A year ago, I stumbled upon a thought provoking question that has had quite an impact on how I think: What are your 10 year goals? How can you achieve them in 6 months? The point here is not necessarily to end up achieving your 10 year goals in 6 months, but the exercise of thinking of an answer itself … Read More
60 Years of Diaries: an Update
A couple of weeks ago, my sister visited my grandmothers’ house for the first time in about 20 years. She ended up finding a drawer full of her diaries from 1956 until present day, organized year by year. She sent me pictures and I was amazed. I tweeted about them, and the tweet sort of went viral. So my sister … Read More
Principles
[this is work in progress] I stumble upon numerous pieces of wisdom or philosophy every now and then that I end up applying on my everyday life. With time, however, I tend to forget some of them and feel like I’m re-learning some lessons when I find them again. Hence, inspired by my friend Fahad, I decided to jot down all … Read More
Why is Food So Expensive in the GCC?
I’ve visited some of the most expensive cities in the world recently, and the food was almost as expensive, if not cheaper than the GCC (proper meals, not cafeteria food). In this post, I try to breakdown the reason(s): To start with, restaurants have 3 main cost elements: food ingredients real estate and labor. Gulf countries have SIGNIFICANTLY lower costs … Read More
Maybe
Maybe the secret to living a happy life is in not taking things too seriously. Maybe it’s also the secret to succeeding at whatever goal you desire, as it makes you less uptight and more likable. Maybe it’s ok to accept mediocrity every now and then, because life is like that. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, and has mediocrity all over … Read More
Trip #01
If you like weed, you’d love acid. It feels like being high for long hours. It makes it feel normal. Like life could actually be like this. When I was in the woods, I walked in for 45 minutes or so until I got high. And once I got high, I started seeing everything better, in a sense. I reached … Read More
The Rawi Model for Taking Decisions
Over the past few years, I’ve developed a decision making process that helped me navigate through the toughest and biggest decisions of my life so far, and it has never failed me as it runs on objectivity. Give it a try if you’re stuck with a decision. Here it goes: If you’re unsure of a decision, don’t ask people for advice … Read More
The Rawi Model for Getting Shit Done
Over the past few years, I have tested many task management tools, read about plenty of methodologies, and experimented with different approaches and routines in the pursuit of productivity. Let’s just say that I didn’t stick to any one of them for a good reason: they didn’t work well. The main reasons for their failure, I believe, are the following: … Read More
Life is a Piano Piece
The beauty in any piano piece mainly lies in 3 variables. It lies in having each note that plays to be slightly different from the one before it; not too similar, not too different (variance). It lies in having the piece shift between the fast and the slow pace to form the perceived harmony right in the middle (speed). It lies … Read More
How Do You Inspire Yourself?
I got into a conversation with an intellectual person from my circle recently, and after discussing my answer to “What Inspires You?” she asked me the following question. One more question if I may How do you inspire yourself? It’s like we wait for inspiration to come through books or people or something like a muse but how do you … Read More