowed you with the so-called blessings. You want to believe you deserve what you’ve earned and so you attribute all your ‘well-deserved’ credit to your Lord and Savior. The devil craves victory and winning regardless of your decisions.

Yes I conversed with the devil and I am sure it was him laughing and grinning through that screen. He looked so confident and so ecstatic. Yet he failed. He continues to fail today and will continue to fail forever. I can promise him and you that. There’s no breaking my soul and there’s no breaking my strong communion with my loved ones.

You can celebrate in your victory with others but you will not see any ‘light’ in your dealings with me. I may succumb to few of your temptations but the heart and soul are intact and you can keep trying all you want. Keep wasting your time because you won’t break me and you won’t break my spirit. You attack the ones I love and hurt them and turn us against one another but you won’t succeed in breaking us apart. God is in us and is for us and He is our favorite tool to fight you and we will fight you until our time comes. You can rejoice in some of your smaller accomplishments but you will not win the big battle. Rest assured dear devil!

You are nothing and no one and you hardly exist to us. You are only there because we choose to accept your existence and we do so because we acknowledge God’s intentions for us. We have this freedom of choice – the freedom to ‘kick’ you out of our lives or to invite you in. I’ve chosen to rather ban you altogether. So rest assured Mr. Egomaniac, your triumph in capturing my soul will never come. Believe it!

Every now and then we think back and realize it was just ‘yesterday’ that I graduated from high-school or it was only yesterday that I bought my first bicycle or it was only recently that I met my life partner. And then we reminisce and wish we were still living in the past. What did we expect? That we are going to live forever? Perhaps we should start teaching and educating our children about how short life is and that in a very short while we’ll be on our way out leaving room for our descendants to take over. Yes we will be forgotten and yes it will be like we’ve never existed. Believe it! There’s no escape to this fact. Your immediate family members may remember you but they soon will die too. So you can rest assured there’s nothing you can do today that’s going make you immortal. Nothing!

So what can you do when you surrender to this reality? I really don’t know the answer but I can guess. I found the truth lies in our relationships and dealing with other people – strange or familiar. Even though that won’t really call for immortality but what it provides is satisfaction with oneself. Nothing worse than self-induced pain and guilt about one’s own actions and accomplishments. When you dedicate your life towards improving other people’s lives, you feel this sense of inner satisfaction. The sense that you’ve made some contribution to this world and that contribution may pass on to the next generation. You’ve left traces of yourself inside others and you’ve not stopped making memories of your actions. This is what lasts and this is what continues to live on forever. I don’t want to be remembered, enshrined, or recorded somewhere on the history books. All we need is to gain our self-satisfaction from our contribution to others. This really is what matters. It’s not the success, the riches, the career, or anything ‘worthless’ in this life time for this matter. It’s all spiritual and it’s all self-gained.

If you don’t focus on others and what you can do to help them in any means possible, then you’re only chasing after worthless dreams. Dreams that even when transformed to reality – are only short-lived. Our aspirations must come from our inner want and longing for self-attainment. If we value ourselves and value the meaning of our life, we realize it’s really not about what we accomplish for ourselves. It’s about what we do for the entire community . It’s about what we carry out that affects other people’s’ lives positively.

When you’re on your deathbed thinking about these accomplishments and what you leave behind in aspirations for others, you realize this is all that really matters. It’s all spiritual and the gurus have said it right: nothing physical matters – it’s all in your spiritual accomplishments.

Just like all of you, I was keen on upgrading WordPress to the its latest version 3.5 and I did that as soon as they released it. Sadly, problems started creeping one at a time.

First, I could not insert any hyperlinks anymore using the editor. I had to manually write HTML code to do so.

Second, the Add Media button stopped functioning.

Third, I have a Gravity Forms plugin installed that helped with my ‘form’ development and design. That stopped working as well.

What is strange about all this is the above did not happen all at once. They happened in exactly the same order I have described them.

I tried everything to resolve the problem. I followed all recommendations in many forums including:

1. Inserting the script define(‘CONCATENATE_SCRIPTS’, false) in the wp_config.php file.

2. Inserting the script define(‘SCRIPT_DEBUG’, true) in the wp_config.php file.

3. Changing  define('WP_DEBUG', false);  to define('WP_DEBUG', true); in the wp_config.php file. 

4. Disabling/Re-enabling all plugins.

5. Resetting the plugins folder through FTP or PhPMyAdmin trick.

And then I went through the ‘Troubleshooting WordPress 3.5 Master List ’ but then again no luck. I’ve even worked with my hosting provider to check all my VPS settings and escalated issues to their administrators, who are now still looking into the situation.

But when I tried changing my current Socialite theme to the Twenty Eleven theme, that surely did  it.

Yes, no doubt the Socialite Theme may not include support for WordPress 3.5. But I had used it for more than a year. And there’s no way I’m going to change themes at this stage, which is what the WP developer team is recommending. I did check the theme developer site and it looked like they were anything but concerned.

Finally, I downgraded to WordPress 3.4.2 and everything worked again beautifully. I think I can live without some of the features in WordPress 3.5 and wait until the WP developer team acknowledges there are really serious issues with the latest release and do something about it.

Anyway, these are the steps needed for the downgrade.

1. De-activate all your plugins.
2. Backup all your existing root folder.
3. Delete all files and folders except wp_content.
4. Download WordPress 3.4.2 here.
5. Unzip the folder and upload all files (excluding WP_Content) to your public domain folder.
6. If you attempt to access your dashboard, an alert messages indicates wp_config.php is missing. It also asks to help create it. Forget it.
7. Copy wp_config.php from your backup folder to your public domain folder.
8. Try accessing your dashboard now and all is set.
9. Re-activate your plugins and you’re good to go.

Have fun!

Yes I know I have and will always sin against Thy name. But please believe me Father – I love Thee and I know I will be lost if it were not for Thee. You know I have seen the worst! You know all the hatred that is in my heart. You know my inner soul and how much I continuously sin against Thee. You also know that I am a weak soul and that I fall and break at many temptations. I can sense You in my Heart and the best place for me to communion with Thee is away from any distraction.

Most of the distractions I find are at places where only You are supposed to be. Still I find when I am alone I am able to abide with You even more. I am able to appreciate what hast Thou given me and how lucky I am today because You have chosen that I stay alive and healthy.

This is a prayer to You oh my Father and my God. Forgive me and please accept this message to You as my eternal promise and dedication that I intend to continue to abide with You even if You choose not to come within our lifetime. It does not matter anymore! How I long to meet with my loved ones – those that I have lost over the years.

Almighty Father – You teach me to speak up and be outspoken and tell things straight just as Jesus did. Then when I do so, others fear it is driving me away from You. I know it only brings me closer to Thee but others perceive this as a threat. A threat to the continued existence of a man-made structure – a man-made organization. But if we don’t speak our minds and question our faith, then are we living and being ourselves? Are we really and truly faithful? You have given us this freedom, this freedom of choice, the freedom to decide that You are our Father and Master. And if we don’t choose You, then we are just accepting what others have accepted. We are just accepting the love of our true Father without really experiencing it. I want to experience You Heavenly Father. And when I write You messages and speak to You in my dreams, it is only then that I feel You more and more! My love for You grows stronger every time I question Your existence.

I can’t see You and feel You in the piano and the beautiful music that plays in man-made structures. The only music that fills my heart are Your  strong words in my life. What You’ve done for me is what matters in my life and is the only music that feeds my soul. I don’t enjoy watching people competing to earn my respect for You. You have done a lot for me to strive for Your acceptance. I don’t long to see people using musical instruments to prove skill and along the way pass Your message along to me. I don’t accept things that way. I only want to see Your kindness and work manifested through the work of those who do not proclaim to evangelize for You. I long to see it in genuine people who are who they are and who speak what they think and who do things after weighing all options and against all odds. After they have seen the truth and now choose to do things not to impress You but to actually realize their true love for You.

Yes lots of hatred and anger inside my Lord! How does one wipe it out! I don’t think it’s possible during this time and will never be! I guess this is why death exists. It is really the end of suffering. It is really the end of our experiences. This is what rest is, it is our rest from this endless sadness and suffering for all that we have done and sinned against You. How I long to unite with You and with the loved ones I have lost!

Let this be my prayer to You that Thy may help me see You in everything that I do. Help me to see You in your mighty creations. Help me to remind myself of weak and guilty I am. Help me project You through my life and works. Help me to live You on earth.

If you stop for a second and think about the tragedies, genocides, and tragic circumstances committed by fellow-men against their brethren, you’d think you’re probably one of the luckiest people alive today. Sometimes I wonder, does the word ‘sin’ really describe such heinous crimes? On a recent trip to Phnom Penh Cambodia, I visited some sites where millions of people were beaten, tortured, sexually assaulted, and murdered in 1975 during the ‘Kampuchea Democratic’ era.

Looking at pictures of babies and mothers slaughtered by fellow human beings makes me question human origins. I mean even if Darwin were right about the theory of evolution, I wouldn’t think ‘intelligent apes’ would commit such bodily harm to one another.

Cambodia Central Market

How evil can ‘man’ be? In the ‘killing fields’ area, I stood by a tree where soldiers hammered babies’ bodies and heads and dumped them in a hole while their mothers watched. Under such circumstances, I’d say God forgives anyone who decides to take his/her own life. But even that was not possible. The sickly demented regime made sure no one committed suicide by confining them to extremely small and heavily guarded cells. They made sure they were all interrogated and tortured to death.

All this happened while the world went on. No one interfered – not even the United Nations.

How secure does that make me feel today?

To think of gratification as a tool that builds one’s self-confidence is a bit restrictive. If we isolate our self-confidence from being affected by what we receive from others in the form of gratification, we would then be shielding ourselves from expected behavior. People thrive on other people’s creations but do not necessarily acknowledge it. And that is an expected outcome that we as people should not try to change.

How about if we think of ourselves as contributors only and not receivers. We are here to give away what we can and never expect to receive anything in return. I’m not referring to monthly earnings from a job or a business but rather to our relationships with others – with our friends, colleagues, and family members.

I bet life won’t be as difficult if we put ourselves into expecting nothing from others. Because it’s only our expectations from others that infuriates us to thinking: “no one really cares”, or “I always call him/her but they never ask about me”, or “I’ve always fixed his computer but that’s the only reason he contacts me”, and many other such self-agonizing thought processes.

What if we’ve decided to help others just because we want to and not because we expect anything in return? You might argue: “I don’t want any money from him/her. I only want to know they appreciate what I’ve done for them. Perhaps one phone call or a visit or an invitation to the restaurant for a meal will do it”. But that’s just exactly what frustrates us when we realize expectations for our deeds may go unnoticed.

It should not be about the money and it should not be about the other party’s behavior that determines our self-gratification. It is how we think about ourselves that matters. And if we have exerted ourselves for others without any expectations in return, it is then that our perspective on life changes. We become more positive and we learn to appreciate ourselves. And finally if someone does really show us appreciation, then that is just another added bonus to what we already have. These are only my thoughts and I know it’s the only to fight the negativity that plagues our lives.

Should I expect love then? It’s difficult to say. But it would be safer to think like: “I want to love others instead”. If we think of our lives as givers and not receivers, everything that follows from there will and should not influence how we perceive ourselves. So instead of focusing on receiving love from your partner, perhaps we should start focusing on giving more love to them. There’s no room for “and if they don’t love me in return?” anymore.

Should I expect that someone reads this? I don’t know!!

Never Expect the Unexpected!

A Project Charter is a document that officially declares the onset of the project and specifies important information necessary to carry on further project tasks. Ideally, this document is issued and validated by the Project Sponsor only.

Benefits of Project Charter

A Project Charter:

1. Formally authorizes a Project in the company. Resource Managers, for instance, may start discussing resource requirements internally within their functional units to make sure they can meet the project’s resource needs.

2. Authorizes the Project Manager to spend approved funds required to start project activities.

3. Provides high-level requirements of the project.

4. Identifies important assumptions and constraints that may affect project activities.

Why is a Project Charter Necessary?

Many companies start projects without preparing well-defined Project Charters. When that happens, the Project Manager in charge finds it difficult to:

1.  Approach anyone for resources because the project is not officially recognized at the company.

2. Spend any funds required for initiating activities because the accounting/finance department is unaware of the planned activities.

3. Find the ‘right’ personnel, stakeholders, or primary decision makers necessary for project success (behind/on schedule, within budget, and according to the expected quality).

Does the Project Charter Change?

The simple answer is ‘No’. A project charter is usually broad enough that it does not need be changed throughout the course of a project.

A Sample Project Charter Outline

- Project Title and Description
- Project Manager Assigned and Authority Level
- Reason for the Project
- Pre-Assigned Resources
- Project Stakeholders
- Stakeholder Requirements
- Deliverables or end-result of the project
- Constraints and Assumptions