Why don't we do what's good for us!?

I always knew that reading a good book is good for me. I knew it from real experience. Yet sometimes I waste a month, or more, without opening a book. A few days ago I picked a book from my library, mostly unread, and started reading it. I was delighted as I went from page to page. I was inspired. Good words have a sort of spiritual, clean energy that goes right to where our higher self resides. They speak to the best in us. Every human has the possibility of moving between lower and higher levels of being, between the best and the worst of one's self:

"ِAnd by the soul and how He formed it, and inspired it its own rebellious evil and its piety! The one who purifies his soul succeeds, and the one who corrupts it fails"
Quran 91:7-10

Even though I knew it, there comes long periods of time where I don't attempt to do myself good by reading a valuable book. But when I do get myself to do it, I just wonder: why in the world did I waste all this time without reading anything! Why did I waste all this time (or all this life! time being life, and not money!), not doing what's good for me! At times we can't help but re-confirming that we are our own worst enemies!

The best promise I can make to myself is this: I will always have a book to read. There are too many great books for one life-time anyway, and we are even wasting much of this one life??!! How insane that is!

However a good book is not worthy just because it's good in itself. Books are ideas conserved and communicated in words. And ideas change people, then people change the world!

We're indeed here only to change the world and make it, along with our own selves, better. And again, there are too many things in the world to change and reform for one life-time anyway, and we're wasting this one life not even thinking of ways to reform it!

The least we can do for those who are suffering the unbelievable cruelty and injustice of some people is to care and think. Yes, think. Of what's happening, how it happened, and how to change it. Thoughts are energy. Didn't you hear that you should be careful what you think, because it might just come true!

For those who are still blind, let them "see" The Corporation

This is a MUST-SEE documentary. And by MUST, I mean that it's not optional. It's not a luxury. We can't afford to waste too much time without this kind of information in the center of our interests. Every day interests. If we think and feel that we are free beings, and indeed we are, then we should be informed and aware of those who are trying to take away our freedom, for their own, exclusive, superficial, short-term and stupid benefit.

It's pretty long, two hours and 25 minutes. I didn't watch it at once, and may be you shouldn't neither. I felt that I needed some time between every 2 or three titles. I am already familiar with what is being said here, but still, I needed to watch it. This DVD is on my to-own-when-I-get-out-of-debt list!!! Rent the DVD, buy it, or watch it all on Google Video. Then go the web site created for the documentary: www.TheCorporation.com, I checked it out and it was great to see that the producers built this web site to follow up on the ideas. Because this is a watch-for-action kind of documentary. The actions can be small in the beginning, personal and limited. It's OK, that's how everything starts in life.

We have to build and expand our awareness. It is the only way to get our world out of blindness and darkness. The light needs those people who can see (informed, aware) in order for the light to spread and dominate. And I am confident that we will win. Just when we truly decide to.

Quiz: The True Race

I don't remember when I wanted to travel and live in foreign countries. It seems to me that I always did, since a very young age. Even as a child, I used to make lists of all the countries that I "will" visit. I knew I didn't like for my experience of life and people to be limited to one country and one culture.

With that desire to travel and see different places, I also had a strong belief about the difference between people. This belief never weakened, and it's still very much mine until this day. It will always be. I am a fan of the truth, and once I find it, I never give it up. I know this belief to be true.

It's about the real difference between people. The things that really connect or separate them. It's not their color. Not their language. Not their inherited religion. It's not their country or their nation. It's none of any of the identities that people usually use to define themselves and their belonging. It's something more fundamental, and more simple.

How do I define myself? Well, I am a Muslim, an Egyptian, an Arab, a human being, an immigrant in USA. I am all those. But none of those is to make me really different or similar to another person. I always said I could sometimes be closer to, say, a Western Jew than to a Muslim Egyptian. Even though my believing in God defines me, and that for me He is the source of all meaning and all truths, I could sometimes be closer from an atheist than a fellow Muslim.

I think that this is the only and most accurate criterion that should divide individuals into distinct groups. It is the real nationality, the ultimate belonging. Do you want me to tell you what it is, or listen to what you think first?

I'd rather listen, then speak!

Healthy discounts

In my last post I mentioned a brief personal experience with how businesses can be irresponsible as far as the health of our world (called environment). Just a few days after this experience I had another one, this time positive. I'd like to talk about it here as an example of how businesses can encourage their customers to make better, or cleaner shopping-style choices.

I was shopping at Vitamin World, now my favorite supplements store. They offer a member's discount for 2 days every month, it's free to become a member, and you get 50% off, which is a great deal (well, I wish I was paid for this advertisement now, but in case you are wondering, I am not!). I became a fan of natural healing, supplements and especially herbs. I might have inherited this passion from my mother, who is the family herb specialist, however I only realized my passion for this field in recent years. Anyway, while doing my shopping for herbs that I know, and some others that I wanted to experiment with, I found this nice offer, and I immediately grabbed it. It's the store cloth shopping bag, which you can now find in many stores as an alternative for the monstrous plastic bags. However in Vitamin World they did something different to promote the usage of this bag, a $1 off your purchase every time you use the bag. That's what I am talking about!

One dollar off is no big deal. But it can be an incentive for people to get it, since they will be saving on the long term. People already look for $1 off, or less, coupons, so purchasing a bag for $3 and saving $1 for the life of the bag is a good deal. I particularly wish that grocery stores would go for the same promotion. People go grocery shopping at least twice a month, if not more, and you can imagine how much of the plastic bags usage grocery shopping account for. Again, if I was a ruler, I'd probably start by forcing grocery stores to do just that. Well, I guess I might be lying here. I think I will force them to eliminate plastic bags altogether. People adapt, and they always use and live with what they have available. It's doing them, and their children, a great good by forcing them not to hurt... the air they are breathing, and much more!

Numbers

Number in this week's Time:

17,074 Bosnian Serbs named as participants in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys.

How many Muslims participated in Nine-Eleven ?!!