The Secrets of Success

I've noted that people who are "successful" at anything (getting good grades in an exam, rising in the ranks at work, spreading Islam to every corner of their neighborhood, finding themselves...however u wanna interpet success) usually possess two dominant attributes. One is intelligence, and I don't necessarily mean the E=mc2, IQ-measured intelligence. Indeed, I've met people who can't read or write and are sharper than nails when it comes to being smart. I've met others who've flunked exams despite all their study efforts, and yet they possess deep, logically-driven insights to life. In fact, I contend that everybody in this world has this intelligence, despite what our shallow perception tells us.

The other attribute is drive. Ambition. Determination. Want more synonyms? How about motivation? To some extent, I'd say that motivation is more important than intelligence, because without a sense of drive, without ambition to keep your pistons firing and gears turning, well, intelligence is just about as useful as a ferrari with an empty gas tank.

And these two attributes do cover everything else don't they? With intelligence, you'll know your strengths and weaknesses, your friends and enemies. You'll be able to ascend over the potentially destructive forces of emotion. You'll know what's in your power to achieve, and where you'll have to seek help - the same way somebody with a broken leg overcomes his handicap by compensating with his other muscles and using a crutch. And I don't count vision as a third attribute because I think it comes under determination...you have to be determined for something, don't you? Otherwise you'll be like a car revving in neutral.

I know people around me, people who are close to me who have tonnes of drive, and I really really admire them for it. I look up to all the great leaders in history (dubya, anyone?), who've used their intelligence and drive to carve out new maps. I look up to the ill who've stayed positive during unimagineable suffering. I look up to children born without homes, some of whom are never hesitant to smile despite all their hardship.

Yup, there are a lot of people I derive inspiration from. The list is probably as long as Massachussett's I-93.

One thing I realized the other day while reading a book by Stephen Covey, which shows the power of determination (coupled with intelligence, of course). People who are emotionally driven often blame their environment for whatever happens to them. Such people become gloomy when the weather is bleak, are happy when people are nice to them and things are going well, and become depressed otherwise. What Covey contends is that your response to all such external stimuli is, to a large extent, under your control. Every person walks the lands between stimulus and response, and well, it's up to him what he wants to do with them. People who revoke this free will become emotionally driven. And well, of course it's not fully possible to logically channelize a stimulus to a certain response...but there are degrees to which you can do it, and I know people who don't do it at all. Period. Zeroeth degree.

When I read the chapter, I remember feeling a certain sense of disbelief. What was Covey saying? That I was irresponsible? That I was selfish? And then, when I flipped back a few pages in my memory, I realized I could have acted differently in a lot of situations. I chose not to do because...well...a multitude of reasons, which mostly all boiled down to emotions. With this realization came the spark of possibility. Allah has given me control. I know a lot of people disagree with this notion...hell, I strongly did until a week ago, but I've been toying with this thought over and over in the context of all logic I'd employed in the past, and I've begun to realize that it's true.

As somebody wise I know once said, "With your mind, you can conquer the world, and with your heart, you can let it all slip away."

The Sage

The world is much bigger than you and I, spoke the sage into the looking-glass.

We've tread these waters before, my sage, replied his likeness.

We tread them for the last time, old friend, the sage whispered, and with a blow of his staff, shattered the glass into pieces.

The Ice Princess

You know, there was a time when I used to hate cold weather. Ithaca used to get numbingly frigid in winter, and this season of polar gloom would last for the better part of the year, starting in October and ending somewhere in April. I despised it like the oppressed. At times, when I was leaning into freezing, skin-numbing winds, I'd marvel like a damn fool at how anything could be so cruel and callous.

You see, my imagination personified the cold into a monster, one that I used to battle every day. I'd battle it stepping out of the house in the morning, feeling like I'd plummetted from my cosy bed into the lung-freezing arctic. Hell, I'd battle it touching a cold doorknob, swearing under my breath at how a single second of jiggling the metal made my fingers feel as if they would fall off in protest and run away.

However, for some reason, things have started to change now. Somehow, I don't dread the cold in the same way. This morning, for example, I didn't turn the heater on when I was driving to work. My hands got really cold, but I didn't mind. And yesterday, I actually opened the windows while driving. The cold air rushed into the car as if it were a vacuum, and settled everywhere...and it felt exhilarating.

I think the reason for the change is, again, my overactive imagination. Call me an idiot, but I've actually begun to feel a bit sorry for the cold. After all, I've been cursing it and telling it to go to hell for the past six years. What if I've been misunderstanding it the whole time? What if it's not a monster with stalactites hanging off its chin, but a beautiful ice princess? A sensitive, delicate ice princess, whom fate has handed the Midas curse - that of harming whoever she touches.

She's been shoved away all her life by scum like myself, hasn't she? And now, I can imagine her sitting on her iceberg, with her legs hugging her chest, weeping freezing tears into pale hands. How lonely must she be? How much in love must she be? After all, she welcomes me in her embrace every time I step outside. She snuggles up to me like a lost child. She tries desperately, with a lover's passion, to seep into my every pore. And her presence lingers even after I've entered the warm snugness of the indoors. I can feel it somewhere in my bones - a chill that just sits there, refusing to go away no matter how warm my surroundings are.

Every right now, that chill reminds me of her, you know...my ice princess. Like a tinge of guilt, it reminds me that she waits patiently outside, harkening for my footfall. I think of the way her caress will make my cheeks burn with icy fire, and the thought is too welcoming to resist. I reach for my jacket.

After all, how can I let love so intense go unrequited?

Ehh...frostbite's a small price to pay...mah icy lovah!

Shadows

Strange are those times when dreams become demons.

And these are strange times. Even on this bitterly cold morning, dry flakes of snow swirl around constantly outside my window, like quiet uneasy ghosts.

Highs

Y'know, it's amazing, but the other day, the shit really hit the fan. And hard. I had a mega project due for class that I hadn't even started yet, and another mega-project due for work. So what's the stunning thing here? Well, when the burners turned on, and the pressure mounted, I found myself performing...and really performing, you know. I felt good, despite all the anxiety, and coasted through the whole pressure on sheer adrenaline alone.

Well, it's not really that amazing. I'm sure this has happened to virtually everybody at one time or another in their lives. Basically, you're thrust into an unfamiliar situation, way out of your comfort zone, and you find that the bad things in your personality suddenly disappear, whisked away in a magic trick. You're motivated, you rise to the challenge, you let go and find the beat. You feel good about yourself. And most importantly, you suddenly find yourself with tonnes of faith in Allah. Maybe you even wonder how you could ever have doubted Him.

Sounds familiar? Deja vu? Ring any bells, dear reader?

I've been thinking a bit about such fairy-tale transformations. Especially the part about the renewed faith in Allah. That's happened to me a lot, you know. The first time I was coming to America to start a job, I was really scared. In the days that led up to my flight to the US, fear of the unknown used to haunt me at night, singing terrifying lullabies that made me cringe in my sheets. The day before the flight, I was so anxious about what the future held that my mind felt it had shut down from sheer stress alone. And suddenly, when I stepped into the plane, it all drained away. All the fear. All the anxiety. What was left was still calm - the kind you find on a country-side lake - and an overjoyed faith in Allah that everything would turn out to be okay. And for the next week or so, whenever I thought about Allah, I could literally feel all the tension sitting on my shoulders ease off and slip away.

But it was only for the next week or so. It was short-lived. It was adrenaline-driven...or whatever hormones drive such extreme emotions. After that, when things settled down, my usual worries came back. With a bang. POW!

The same goes for the intial stages of love, doesn't it? When you're head-over-heels about the other person, and all you can think about is when you'll see them next. That stage of puppy-love is the ultimate high, I think. But it wears away. It always does. (Just for the record, I firmly believe that this emotion is not love, but just a fascination with the other person. Infatuation, if you will. Love comes much later if it comes at all...long after the high has gone through a few lows).

Almost anybody can rise above themselves when thrust into a sudden challenge. It's in human nature. Why do you think war brings people closer? Why do you think people of a common cause unite and forget their differences when faced with a common tormenter? What of the man who lifted a whole fricking car by himself and rent it asunder to rescue his child? What of Hindus and Muslims, who became closer than brothers despite their differences when they rose to fight the British? I could go on and on with examples all night long, but I won't, because you and I have both heard them so many times before.

I guess my overall point is that these transient stages are always the most misleading. They can make you a better person, a better believer in Allah. They can unite hearts and minds. They can make you feel good about yourself. They can feel like a drug eddying in your bloodstream. But at the end of the day, it's all ephemeral. It doesn't last. No sir, the real test of love, faith, everything is when you fall back into a state of equilibrium. When all the foam has settled back down. Because that's when your demons start coming back out and making themselves at home once again.

I think it's how we react at that point that really determines what we're made of. Because that's when you can't go with the flow of your emotions any more. You have to hit the brakes and swim upstream. You have to zip out your saber and keep your demons at bay. And that's hard. Isn't it? Most of the time, I don't even know they're there, even while they snicker at me with rotting, crooked teeth.

So I guess my point is that the initial "ascension" that may occur when you're thurst out of your comfort zone - whether it be due to love, war, meeting new people, finding a job or anything else in the world - is never real. Before you know it, it'll slip away like the silken veil it is.

And that's when a whole new trial will begin.