Ayisha Qureshi

Hello everyone! What a long time since I last wrote. My apologies for vanishing for the past few months and not putting up an article.

I don’t care how much you understand and sympathise with me but the fact is that everything I write now citing as reason for not putting up an article sooner will be an excuse! In retrospect this is exactly the reason why I started writing this blog in the first place: To prove the fact that mind is NOT the master, however, the unchained monkey that my mind took over yet again!

What one should remember is that no matter what life throws your way, you can still carry on doing what you feel should and must be done and thus, you make time for it. For myself, there is a clear pattern that I have recently become aware of: with approaching ‘events’ (read shifting, career change, exams or major travel), I stop doing what I regularly do and send my mind on vacation- I call it the mandatory time-off. My logic is that hectic times are approaching and as the bear collects food for hibernation, I snooze! And I waste time. I like to think that I am warming up but what I am truly doing is freezing- in fear, in anticipation, in anxiety.

We had to shift and I changed jobs as well and although all this happened around July, I ‘froze’ a good 03 months earlier. Now as I get re-oriented, settle into the new house, acquaint myself with the new workplace, I find myself functioning again. This time I have consciously observed myself going through this cycle and realized that what always happens has happened again: my mind retaliated and completely took over my being and awareness. It refused to function and obey my commands and do what I wanted it to do.

So I realize that I must work more on my mind- teach it to focus more, concentrate more and listen more. Otherwise, being an Army officer’s wife, when I move every year or 02, I will cyclically lose a few months during every shift. Similarly, as the pattern dictates, whenever I change jobs, I will lose a few months again. Every major transition and maybe even minor transitions will eat months off my time and that is not a life lived well!

So, if we believe what has been believed by wise people since the beginning of time: recognizing the problem is half the solution, then I guess, I am half way there. 🙂