The Art Of Respect

By Hiba Itani


Today, my thoughts wander back to a quote that my teacher in middle school used to repeat a lot: “Respect yourself to be respected”.When I first heard that quote, it didn’t make any sense to me. OKAY…I will respect myself, but that will only make me respected by me, not by others!! Years later, I began to understand what is really meant by self respect; I began to understand why it didn’t make any sense to me earlier. It was mainly because I was thinking of self respect as a passive impression or a means to an end, while in fact it is a quest by itself.When I think about the things I regret, I think about the times that I have wasted, the words that I should not have said, the actions that I should have done, and those that I should have avoided. What hurts most about my regrets is that I could have done all of these things differently, but I made the wrong decisions, even though I knew better! I didn’t respect my time enough to use it more productively. I didn’t respect my sanity enough to think more wisely. I didn’t respect my energy enough to attend to all my duties and take initiative. Simply, I didn’t respect my life enough to live it right!I now see that it shouldn’t matter to me if people respect me, but it sure should matter to me whether or not I respect myself and the time I have in this life, for that is all I can offer to myself.Allah, the Most Merciful, has planted within us the need to strive for happiness and dignity, and has shown us the right way to do so. The funny thing is, that most of the time, what is standing between us and achieving that is no one other than ourselves!!There is a big difference between respect and slavery. The question we should ask ourselves is: Do we really respect and care about ourselves? Do we want the best for ourselves? Or are we merely the slaves of own desires, wasting time and energy, disregarding our sanity, and standing in the way of ourselves?Now is the time for reassessment. Now is the time for regrets to be transformed into something beautiful: Change. Now, before the last breath escapes and regrets become nothing more than a vicious enemy.

Two Lessons I Learned from Studying Psychology

By Mona Ayoub

We live in a culture of “labeling” as one professor once beautifully put it. As we interact daily with people, we (consciously or unconsciously) busy ourselves with forming (many times) distorted mental images of them. Any mistake (whether major or minor) is the so-awaited opportunity for us to grant them one of our “labels”.”Criminal”. “Sinner”. You name it.

Clinical psychologists are carefully trained how to make a psychological diagnosis. Identifying the “trigger” of the disorder is usually a key step. For them, a “dysfunctioning” does not come from “nowhere”: there should be a reason for it. Sometimes they put tremendous efforts to discover it: Could it be a broken home, ignorance, a traumatizing event, an excess or lack of some brain chemicals…? What could it be??

Prisons are full with criminals who are offered no rehabilitation opportunities. “Sinners” are rarely guided the right way.

Lesson 1: NEVER JUDGE

Materialistic societies are “brains hungry”. A high IQ or an outstanding talent can be a key to success, fame, money, and respect. There’s no place for “average”.

Studying psychology helped me become more aware of “individual differences”. It opened my eyes to the countless hidden treasures in many people around me.

There’s more in human beings than high IQs and outstanding talents.

The ability to smile in times of hardship is exceptional. Keeping a “soft-heart” in a jungle world is incomparable. Having a peaceful soul amidst craziness is extraordinary.

Lesson 2: EVERYONE IS SPECIAL.

                        LOOK FOR THEIR TREASURE.

The Highest Level of Perfection!

By Mohamed Bazzy

We humans, an image of intelligence through which we are the core of this creation, are the guardians of this plane. Had we appointed to our interaction with the universe signs of dominance or transgression, we would then see the aches of history buried down our feet!

Thus it is a discourse of responsibility we should take on our shoulders, as to discover, learn, and build for the survival of the global.

Amongst all plants, animals, living and non-living beings, we are honored by the signs of intellect that demarcates between construction and deconstruction. It is the basis of knowledge from which all sciences stem their methods and orient their goals. In Islam, the beauty of knowledge is that of its tri-dimensional base: God, Man, and the Universe. The interaction is dialectical; yet profoundly rooted within coherence and intelligibility.

Reflecting its importance, the first word that manifested sovereignty is the Arabic "إقرأ" "Read"! Amongst the unfolded linguistic capacity in the Arabic literature, "Read" was in the front holding the cresset for the blessed enlightenment; lifting both the Arabs and the West, afterwards, from ages of darkness to periods of thought and humanity.

"Read" is not an order that is forced on Man with power and tyranny. Rather it is molded with the antiquity of being and with that essence of him that shall always be the oar of his ship!

God: the Creator of all, the omnipotent and omniscient. The Sole-giver, Whom from His Blessings order, beauty, and science saw the light and paved the way for His elected vicegerent.

Man: The Central creature that which all other reflections of God orbit and bow! He took the responsibility, by his rationality and moral spirituality, of encompassing reality in terms of its theoretical philosophy and applied actuality.

The Universe: it is those reflections of God and the manifestations of His will. It is the origins of Man and his field of search and actions.

"Tawhid" is the Unity of the Divine Principle. It unites the integrated world of multiplicity, the various fields and domains of knowledge, under the coherent intersection of the Rationale and the Innate Constitution of the Soul. It is the underlying principle that bonds the fragmented fields and realities of knowledge in the intellect of Man and his soul. It becomes his ultimate reality from which he perceives the world.  From this converging lens, the multiple fields of interaction with the physical becomes a unity, an up thrust, and an uprising force towards liberation; liberation from ignorance, transgression, and servitude of the self and yearnings.

This is the highest level of perfection attained by the profound understanding of Tawhid and by implementing its foundations starting from knowledge, as a critical philosophy, of the self, the universe, and God.

Consequently, knowledge is critical to Man that without it he loses his essentiality in this creation and centrality on this plane. It is that alleviating factor that sublimates his essence from sheer materiality to exalted spirituality, once "Tawhid" is recognized as the ultimate truth connecting the multiple realities, being as the unity of the Divine Principle.

I'm Hot... You're Not

By Sarah Zaytoun

Society is always changing. In today's society, we have the need to conform. It is very hard to find your own identity when you are always trying to be someone else. After all, being unique in a conformist society can be quite difficult.

Being a young girl and then turning into a young woman is not simple. Girls go through day-to-day obstacles that make them doubt themselves all the time. The media is the biggest manipulator. Every day they tell young girls how to eat, what to eat, how to dress, what weight they should be, what is cool and what is not, etc.

So what can we do to stop this problem? Well, the first step is to allow young girls to free themselves from what the media tries to depict as true and real. Girls need to be aware that the models they see in magazines are far from real and are airbrushed to the maximum. Not only are their faces airbrushed, but so are their bodies. They are transformed into complete perfection. The media tries its best to entice people into thinking how society should be rather than what society really is.

Throughout my adolescent years, I always felt insecure about myself. Media and society did not make this easier. Watching T.V., I always tried to emulate celebrities. They seemed like pure perfection. Everything about them seemed to be unattainable; whether it was the way they dressed, their body, or their ?natural? charisma. I tried so hard for years to live up to these expectations. I had no idea what the media was about. The more people are made to feel insecure about themselves, the more people feel the need to consume. Consumption = making money = the media wins. It is a very simple equation. The media?s goal is to send a common message to the world to entertain, not to inform.

What some people do not understand is that we are all unique pieces of art. A piece of art can never be replicated to look exactly alike. We must embrace this fact by embracing our differences. We all have a common cause and want the same things in life: happiness, the ideal job, to find love, and have a good social life, but what should we do in order to reach our goals?

This is where the six elements of self-fulfillment come in. These elements are: 1) Self-awareness 2) Self-esteem 3) Loving ourselves and then loving others 4) Censoring out elements of the media 5) Having a goal and/or a realistic dream 6) Taking action.

To me, self-awareness is the base from which we can achieve our goals. It is about understanding our capabilities and what we can accomplish. Self-esteem is something that has to be generated from within. A lot of people?s self-esteem is generated from other-esteem, which is very wrong. We must be happy with who we are and accept all of our flaws and look for the beauty of our imperfections. In order to love others we must first love ourselves. That falls under self-esteem. The media portrays an illusion of reality. Not all parts of the media are detrimental. It is important, however, to censor the parts that are. Examples of these parts are the media?s take on body image and what beauty is. A major part of getting what we want out of life is to have a plan or a goal. Most importantly, having realistic goals will prevent us from facing major disappointment. Once you know your goal, take action!