Choices

We all make choices every day of our life. Some turn out to be for the good and some just turn out for the bad. We’re human. We go on the limited information we’re given regarding every situation, so it’s hard to know whether the choice will work out in your favour.

I think when I make big decisions, especially when I was younger I used to impulsively go for it. Sometimes, I still do that. But thankfully it’s becoming less and less as I grow up and realise that I don’t need to say yes straight away.

Anyone else feel like if they don’t say Yes straight away then people will not like them? I read this book last year called “The Power of a Positive No” by William Ury that changed my life. I realised by saying yes to everything I was saying, “Walk all over me, I don’t respect my time.” However, after reading that I realised that while initially saying No to some things is uncomfortable, if I explain why and then try find a yes I can work with things would be smoother.

I still struggle with saying No, but that helped me realise that I need to speak up a bit more. When I was in Year 6 (about 10 or 11) we moved to a town in England, where we’d come to live after having lived in Ireland for 5 years. I joined the last year of Primary school and struggled to fit in. We had this fashion show at the end of the year and everybody got a name, and I was “Helpful Humaira” (Initially Humming Humaira, to rhyme with my name, but that didn’t fit), and I think that name’s just stuck. It’s taken me 18 years to stop being so damn helpful at the expense of my health and personal happiness.

I’m a slow learner in some things. It took me 4 years to learn how to drive a car, but I learned HTML in a matter of months when we got our first computer when I was 15, and I taught my self. I’m terrible at academics, and yet I still managed to graduate with a First Class Honours Degree and a Distinction in my Masters alhamdulillah (thanks be to god). I don’t put that down to luck, that’s hard work and a lot of prayers from me and my parents.

I’m slower with learning when it comes to the matters of the heart and of human relationships. In the profession I work in, you have to be a little tough. I used to think being in my profession was about helping people. It’s taken me a long time to work out that the first person I work for is the company and not the employee. That doesn’t mean I’m mean to people. Quite the opposite! I’m too nice. I am trying to be more tougher, but its hard especially when people expect so much from you and are constantly voicing their disappointment when you don’t meet their requirements. My mother tells me in every job you go into, people will be like this. I have to agree. Better the devil you know.

So, the point of my post is, what do you do when you have limited information and you need to make a big choice? Be that regarding a career path, which university to go to, life partners? Either way your choice will affect you for the rest of your life and you’ll always be wondering what if?

Does anyone else do that? Wonder what would happen if you’d turned right instead of left? That in a parallel universe I’m possibly a psychologist (my first career of choice). Sometimes I do wonder what if I’d done this instead of that but in the end when you choose a path it may not be clear whether you’ve made the right choice until it’s 2 or 3 years down the line. But in the end, we have the choice to change paths again. To forge new identities for ourselves. It’s just about picking a path and staying on it until you recognise if it’s the right one for you or not.

I’m still unsure where my path is leading, and I’m worried and uncertain about the choices I’ve made sometimes. I have to have faith that these choices will lead to an outcome I’m happy with. Inshallah (God willing).