Savior Complex

"Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives but none about his or her own." - Paulo Cuelho, The Alchemist

I don't think I need to add anything to this quote. It is pretty self explanatory. Oftentimes we are so quick to give advice and tell others how they should live their lives even when we don't know their whole story. Oftentimes we have this savior complex and we feel we can make other people's lives better even though our own lives are a mess.

The worst part about savior complex is that it hurts both sides. For the person listening, he or she may be introduced to ideas that they never would have thought of on their own. This may lead to a lot of negative thoughts. Before they were happy in the state they were in, now they have been told you're not living your life the way you should, you should do this and that. My teachers have said if you sincerely want change for someone, then pray for them. Stop trying to motivate them and pushing them. Until the spark comes from within, the person will not change. 

Then the person giving the advice is also hurt because then he or she has expectations that this person will listen to my advice and become awesome. When they inevitably don't reach their expectations, they are hurt. 

The only person you can control is you. Stop focusing on others, focus on yourself. Life has a weird system. The more you focus on yourself, you'll find those around you also being uplifted and inspired by you. The more you focus on others, the more you will waste your own time. Your words will have little value in others eyes. You won't be inspirational, you'll be annoying. 

That's one thing these motivational speakers have in common. The good speakers at the end of the day have no expectations from you. They want the best for you, but if you don't change, their life remains unaffected. They sincerely care for you and want to bring you up, but they are so focused on themselves and getting better themselves that they don't have time to make sure everyone else is living up to their full potential.

That is what give people that internal spark. You don't get the internal spark from being yelled at by your mom. It happens when you see your friend working hard and doing well. The internal spark happens when you see something and you want it for yourself. Someone that is not living at 100% will never be successful in telling others to live at 100%. The words will have no weight because they are not practicing what they preach. 

You only have one life, stop focusing on the lives of others and focus on yourself. If you want to inspire others, you have to lead an inspiring life. 

The 20-Second Rule

The 20-Second rule is a technique to make consistent progress on your goals. 

The 20-Second rule is this. The harder it is to start something, the less likely you are to do the task. So if you want to live a productive life, you have to adjust your lifestyle and environment to make it easy to start working. 

The example used in the video is that if you want to stop playing video games and want to start reading or practicing guitar, then you have to create an environment that makes starting those tasks easy and video games hard. So put the controllers away in a shelf, put the remote far away from the couch, put the book on the table right in front of the couch, put the guitar next to the couch and make sure its tuned properly and ready to play right when you pick it up. 

I find this really interesting because many times I have been working in my room and then I see my bed and i just go back to sleep because its so easy. If instead of a bed I had a futon and turned it into a couch as soon as waking up, it would take more effort to go to sleep and I would probably keep working. Or if I left my room and worked in a separate place where there is no bed, then I wouldn't be tempted to go back to sleep. 

Blogging Consistently

Up until this point, this blog has been random thoughts that have come into my mind. The problem is, random thoughts come at random times. You can't force random thoughts, trust me, I've tried that. 

In order for any action to be consistent, there needs to be some structure. When you go to soccer practice, you don't just spend 2 hours doing whatever you feel like working on, that will only get you so far. There need to be an organized routine you follow if you want to see results. Its the same way with blogging or just about anything that you want to get better at. You can't go to the gym and just pick random machines and do them. Instead of making progress, you'll only be feeding your ego. Telling yourself look at me I'm doing all these machines. 

Looking at Casey Neistat's vlog has been a huge inspiration for me as a filmmaker and I think i can take a lesson from his vlog structure for my blog. When Casey was making a vlog daily, he had a routine he'd follow. This not only made it easier for him in terms of content creation because it gave him a guideline, but it also made it more fun for us as the viewers. Casey's vlogging content structure is a bit like this. When he's traveling, it'll be awesome shots of the places he's seeing and people he's meeting and the type of things he's doing. When he's in NYC, the structure is a bit more apparent. For the most part, Casey tries to take you through his day and tries to tell a new story every day. When he's extra busy or can't think of what to do, he defaults to this: Answer questions, go through his mail, or talk straight to the audience about something that is on his mind. Every once in a while he will change it up and throw in a sweet viral video or an awesome inspirational video. 

Talking straight to the audience about something that is on his mind

Random Awesome inspirational video

Mailtime

For this blog, I need to figure out some sort of structure. It does not have to be as rock solid as every Monday I do this, every Tuesday is this, so on and so forth. But at the very minimum there needs to be a solid well of backup format that I can use when the ideas are not flowing. Need to make it easy to be consistent. 

English Medium

Last week I was at a institution in Lahore which holds evening classes and preps students for exams like the MCAT and other standardized tests. As I was sitting waiting for my ride to arrive, I overheard a conversation a student had with the institute's staff. She was asking if one of the books she had received was available in English because she didn't know how to read Urdu. This is a woman that is at least 20 years old that has lived her whole life in Pakistan, and she can't read Urdu. I've spent my entire life in a country where Urdu is not spoken, and I can read Urdu with elementary proficiency. How can someone who has grown up surrounded with Urdu, not know how to read Urdu? 

Many students in Pakistan study in "English Medium" schools. Basically, these are schools that teach solely in English. The great tragedy is that these schools are the schools viewed as the best schools when in reality they are doing more harm then good. I would like to highlight a few negative effects of English Medium schools. 

1. Separation of Knowledge and Education

Even today, my father's eyes light up when he talks about getting his MBA. After working in corporate America for some time, my father decided to get his MBA. During his MBA courses, he would read certain theories about management and working with people and then he would go to work and see how true the theory is. Or he could try implementing some of the advice given in the books or by the teacher. If a theory said employees always do X, my father could say well actually I've been working in Corporate America and in my experience, employees do Y. The curriculum was designed so that when a student goes through the program, he or she will go back into his company or community and implement what he or she has learned. This element is completely lost in English Medium schools that get their curriculum from other countries. 

Students in English Medium schools go to school and memorize English texts, then come home and speak Urdu or Punjabi or Pashto or Sindhi, etc. The education the students are receiving has little relevance to their own lives. School is put in one box, and how you live your life is put in another box. The goal of education should be empowering people to better themselves, but what we see happening is that education is having no effect on the way the vast majority of people live their lives. How will education expand minds and produce visionary thinkers when what they spend their entire day learning a curriculum that does not factor in their ground reality?

2. White Supremacy 

Since day one, you're taught that English is the language of success. If you want to move ahead in life, you have to learn English. This has a crippling effect on the person's sense of self. They start viewing their own culture and history as backwards and wrong. They view English and everything associated with the west as the superior way of life. They want to speak only English, they want to wear only jeans and t-shirts, they want to look white and apply creams to their skin to turn themselves white. The ironic thing is that most of the students have never met a white American or European person in their life, yet inherently they feel they are inferior. 

Instead of learning their own history and culture and feeling a sense of empowerment, students are taught that everything here is wrong and we need to imitate the west as much as we can. I've always found this mentality intriguing because these people never truly become one of the westerners and they never truly fit in with the traditional culture. They're in this weird middle space. They haven't truly mastered English and they haven't truly mastered Urdu. They can't understand Robert Frost and they can't understand Allama Iqbal. English Medium schools are destroying the Pakistani Identity and producing students that are not confident in themselves. All of their effort goes into fitting in by mimicking the west.

Moving Forward

What we need is a new generation of leaders that are not worried about fitting in. A new generation that is confident in themselves and their ability to bring change in their homes, their communities, their country, and the world. 

We need to stop teaching an imported curriculum that seeks to produce good employees for Western companies and work on producing mentally, physically, and spiritually mature human beings. We must be the change we wish to see in the world. Until we strive to change ourselves -not strive to copy others- we will not see a change in Pakistan. 

Hottest Business Opportunity of 2017 - Pakistan Edition

I've been in Pakistan for about 3 months now, and one thing I have noticed is that there is no concept of customer service here. In the states when you go to government agencies like the DMV, you expect to be treated poorly. Government agencies can afford to have bad customer service because there is no alternative to the services they provide. Any other business you go to, the foundation of the business is customer service.  

For example, if I walk into a bank and I'm treated poorly I will transfer my account to a different bank. If I walk into a shoe store and i don't feel like I'm given proper respect, I won't shop there again. If I'm shopping online and I have a hard time finding products from a specific website or checkout is a hassle, I will not go to the site again. Every consumer business has to factor in the user's experience. How is the customer feeling? Is the process easy to navigate for the customer? How can we make this experience simpler and more gratifying for the customer?

This mentality does not exist in Pakistan.  

I went to McDonalds here in Pakistan and the first thing I noticed is how unhappy all the employees look. I thought, "well, they are working in a McDonalds. Makes sense." Then as I'm ordering my milkshakes, a dude walks up next to me and orders a big mac. In the middle of my order she places his order, takes his money, gives him his receipt, and the dude walks away merrily with his big mac. I was shocked. I didn't know who to slap. Do I slap the dude that took my place in line or do I slap the cashier who let it happen?

This is just one example in my three months of terrible customer service. This situation is the same across the board. From banks to restaurants to supermarkets, customer service is a rare to come by. What shocked me most is that McDonalds is an American company. You would expect the concept of a line to make sense to the employees. Or you would at least expect a fake smile with a greeting when you come to place your order. 

The consumer market in Pakistan is due for a major shift in the way companies deal with their customers. In the coming years we will see more of a focus on branding and developing brand loyalty. The companies that treat their employees and customers like dignified human beings, the companies that actually put in time and money to understand how we can create a good user experience, the companies that are built on customer service, these are the companies that will take the market share in the near future.  

To the entrepreneurs that are looking to build a business in Pakistan: focus on ethics and customer service.  

To investors looking to invest in Pakistan: Find those companies that are following an ethical code and are dedicated to serving their customers.  

Always remember, the ROI of putting out good into the world is that good will come back to you. 

The Amount of Effort Required to Make it Look Effortless

We've all been there. The new hafiz who is fluctuating his voice way too much. The high school basketball player that keeps trying to do the same ridiculous circus shot to no avail. The wannabe actor who is crying way too much for the amount of sadness in the scene.  

Why is it that when the pros do it, it looks like they're not even trying? Mishary's beautiful voice, Dwyane Wade's circus shots, and Shahrukh Khan's tears. When they do it, it looks so natural. Like they are making no effort to do it, and its just happening. How can we get to that point? What's the secret? 

I asked my friend and Qari (master reciter of the holy Quran) just this. He said there's no secret, it takes consistent effort. He told me that when he gets sick for a day or two and can't recite the way he usually recites, that his recitation after that suffers. He can't pronounce his letters as properly as when he was in routine. A single day off can have a negative effect on the performance.  

I think the important thing to notice here is that mastery is not just putting in a lot of work and then relaxing. Mastery is a lifestyle. You have to dedicate your life to your craft, not let a single day go by without working on your craft. 

Jugaad

Jugaad is a word that can be translated as life-hack, but in my experience, I've seen it used more as a cheap improvised repair. The idea is that as long as something is working, there is no need to upgrade or change anything. For example, when your computer isn't starting and you bang on it and it turns on. For some people, this would be a red alert to get the computer checked out, but for others this means that the computer works fine, it just needs a little push. That push is called jugaad. 

The car pictured above is a perfect example of jugaad. Just looking at the car, you can picture how many times the owner was told to get rid of the car and how many problems he must have had to jugaad his way through to get to this point. 

During my time in Pakistan, Jugaad usually had a negative connotation associated with it. However, I'd argue that the jugaad mentality is something we in the states are in desperate need of. Jugaad gives one a better sense of the bigger picture and makes one resourceful. 

1. Bigger Picture 

In the states we have become so specialized in our specific fields that we rarely can do any work outside of our field. For example, if one's toilet is not flushing properly the first action anyone takes is calling the plumber. Oftentimes, people don't even have a basic understanding of how the toilet actually works. All they know is that they push the little lever and everything disappears.  

Having a Jugaad mentality forces you to understand the bigger picture. It forces you to understand what role each part plays in the whole. If your car's engine breaks down and you want to perform a jugaad, you need to understand what each part in the engine does and what is going wrong. Only when you have a firm understanding of what each piece does and what you need each piece to do, can you jugaad your way through. 

2. Resourcefulness

What we see in the American market is that companies are making goods that are built to only last a certain period of time- planned obsolescence. Producers have recognized that consumers will dispose of their product at the first sign of trouble, and they have capitalized on this.  Every year we see the same product with a slightly different design being sold to the same people. The emptiness that the consumer feels in their soul while in this cycle of buying and disposing has been captured so wonderfully in the film fight club, but that is a topic for another day. Actually movies nowadays have also been caught up in the planned obsolescence cycle. For example, the next 5 years of superhero movies already announced. Rather then being a good standalone movie, each movie turns out to be just a buildup to the next movie. Batman vs. Superman is an excellent example of this. 

Back to the point. The Jugaad mentality forces you to look at what you have and make the most out of it. If you have don't have a rope, you tear a piece of  your shirt and tie it like a rope. If you don't have a metal rod, you use a stick. 

If we want tomorrow to be better then today for humanity as a whole, then we all need to learn to jugaad our way through some things. The idea is not to totally leave material progress behind and just make do with what you have for the rest of your life, but we should never lose the ability to see the bigger picture and to make the most out of what we have. 

Starting Point

Pablo Picasso said, “What one does is what counts. Not what one had the intention of doing.”

Today is the day.

Today is the day I'm finally moving past my intention of doing and actually starting a blog. Your website is your space on the internet. Just like you would create a welcoming physical space and offer tea to all your guests, your space online should be nice and welcoming and have some value for everyone that comes on the site. 

With my little space on the internet, I hope to build a space that is welcoming and offers value to each person that stumbles across this site.