Husain Journal

No, it’s not getting into a top university. It’s not your luck, either. It’s rather something old, easy, humble. But – let me give you a little context first. What I learn while juggling my day job with reading, personal journaling and publishing blogposts here is that when I try to go ahead towards 1 particular area, my focus shifts away from other critical areas. These days I’m racking my mind on the issue of offering my daughter a great education and what could be the most advantageous for her: Schools, private tutor or home education. Before this it was the renovation of my dilapidated house. Because you know that it feels selfish to think only about personal growth. It’s your top responsibility to think about your family also. Of course, focussing on all the things simultaneously isn’t fun. Even if you permit no extra traffic in your head (news, gossip, social networks) there’s already more than you can easily handle. So? There’s the need to adopt an exquisite tec...

Hmm, let me guess… You have heard a ton of advice on the importance of planning. Yeah, they say that the soul of every project is its plan, and failing to plan is planning to fail. While this precious hunk of wisdom gets rehashed and reverberated in different new ways, we rarely come across the truth that no plan is executed accurately as sketched out. Guess why? Because as we go forth on the planned course, new and unexpected things pop up, and consequently we’re compelled to change the scripted steps. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the former general and president of the U.S. said, “No battle was ever won according to plan, but no battle was ever won without one.” This happens because when an army goes forward in the battlefield, unexpected situations come to surface. The enemy reacts in a different way, or the weather changes, or the ammunition supply gets stuck somewhere etc. If fresh conditions unfold but the general sticks with the same plan, he is going to lose. Going accurat...

Ever skipped down a blogpost feeling that the writer would have written it easily? Ever saw a jaw-dropping painting thinking that the artist might have made it effortlessly? Well, until recently I felt as if someone has thrown a glass of hot water on my face while I saw the attention-grabbing works of others. You know why? Because deep down I felt that I never will be able to bring the same charisma in my work. But not anymore. Now I know that if something looks lovely, then there have been many struggling hours behind it. If a piece looks polished and finished, then the worker would have toiled a lot before getting that beauty. The truth is that behind every finished product, there’re a terrific level of striving. But it’s a blunder that we don’t see how much a person has failed or got rejected before finally showcasing his best work. Rarely we hear guys talking about their failures or ham-fisted attempts at projects before getting a breakthrough. “I have not failed. I hav...

Without taking the time to decide the topic I'm going to write on, I have just started the timer and now I feel words will rush out. Even if you think I’m a fool, it’s fine because I have to just take out my thoughts on paper as rapidly as I can. No cares. I’m ready to destroy my reputation for the sake of productivity. I know that we human beings have the capacity of thinking stuff amounting to hundreds of words in a single sec. I also know that we require some effort of the mind to shape those thoughts to words, and when the writing task is also involved with it, the toughness notches up more. Yet I think that often it’s laziness and time-expensive to wait and wait for figuring out the topic because time – one of our most precious commodities – slips fast. It’s laziness because oftentimes what we need is just getting started and the topic takes form automatically. You have heard it hundreds of times that writing is tough as hell. But rarely the naked truth is heard tha...

What if, God forbid, tomorrow you’re thrown in the prison for 27 years? Not for killing people, not for looting banks, not for passing out any super classified information of your country…but you’re jailed just because you demanded the rights you’re entitled to. Would you feel that the cruelty of life has slapped you on your face? Most unfair huh? Well, this is exactly what happened with a lovely man whose name was Nelson. Yes, Nelson Mandela. Of South Africa. Who stood up against tyranny, against slavery, against injustice. And grabbed success. Who made the soil of his motherland so hot for the invaders that they eventually had to flee. Want to know one mind-quickening secret behind his success? You may be disappointed to know it. It was thinking, as he revealed in many of his interviews. Answering what he did in the vast time available to him in the prison, he said of thinking about the plan of action he needed to pursue. He said that introspecting about the past mist...