Filza sheikh

Given the opportunity to do something how do you approach it? A bar is a minimum standard of acceptance. This bar, (which is extremely low) is one that a lot of the students will use as their most extreme code of behavior. Think of an elementary school child told to read 15 minutes a day. The ones that need it the most will begin getting restless ten minutes into their reading session. By the time they reach fourteen and a half minutes, they’re already beginning to close the book. To get them to read for fifteen minutes, the bar has to be set higher. There are bars set in a society in an attempt to set a minimum standard of living. They are not necessarily set extremely high. How would you set and respond to the bars in your everyday life? I recently challenged myself to compose short articles. After half a month of turning out to be knowledgeable on the subject, I understood I could finish 3 articles within a similar time period. Would it be a good idea for me to keep the bar this low

We spend our lives trying to be successful. but nobody talks about the growth we make to survive. And it's understandable why would we? Who wants to know the problems we grow through? And the sacrifices we make. Nobody wants to listen. Nobody cares. People are only there for you when you've succeeded. There's a crowd to applaud.  Failure is something that none of us ever plan for, but it is a part of the human condition. I have spent years failing. I still am. As we go through our lives, there are few, if any, who have never experienced this phenomenon. So as we experience failure, how do we accept it and move on if we cannot admit it? I am not suggesting that when we fail, we broadcast our failure to the world at large. I am suggesting, that admitting failure is a necessary tool that we must use if we are ever to be successful again.  An admission of failure is a very personal thing, and it should be done with those with whom we have a special relationship. Often, we find

Anger is a real problem in today's society, and for this reason, it is important that we learn how to cope with anger issues. Everyone at some time or another in their lives has experienced anger and perhaps even lashed out in anger. Anger is a natural emotion, because we all get hurt, aggravated, insulted, or feel threatened from time to time. Anger can be your greatest ally or your greatest foe. For instance, in the event that we feel compromised by someone else and express our displeasure in a controlled manner, the result can be positive. Alternately, assuming that we gain influence, the circumstance can escalate and turn out to be more awful than it was previously. Having control over our feelings helps us in life by safeguarding us and making us fruitful. We are better prepared to deal with emergency circumstances when they happen, like a monetary dilemma or a health-related crisis. However, if we allow our anger to get the better of us, we put our health and well-being at ri

Have you not spent the first 20 years of your life being trained and conditioned as someone's child or student? Following all the instructions and rules set forth before you. Remember those who ended up rebellious always paying the taskmasters for that small taste of self-expression? We become someone's mate, parent, and employee and still keep the place that society has molded for us. We are performing that extraordinary balancing act of keeping everyone in our lives happy with our choices. Time is passing and there's a voice inside our head that never stop telling us that we shouldn't be content with where we are in life. We are never fulfilled that all these choices have been for every other person in our lives and not so much for us. There must be something more out there. Will someone think you're selfish? It sits in the back of our minds and starts showing up in our dreams. We try to ignore it and yet become dissatisfied with our choices. Yet, we are still det

What is loneliness? It is not about being on your own. Many people ( including myself) enjoy being on their own and would choose this for themselves for at least part of the time. They enjoy having their own space. They do not feel the need to have other people around all of the time to validate them or make them feel more comfortable. If someone experiences feelings of loneliness; it is usually not influenced solely by where they are or whether other people are around. It is possible to be in a room full of people and still feel very much alone. You can be part of a social gathering and feel lonely as if you are on the periphery and not fully involved with what is going on. This suggests that loneliness is a state of mind. It is tied up with how you feel about yourself. When we have low self-esteem, we have a choice about whether to change this. The prospect of change can be daunting. The challenge of embracing this is extremely advantageous, with rewards not just as far as how you fe

  A sketchbook is like a diary for an artist, a safe place, an important essential, a place where you can just let out all your art without any fear of being judged, without any worries. Any person who wants to improve their drawing skills should have a sketchbook because it records your ideas, thoughts, and experimentation and helps you build your skills with every moment. You will see that the quality of your sketchbooks will be better and better, and what at first was dull will become a definitive work of art for itself. In a sketchbook, you can do anything you want, although some artists prefer to have sketchbooks based on themes. For example, you could have a sketchbook only in human anatomy, and another just a “test sketchbook” where you try any kind of ideas that come to your mind. And it doesn't have to be only drawings, you can write some ideas too, your thoughts, all this is valuable when years pass and you can have a better perspective of how your art has evolved. What c

  Have you ever lost someone close to you to death? We go through a grief process that was best described by Elizabeth Kublar-Ross in On Death and Dying. In it, she talks about the five stages that people go through, Denial and isolation; anger; bargaining; depression and finally acceptance. The dying, as well as those who love them, go through these stages although rarely at the same time and these stages are not predictable. You may think you are in the anger phase, then jump to depression, and then, back to denial again. There is no rhyme or reason only what feels right for each individual at the time. No one can predict how long a phase will last. If you are grieving and some well-meaning person suggests that you shouldn't be feeling what you are feeling, kindly thank them for their concern but know that you are exactly where you need to be. However, with grief, sometimes you will become aware of something not feeling right. You may think, I should be over this by now or I don&