Tough As Nails

I've been cutting my kids' nails for 3 years and never cut them too short...until this morning. It was a good run. I've pretty exclusively done the nail-cutting in the household since my first child was born, so I'm very comfortable with it. Maybe too comfortable. While clipping 9 month-old Hudson's baby claws, I accidentally snagged some skin from his index finger. I initially mistook his jerkiness for typical baby resistance to any situation in which I'd like him to be still. But after realizing what happened, I was properly horrified by the sight; he was properly over it within 30 seconds. It's hard enough clipping baby nails, imagine trying to do it after such a mishap destroys the trust it took 9 months of clippings to build. As I lifted each of his tiny fingers thereafter, I felt like each trimming attempt was met by a face that said, "Hey, Edward Nailclipperhands - try not to cut off one of my digits over there. I need all 10." I proceeded with caution, and after a coupla wiggly minutes, I was done. Both of us relieved and worn out, early nap time beckoning. Talk to you guyzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The Fast and the Failures

I'm going to hold off on the third part of my reflection because I realize that that is something I should be reflecting on towards the end of this week. For now, let’s talk about my failures. Rather, let’s talk about one big failure. An intentional one, I guess. To be clear, I’ve had many others, like the time my food wasn’t finished being cooked before dawn and I just kept right on eating until I was done, bathed in sunlight. Or the time I skipped suhoor for the second straight day (meaning consecutive days of 21 hours of fasting), and I had a little protein before iftar because I’d been working out and because GAINZ.

One of rap's foremost Muslims, brother Freeway. 
If you're of a certain age, when this come on in the club??
What?! I half expect them to play Society at Hilton this year.

I’ve faltered here and there, I accept and expected this. It’s not as easy as some veterans make it seem, and not as hard as some people who’d never try it assume it is. On the flipside (can’t say that word without thinking of the Roc’s reign over hip-hop mid-2000s, specifically them Philly boys), I’ve persevered on days I absolutely thought I would crack. I understand now that I have to go through these trials to determine how to push the boundaries of my discipline. There are challenging variables I didn’t plan for, that I couldn’t plan for, that have nothing to do with hunger and thirst. I’ll know to consider these things next year. I’ve gotten great guidance from Muslims who do this every year, but that advice can only go so far. They don’t know the intricacies of my daily routine. It’s within this routine that I have to mentally manage my way through little landmines of food and negativity.

But yea, let’s get back to my “intentional” failure. See, I like my massages. And I like to be massaged by females. Actually, the best massage I ever had was by a guy in Sri Lanka, and nothing beats those barbershop Indian head massages, but I prefer a woman for a full body experience. And I just recently found out that these are available in various hotels here. So I’ve been scheduling them for the past month. I scheduled one for this past weekend, not really thinking about the haram part (it’s always haram) and how it should count under “no sexual activity.” I mean, I kinda knew, but I didn’t really think about it. I mean, I thought about it, but not in that way. I mean, I did think about it in tha…ok, fine, I knew it was forbidden as all heck, I just wanted my dang massage, ok?! Look, I consider it medicine. There are no endings of happy sort. It’s for my poor muscles. But I can see how it’s not allowed, especially considering I had to wear these:

Supposed to cover your guy unmentionables.
Made of coffee filter material.

Now, I’m used to the little bits of fabric they give you to cover up in certain places. In NY and other places, you just go nude with a towel, but I’ve encountered the weird little underwear before. These were the weirdest.  I wanted to be like, “Excuse me, I don’t need a headband, thanks though.” So small that they could only cover half of…my back, if I wanted to cover all of my…front. And vice versa. So a choice had to be made. You can probably guess what I chose to cover ALL of. And by “ALL,” I mean “just enough to not get arrested for indecent exposure if I have even a fraction of an impure thought.” So yup, this was quite the haram experience for Ramadan. Gotta say though, it was my best massage here so far. Olga was very professional, friendly, and applied just the right pressure. If I was going to have my fast broken on this day by a haram massage, it was as close to worth it as I was going to get. 

One Week Reflection Part 2: Managing Food and Sin

This was my second Ramadan objective:

• No food, water, sex of any kind, swearing, or sinful thoughts from sunrise to sunset

Let's look at this objective, and break it up into its three parts:

1. No food or drink from dawn to sunset
2. No sexual activity of any kind from dawn to sunset
3. No swearing or sinful thoughts, again, from dawn to sunset

Not eating or drinking is something your body can largely get used to. After a few days, I don't really start to feel as hungry in the late afternoon. I'm someone who doesn't really eat a whole lot anyway, and as long as I'm busy, food isn't a major necessity for me. Out of the 15 hours or so I fast each day, I can do 12 pretty easily just off of routine, and the last three off of discipline. Lack of water and the "suhoor struggle" I previously wrote about are my biggest challenges when it comes to eating. There is so much we don't know about nutrition, and the amount of food we need each day. When you fast, you get a good sense of how mental your diet is. You start to realize how often you eat just because you think you should be eating and not because you're hungry. 

Something I struggled with during the first week was coming home earlier than normal from work because of Ramadan hours, and not eating as soon as I got home. Since I get home by 2pm each day now, and the kids are in school until four, me and my wife have the opportunity to breathe for a second, and enjoy ourselves as husband and wife and not mom and dad. Time such as this is usually made more special by being able to have a meal together without the Rugrats running around. These are times we meet up at, or drive over to, one of the restaurants in our neighborhood and enjoy some quality time over some quality food. Half the time, we won't even be hungry when we do something like this. It just seems like food and free time go together, like food and watching a game on television. So we've learned to use that time to figure out something else to do (which doesn't include doing each other, as you'll read more about very soon). Maybe each of us does something task oriented, but within the same space without distractions. Or maybe we just do something we normally we do, just without food. 

I'm also able to recognize the many times I reach in the cabinet for a cookie or two just because I'm upright. Fasting has shown me that I don't have to suffer from that accumulation of all those empty sugary calories. I can be more disciplined than that until it becomes natural, like it used to be for me. I'm getting back in touch with a lot of the habits I acquired during my healthy journey a few years back, and have somewhat moved away from over the years. Fasting has shown me in this way, and in many other ways, that instead of becoming something new, I'm more interested into transforming back to something I was.

The sexual activity thing is not so difficult. I am a teacher and father of a three-year-old and a nine-month-old; while school is in session, I don't have much time for, or willingness to commit to any act that may bring more children into my life. Usually, after sunset is the only time I have for such activities anyway, so this isn't one of the more difficult aspects of the fast. Oh but wait, hold on. Yeah that's right - masturbation is sexual activity. You cannot self-pleasure. You can't even listen to Michael Jackson's "Beat It." That may lead you down a slippery slope. And that connects to the hardest part of the fast to adhere to - no sinful thoughts. I've come to realize that my thoughts are pretty much dominated by sin. Mostly in the form of profane internal outbursts and fleeting thoughts of murderous mayhem driven by road rage, Facebook, and probably the hunger I've boasted about defeating. 

I used to think that most of my sinful thoughts were due to sex, but either I'm purposely avoiding such thoughts so that I don't fail at one of my other objectives, or I'm just a lot more psychopathic than I previously thought. Swearwords and negative thoughts pop in and out of my head faster than I can filter them. And I consider myself to be a generally positive person. I'm probably wrong about that. I've come to realize that the only way I can master this challenge is it by not feeding the environment that breeds these kinds of thoughts. Occasionally, it's as easy as stopping myself and reaching for a better thought, but mostly, what I have to do is recognize that I am in control of, and the cause of the type of environment that feeds negative thoughts one way or another. I am able to see the root cause of my thoughts, and not just attribute them to the top layer of reflection that I normally limit myself to. For example, the aforementioned the road rage. Though I am much much less angry on the road than I used to be, I still have multiple instances of anger on any given morning. (I'm much less relaxed going home of course, because I'm not racing against the clock most of the time, and neither are most other people probably.) A lot of this anger is due to me trying to have as close-to-ideal conditions as possible, to be able to get to work early enough to settle in comfortably. Using a method similar to "The 5 Whys" is a good idea to get to the root of this problem. I come up with three reasons why I have road rage, and I'll focus on one: because I'm trying to get to work on time. Why am I always trying to get to work on time? Because I live far. Why do I live far? Because I value my neighborhood over proximity to the school. So I know that I won't move any closer. Dead end. Let's do some more "why" work. Why don't I have enough time from where I live to be able to get to school without rushing and raging? Because I don't get up early enough. Well no that's not true, I get up very early, I just choose to do certain things during the early hours. Why do I choose to do those things at that time? Because I don't think I can get them done during other parts of the day? Well here's a solution - schedule all of my tasks for a week see if I can get my usual early morning tasks done at some other point in the day, thus leaving me with more time to get out of the house earlier in the morning. This way, I can drive much more relaxed, on an emptier road, and always have time to settle in once I reach work. This is how creating a better internal and external environment can ward off a lot of the negative thoughts which manifests themselves in a very real and hurtful way to my mind, body, and soul.

So as you can see, I'm working on the stuff. Actually, this blog is proof of that. I wrote this after choosing not to do my hour long morning walk this morning and arriving at work a half hour early. Instead of going in to the school building and accumulating the stress of the school day a half-hour early, I sat in my car and banged out this post. Since this is something that's pretty important to me, I would have had this on my mind all day. Now I can go in and focus on the work I need to do. I'll return to this post to do some editing before I publish it, but the meat of my work is done. Progress.

One Week Reflection Part 1: The Dawn of My (Mis)Understanding

As I sit down to write this post at 2pm on Friday, a mere 4 hours away from my goal of fasting for the first week of Ramadan, let's get into some specifics of my fast. The mini-objectives have been as follows:

• Determine the parameters for when I will begin and end my fast each day, as a non-Muslim not following the prayer times
• No food, water, sex of any kind, swearing, or sinful thoughts from sunrise to sunset
• Praying or meditating at least 3 times a day

Let's reflect on the first objective:

I figured it would be easy to just look up the sunrise and sunset times each day and go from there. But at the time, I didn't know about Suhoor, only Iftar. There isn't really much conflicting information about when the fast ends. It's basically from the beginning of twilight (which has always been my favorite time of day.) Beginning the fast is a little trickier. Even though I'm not a Muslim, it's helpful, sensible, and respectful for me to use their guidelines as a reference when deciding what my fast will be like. Although I was able to easily find out when the pre-dawn meal time was, I haven't been able to nail down when I must stop eating. Apparently, many others have this issue, as terms like "suhoor before or after fajr," "confused regarding the time to stop eating sujoor," and "when does suhoor end?" are very popular with Google.

Trying to figure this out is incredibly frustrating. It seems like it should be as simple as stopping all eating/drinking a few minutes before fajr, or dawn prayer. But here in Qatar, fajr times are nowhere near dawn. Well, that's not true. It's at the very beginning of dawn, astronomical dawn when it's still very dark. Confusing. In which case, when should I wake up to eat? Then there are calendars that have suhoor and fajr at the exact same time. Remember when I said the calendars were all cool and useful and whatnot? Yea, I rescind that statement to an extent. Most are conflicting. The amount of astronomy involved is incredible. I think people just follow the traditions they have had in their families for generations. After hours upon hours of reading, and learning some basic astronomy, this is how I will approach it in my second week, which is much different than I did my first week:

During Ramadan, you aren't fasting from sunrise to sunset, as I originally thought. But you can, I guess. It just wouldn't be Ramadan. You are fasting from dawn to sunset. This gets tricky depending on your location on the globe. What I will do is try to fast from CIVIL dawn to sunset, or more specifically, civil twilight (and this site is super helpful to me). My suhoor window will be from the local suhoor timings to the local dawn timings. Civil dawn, not astronomical dawn because I find that to be more...civil. This still helps me to feel empathy for what my colleagues and friends go through, while leaving me some breathing room to reconcile my understanding of it all. This means that I will allow an eating window of roughly 3:10-4:15am, instead of 3:10-4:40am as I was doing previously. It's not as expansive as the fajr to maghrib fast which starts at about 3:10, but then again, I may end up basically doing that anyway since the last two days I've just been having water in the morning. This works for me. And to those who've accused me of "cheating," it wasn't on purpose! Great Islamic scholars disagree about the interpretations stuff (though admittedly, none said you can eat until sunrise haha), I can be forgiven for getting it wrong on my first try :)

Day 6!

Day 6!

Early morning 3 mile walk :)

N.I.C.E.

Much appreciated compliments from co-workers.

Cynicism seems like the way of the world these days. It could never be my way. Though I often lean towards being cynical, as defined in some ways, I am not "distrustful of human sincerity and integrity." If I was, I wouldn't trust myself. Even though I feel like I'm often in an environment filled with people who have embraced cynicism, I also believe that they have all the potential in the world to let that go. As far as myself, I like being a nice person. I'm a truly nice guy, always have been. And I usually finish first. I wrote these bars as some advice I'd give to my younger self:

"Nice guys don't finish last/
That's what weak guys say, who are not in your class/
You're a king, you're NOT a king, you're a king's advisor/
You're NOT A KING, you're WISER, you're A LEADER, A FIGHTER/
a BREATHER OF FIRE..."

A nice guy who finishes last is probably not nice enough to himself. Being kind begins with being kind to yourself. Allowing yourself the space to succeed. Putting yourself first so that you can enough for everyone else. Building up your internal strength so that your can manifest if externally.

Things like that.

Being nice is way tougher than being mean. It's easy to embrace your anger and negativity! It's hard to remain true to the gentleman inside in a world that seems to respect un-directed aggression. A real nice guy isn't weak though. A real nice guy is MLK teaching people to master their anger until laws were changed through that power. A real nice guy is Malcolm becoming so powerful after discovering the love of diversity that he became a threat to everyone, even his so-called people. Real niceness is dangerous in how disciplined it is. 

True niceness is fair and consistent, something most people aren't, which is why I get told and treated like I'm intimidating way more than a person who is always polite should be. This doesn't mean anger is without its place. Anger is necessary and powerful. I subscribe to the school of thought I once saw a sitcom dad share with his son who was fighting in school: "Don't waste your anger, it's too valuable!" You think some of the greatest nice guys in history weren't angry? Of course they were. Fire-breathing nice guys who knew how to use that energy to make others angry about important things. As a country, we still get angrier debating about our sports teams than debating about the state of our republic. The woman or man who can best spread their anger, and get the masses to take up the cause of it, often is in charge of change. This is true in the arts, politics, and the streets. Don't sleep on anger. Niceness and anger are fraternal twins.

True niceness is misidentified and misrepresented. I've heard Greg Popovich is one of the nicest guys when you get to know him and I can totally believe it when I actually listen to what he's saying. Niceness isn't about making you comfortable. It's about being in mastery of your negativity. Mastery of your negativity is some powerful stuff. A "face" in wrestling, a good face, is nice and powerful. He wins in the end by consistently keeping to his values and literally fighting for them. Fans don't like characters that come across as fake nice (John Cena) or weak nice (Roman Reigns), whether the guys playing the characters are like that or not. Sometimes, the fans realize they were wrong because you learn about people through experience (John Cena and Roman Reigns, again). I've had people totally disregard my presence when mistaking my niceness for weakness, until they got to experience me over a period of time and realize my power and intention. 

This doesn't mean everyone who is fair and consistent, and doesn't give in to their anger, is a nice guy. Batman is as fair and consistent as they come, but he isn't nice. He's a(n something that rhymes with grasshole). His discipline and code is a vice. Now Superman IS nice, but we don't like him as much as we like Bats, do we? Because Supes' niceness isn't human enough. We can relate to Bats, even though he's a billionaire. He lives out the ultimate "nice guy's revenge." Except nice guys shouldn't seek revenge. Revenge isn't justice. Batman should be in the Revenge League, not the Justice League. Either way, being nice still means being human, and flawed. 

Being nice has gotten me everything, and I don't think I could've been as successful if I wasn't. It's because I've harnessed a strong optimism, based on tried-and true-methods of dealing with people and attacking my goals. No mean person could put up the fight I have all of these years. I want you to remember that NICE should never, ever mean WEAK. N.I.C.E means "Never Internalize a Cynical Existence."

Skipping Suhoor: My Rookie Ramadan Mistake

"You're not yourself during Ramadan."

A bit of terminology before I get into this:

Suhoor – the meal you have before dawn, and before the fajr prayer, which is the prayer between the beginning of dawn and sunrise. Basically, the last meal of the night, which should end as soon as you see any remnants of the white sky of the morning (“the white thread of dawn appears distinct to the black thread of night,”according to the Qur’an.) This meal is a blessing which enables you to stay strong throughout the fasted hours. You should wake up for it, because if you don’t, you won’t be eating until the sun goes down. That’s a long time. You can probably guess where this blog is headed.

Iftar – the evening meal when Muslims end their daily Ramadan fast at sunset, often as a community of family and/or friends. (I’ve done a lot of reading, and I’m still not completely sure about Iftar’s relationship to the magrib prayer, and either’s relationship to what is technically considered “sunset.” This isn’t necessary to know, but I like to understand these things.) No one will ever have to tell you to make sure you eat at this time. You’ll be crazy hungry, and proud for making it through another day. Give thanks.

Now you tell me *face palm*

Ramadan started here on Friday night. Meaning, the fast was on, and my last meal not in the state of fasting was around 6:30pm Friday evening. If I was to get through my first day of fasting on Saturday, I'd need to do my first Suhoor, which is the meal you have before sunrise to help you fast until sunset. But instead, I slept Saturday morning, which is a common rookie mistake, an arrogant one for me. (Actually, I've heard Muslims say they have lots of trouble managing Suhoor, so I'm not too hard on myself.) "I like to get up very early anyway!" Ego said. "We'll see about that," replied Humility.

Since I was committed to the fast, this meant I had to go from 6:30pm Friday until sunset on Saturday, which was 6:19 pm the next day in Qatar. Nearly 24 hours. This was not pleasant. Headaches, children, and hunger. It's a genius way to get closer to God really, because you feel like you're dying. I successful avoided this on subsequent days, knowing that the extra hour or two of sleep was not worth the suffering I'd go through all day on an empty stomach.

After doing lots of reading, I'm realizing that fasting start and end times aren't agreed upon depending on a host of factors I'm not going to go into. There are all types of cool clocks and calendars that pinpoint the exact time you do Suhoor, Iftar, and the daily prayers in various cities around the globe. These timings are VERY helpful. But MY fast starts at the sunrise and sunset times here in Qatar. I allow myself to eat from the Suhoor timing until the sunrise timing each day. I'm not a Muslim, and I don't follow the prayer schedule. I think fasting must be accompanied by an awareness/mindfulness practice of some sort, so I do pray and meditate in my own way. 



My breakfast has normally consisted of eggs, turkey bacon, waffles or bread, fruit, and a shake (protein, chocolate soy milk, banana, peanut butter). This gives me energy that lasts throughout the whole morning. Afterwards, depending on the needs of the household (i.e. if the kids are up), I take a long walk in the early sun, which is quite glorious. When this isn't possible, I'll just do a short yoga session, or a quick mobility exercise. As I near the end of the week, I'm thinking of extending my fast beyond the plan one week, because I really think I can find a balance in my routine. I think I'll shoot for two weeks now.