Rant about a team

How a'holian. Geeze, wht is your management style bread, water, and reserve!

F'ing A if you really want to change the world try being a bit more open with it. Freeze torture isn't really an appropriate way to get impact. Loser.

Learnings of what I can improve next time

-value elicitation--what are your goals from the role. What do you hope this will do for you

-stories--show casing my abilities. Prepare impactful stories for earlier work at

-forgot planned techniques and needs

Really poor on comfort and human side of business. Gotta put feelers out there to increase options for self so that I come from a place of abundance, power, and choice.

Money and fun with bondage in Pakistan

A friend sent me a beautiful heartwarming tale of entrepreneurial success and pushing of boundaries in Karachi, the city I am from. Be sure to watch the embedded video if you get time

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/world/asia/28fetish.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

My criticism of a criticism of a criticism

This morning I awoke to an email from an Australian living in Pakistan asking me to comment on her controversial piece titled in Defence of Muslim Women. Now I love Danielle, but I think some of her writing on Pakistan does not help raise Pakistani consciousness or even that of the west about it. Below is my comment to her piece. I feel bad that my tone is harsh but it needed to be so.

I respect you a lot but I think some of your points here are just as misguided as the Western criticism. My thoughts:
-many Pakistani women do feel oppressed by the scarf wearing--associations, heat, sense of loss of freedom. This does not come from western influence, it comes from the cultural push by some segments to do this to others who don't accept it. The issue becomes whose version of Islam are you following.
-You use a US example of a broken society due to lack of punishment for illicit extramarital relations. First off Europe has similar laws and way fewer pregnancies. Researchers says this is because US sexual education preaches abstinence rather than birth control as in many ways the US is puritan. Thinking of US as puritan is hard for those in Pakistan. When my mother visited here some of her aunty circle asked if people in the US have sex on the streets! Just as the west gets a warped perspective of Pakistan, Pakistan gets one heck of a warped perspective on the US.
-If it were just this warped perspective on sex I wouldn't care, but what does bother me is that in doing so we often leave out everything that is constructive. This includes the quintessential US belief in being able to get what one wants if one puts in the hard work. Very different than the feeling that things from outside (your government, other governments, the electric company and everything else Pakistanis complain about) drive your reality. By the way isn't that a key tenant of Islam--faith and belief in one's own power to improve things.
-There are a lot of human right violations that go on in that so called Muslim country. These have existed pre-terrorism rise and continue to do so today. You yourself complain about these but do not tap into the stillness of mind that would make them instructive for you and your readers. Instead you try to combat it with resistant negative thought. God's reality is that such negatively keeps one locked in the same patterns.

In the segment of US society I live in, everyday people wake up and plan/execute how to make their lives and those of others more improved, enthusiastic and beautiful, through their work. I recognize this is not all of the US. But what thoughts do most people in Pakistan wake up with? Let me read the news and feel bad about the hue and cry of the world? Let me drown in feelings of anger and self-pity? Wouldn't it be better to take a step back and actively teach yourself and others how to be more positive and thus change you life and those of others. May be you already do this. But if so why aren't you writing about it? Why is it that I never see stories of more than doom and gloom from Pakistan. Unlike what political and mulana propoganda in Pakistan teaches you, self-justification and righteousness is not the path of faith; changing and improving systems and structures is.

When I have said this in the past people have told me that I do not understand Pakistan and the forces it must deal with. I will be bold and say something I often feel but don't let out. I think all you who call yourself Muslims do not understand your faith. The prophet's life was about bringing change to oppressive systems. Not justifying them. If you call yourself muslims and love him, then follow his example in whatever small way you can. Complaining about the state of the world and other's criticism is not one of those ways.

What is an emotional barometer? Are you listening to it?

An emotional barometer can be defined in many ways. It is one’s sense of:
• self
• well being
• calm
• peace
• personal acceptance
• personal bliss

It can also be viewed as the lack of all these things.

It is highly sensitive and very fast in response. If trained it can tell us who is a potential threat and who is a partner.

In today’s society we are extremely afraid of our emotional barometers. We try to dull it with drugs, movies, alcohol, sex, sports and a number of activities re-purposed to provide us with a quick high that distracts us from the feelings of pressure, anxiety, and depression, all of which are signals of being on the wrong track from our emotional barometers.

Scott Peck argues In the Road Less Traveled that we engage in such avoidance of suffering due to laziness.

I would add that ignoring one’s emotional barometer is also something we are taught by authority figures and society. If we have no inner voice, we are simply shadows of others and of that which is our true self, and we are thus easier to control.

Listening to one’s own emotional barometer is not easy. Many times we simply do not want to experience pain since we believe we shouldn’t have to and we are perfect as we are (ego). To protect itself the ego also says to us that it is others who are causing us the pain (victimhood as a defense mechanism). If we were to let go of these feelings and accept the pain we would learn about the inappropriateness of these beliefs.

We would also quickly realize how important feeling good is to us. More important than an understanding of how others and life is, is how WE feel about ourselves within the context of life and how we feel we relate to others. Not based on opinions of others and what they want and what they are sending our way in terms of energies. But in how we feel about ways we are showing up in life.

This is important for two reasons. Firstly, others cannot hold us as their object of attention long enough to sustain any long term relationship guidance. Most people are striving with their own limiting belief systems and fears. Inviting their exploration and connection in our lives often results in feeling of getting the thin end of the deal. For we quickly realize how they can’t understand us without constant help and reorientation. Often in an attempt to be understood we remain in cycles of low energies and pain.

Secondly, focusing on how we show up in their lives helps them, if they choose so, see, understand, and co-create with us those elements of us which we feel are important. This involves conscious action and deliberate thought. It is also more likely to help us reach our relationship goals than simply expecting to receive that which we want.

Every time we choose honesty, love, self-trust our emotional barometer tells us that we are on the right track. Every time we feel lower energies such as fear and helplessness we must remember that those are indicators of where we are due to how we thought in the past. No one and nothing can ever overshadow our visions of who we are and what we want. They can simply help us realize contrast and can thus serve as great spiritual aids in reminding us to act with consciousness and focus towards a longer term sense of feeling better. When we do so we finally find that which we are asking and manifest that which our hearts deeply desire.

However, the interesting thing is that we never completely manifest for the law of nature is such that we are eternally feeling new contrasts and eternally expanding to rise up to them. I guess that is what makes life worth living.