Husain Journal

Whether one admits it or not, it happens all the time. We look at a huge project and feel that wave of cold dread washing over our bones. I’m going to tell you a shameful secret about myself. It could ruin the little reputation that I have, but let it come. Years ago, I started writing a huge novel, but the tyranny of the project overwhelmed me. So I gave up on it. Did I just tell you that I failed? Exactly. I had just started my 21-kilometre run when I felt a heaviness on my chest. The enormity of the distance for an untrained person like me was powerful enough to wipe out all the motivation. Yes, I tell you, right on your face, I had wanted to crawl back into bed. I felt the game’s over. Finish. But I told myself to keep running, even if I didn’t reach the target. And so, I kept at it. As far as my novel is concerned, well, I couldn’t complete it, but I wrote two books and covered huge distances in marathons. And wh...

Let me confess upfront: I’m terrible at small talk. Social gatherings are my Achilles' heel, especially when faced with the challenge of creating engaging yet effortless conversations. However, last evening, when I met my cousin sister and her husband, I found myself thrust into the proverbial deep end of small talk. What could I possibly say to make the evening flow smoothly? As luck would have it, I discovered that my cousin’s husband works in a UAE bank. Aha! Finally, a topic I could tackle: money. Lately, I’ve become deeply interested in personal finance, particularly in frugality and strategies to save for the future. This newfound interest had nudged me toward exploring mutual funds, a topic I eagerly brought up. Why Mutual Funds Caught My Attention For years, I relied on traditional saving options like fixed deposits (FDs) and recurring deposits (RDs). While these tools offer safety, they fail to outpace inflatio...

I normally get overly harsh with myself when I miss any of my important work. This harshness causes me undue frustration, self-hatred, and more often than not, I see my joy and productivity taking a slump. But when this morning I missed my prayers, I treated myself with kindness, as a caring friend. I countered the rising flood of self-reproach with love, forcing myself to see if there could be any underlying reasons behind this slipup. Guess who the first culprit was? A late-night writing marathon to hit my 2,000-word target. While I got close, the cost was a sluggish start to my day. Reflecting on this, I realised that missing my prayers isn’t just about physical tiredness — it’s a signal that I need a better balance in my life. To address this, I’m committing to waking up early and taking proactive steps to reduce unnecessary stress. Stress, especially the avoidable kind, weighs he...

"Frugality includes all the other virtues." — Cicero Managing expenses can often feel like a mental balancing act. It encourages frugal habits, motivates you to save for emergencies or special events, and most importantly, helps reduce unnecessary tension at home. Lately, I've been reflecting on my spending habits, and I've realized that the best way to manage them is to write everything down. After all, as the saying goes, "the palest ink is stronger than the fondest memory." A Clear Picture of My Spending I use the free version of an app called Spending to track my daily expenses, and it works like a charm. The app allows me to enter dates, choose categories, and add notes when necessary. Since it’s available on my phone, I can update my records while on the go or from the comfort of my couch. So far this month...

You know what’s good for your growth, and you know what’s holding you back. Yet, you often look the other way. Sure, you’ve made some progress and achieved a few milestones, but most of those accomplishments came from the progressive steps you’ve taken. And deep down, you probably know that if you’d taken even more of those steps, you’d be in a much better place today. Sound familiar? If so, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get real with yourself. Ask yourself these tough questions—your answers could ignite the change you need: What foolish habits or behaviours am I engaging in that are holding me back? How can I eliminate them? What obstacles are in the way of eliminating these barriers? What small action can I take today to start moving in the right direction? Take some time to sit down in a quiet space, away from distractions. Switch off your phone and let those around you know you n...

Maybe you would have come across a great advice and had even felt its fascinating merits tapping the core of your heart. But, lack of implementation or mental laziness – or whatever you call it – had kept you from plucking its fruitage. The same happened with me when long time back I heard the super successful blogger Jon Morrow advising his readers to give subheads to their pieces. To my joy, recently I was shaken by the idea of doing whatever is presently in our hands to scale up our progress, so I started to take this top tip in earnest. Here’re 6 benefits that come when we begin to use subheads in our works: 1. They give clarity to the reader William Zinsser said that the reader’s subconscious need is for order and to feel that everything is fine at the helm. If this need of his remains unfulfilled, he feels deprived of the clarity that he searches for. He feels put off and looks at the nearest opportunity to click away from the piece. With proper subheads, poi...

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...