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What Do You Want to Be In 2020 – A Survivor or A Free-Soul

Posted on by Ahmad Amirali

What Do You Want to Be In 2020 – A Survivor or A Free-Soul
By Ahmad Amirali

As 2019 ends, many of us will going to reflect on how things terribly went wrong or tremendously went well for them throughout the year. Reflection is the very thing which I learned when I entered the teaching profession. However, before measuring yourself on the right and wrong scale, take a moment and think about how many hours you have spent for yourself? – Yes, for yourself. One of my previous students greeted happy new year this morning and asked me how was my year. I replied it was great and he again asked sir, how it went? Yet again I replied with the same answer – it went well. He again asked ‘Sir, how you survive this year?’ and this time I didn’t respond because this is what we do to our self every year. We simply survived every year by struggling with our problems, stress, exams, un-successful crushes, uneven work experiences, worst classroom experiences and yet after all that we again get our self-ready for the next year to repeat that ‘Survival cycle’ and the life goes on. The question is, are we living to survive or survive to live through our whole life? Continue reading “What Do You Want to Be In 2020 – A Survivor or A Free-Soul” →

How Our Simple Habits Become A Rite of Passage for Later Life

Posted on by Ahmad Amirali

How Our Simple Habits Become A Rite of Passage for Later Life

Last week, my students and I engaged in an open discussion on rituals and habits that how habits and rituals are different and sometimes we start considering some of our practices as rituals. While the conversation went further, one of my students asked ‘Sir, why certain habits become so important for some people that they start taking them as a ritual?’ the question was valid at some points, however, I counter question him ‘Is it habits or the stories and feelings related to these habits which makes people consider them as rituals?’ Throughout our life, whether we follow any religion or not, we involve with many rituals individually as well as communally. For example, holding hands before dinner or saying specific prayers before meal etc. These habits eventually become a sacred part of our lives and even pass on from generation to generations. The question is How Our simple Habits become a rite of passage for later life?

The same question was asked by an activist and tech enthusiast, Bob Stein who has long been in the vanguard: immersed in radical politics as a young man, he grew into one of the founding fathers of new media. He’s wondering what sorts of new rituals and traditions might emerge as society expands to include increasing numbers of people in their eighties and nineties. Continue reading “How Our Simple Habits Become A Rite of Passage for Later Life” →