Read read read!!
Mudahnya Menjemput Rezeki by Fathuri Salehuddin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I am truly surprised when i key in the title of the book here in goodreads and it is available here! a good soul must have included in. A very good book and reminds us of the simple things that we have, to be grateful for what we had worked for or received. love the spiritual tips shared and the importance of giving. after reading this, i have set for myself some goals to achieve. Insya Allah.
i do not know what happened to my reading mojo the past few weeks. i may have been too busy or too sick to be reading. but thankfully, i think i have regained that mojo. hehe.
although currently reading a malay book. surprise surprise! but not a novel though. something useful and beneficial hopefully and i think i can pretty much finish reading it in a few days.
perhaps the hype of the book festival at KL and having some friends bought for me books from there since i couldnt go. and the book inventory i am currently in the process of doing and those which i may give away. and oh, maybe its the new box i bought for my bookmark collections and possibly i just miss reading. i truly do.
so glad to enjoy reading again.
The Introverted Leader: Building on Your Quiet Strength by Jennifer B. Kahnweiler
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
It was ok. not as much as i loved Quiet. This is more of to-dos as an introvert. not in the mood for some self-help at the moment. but i will probably read it again when in need.
The First Phone Call from Heaven by Mitch Albom
oh dear, i guess not all Mitch Albom’s books gets to me always. I pretty much bought the book based on the title. it sounded mysterious and uplifting. i just finished reading The TimeKeeper with slightly enjoying and finish reading it a few days but The First Phone Call from Heaven wasnt the same experience..I dont like it 
It addresses Christian beliefs on life after death and heaven, I respect that. but after the first few chapters, it just felt like a repetition of events and i do not want to go through chapters after chapters of yearnings, laments and regrets whatsoever. i just want to know about that phone call from heaven, not these different characters with a failed attempt to relate one character with another.
And we know this phone call is never going to happen in reality.
I gave it up.
im in a reading relapse mode. this always happens after i read a real good book or a book which impacted me alot. and the past three books which i read is doing this to me. it made me feel like there is no other book which is as good as the previous. i read Quiet, Aleph and The Messenger, and these books had impacted me in some ways that now i couldnt get them out of my mind and i couldn’t quite figure out what book to read next. bear in mind, i have lots of unread book on my shelves. i picked one, i read a few pages and i put it back on the shelf, pick another, same ritual and for the past week, that’s what i have been doing.
Latest book i attempted to read was Mitch Albom’s The First Phone Call from Heaven, but past few chapters, i decided the book is going to be such a drag to read at this point of time. it’s plain boring. repetitious. it’s about death and we all know there is not going to be an answer at the end of the chapter. i should have known. i never did really like Mitch Albom. sorry.
so i ended up picking up a non-fiction spiritual book on Du’as of the Superstars by Alima Ashfaq in the hope that it will inspire me perhaps. i don’t know how it’s going to be like, i’m only past the preface. it’s the charmed season, to me, now. haha.
Anyway my mind is so much distracted by CHARMED. yes, i am rewatching Season 1 back-to-back. I can never get bored of Charmed. forever will be my most favourite drama season. i still remember the first time i saw its trailer on TV, i decided right there and then that i am going to love this show! and i did. i remembered my excitement and anticipation waiting for that very first episode. and i am hooked. till now. and once i started watching the first episode, i will continue one by one. i did that before, twice, gone through all the episodes until the end of their final season. and deep in the fans’ hearts, we still hoped they will bring back Charmed. it had been prue, my first love, but in her memory, i persevered and watched all the way.
and! i just found out there may be works on new seasons of Charmed! and after so long, i realised there is Charmed Season 9, comic version. hehehe..
forever charmed.
a Prophet’s prayer
“O God, You alone I complain of my weakness, the meagerness of my resources and my insignificance before men. O Most Merciful of the Merciful, You are the Lord of the weak and You are my Rabb. Into whose hands do You entrust me? To some remote stranger who will ill treat me? Or to an enemy to whom You have granted authority over my affairs? I harbor no fear so long as You are not angry at me. Yet Your gracious support would open a broader way and a wider horizon for me. I seek refuge in the light of Your face, by which all darkness is illuminated and the things if this world and the next are set arigt, so that I do not incur Your anger and am not touched by Your wrath. Nevertheless, it is Your prerogative to admonish as long as You are not satisfied. There is no power nor strength but in You.”
Prophet Muhammad s.a.w said this prayer in times of difficulties during his ordeal in Taif. how beautiful it is. and how ignorant we have become. ‘this prayer reveals all the confidence and serenity he had with Allah swt, tells of humanity’s helplessness and of the Prophet’s spiritual strength. seemingly lonely and without support, he was not alone.’ – Excerpt from Tariq Ramadan’s The Messenger.
That’s why I always take the opportunity to reread stories of the Prophet. I think this is my third time reading The Messenger and somehow this time around, this do’a seems to play an effect on me at this moment. when before i read through with no notion of how it can relate to me. i may not have any enemies, not that i know of, but this year, i have been facing some very difficult students’ parents who really required all of my quiet strength and plan out how to deal with them, but Alhamdulillah, they now turn out to be some of the softest spoken parent i have. i realise it is not my doing. i relied on Him and seek His guidance one what to say how to act with these people. i cannot do it alone. He is near. SubhanAllah.
You are always there for me.
i forgive the tears i was made to shed
i forgive the pain and the disappointments
i forgive the betrayals and the lies
i forgive the slanders and intrigues
i forgive the hatred and the persecution
i forgive the blows that hurt me
i forgive the wrecked dreams
i forgive the still born hopes
i forgive the hostility and jealousy
i forgive the indifference and ill will
i forgive the injustice carried out in the name of justice
i forgive the anger and the cruelty
i forgive the neglect and the contempt
i forgive the world and all its evils
I will be capable of loving regardless of whether i am loved in return
of giving even when i have nothing
of working happily even in the midst of difficulties
of holding out my hand even when utterly alone and abandoned
of drying my tears even while i weep
of believing even when non one believes in me.
-Hilal, Aleph, Paulo Coelho.
*i realised there are so many blogs out there who repost this, of course the author himself puts it up in his blog. but thank you mr paulo. it is indeed beautiful.
so i gave the benefit of the doubt and tried reading aleph again.
i was frustrated and did not understand at all what paulo is trying to say in this book and was utterly disappointed with aleph. i finished reading it in about two months before and there was nothing that grasp me to continue reading it. but last wednesday, i was looking through my bookshelf for a book to read, preferably a non fiction, because i was really still having a book euphoria from Quiet. i thought there is no book which is going to take my attention now that my mind is still thinking about all the information i got from Quiet.
my fingers picked aleph, again. i told myself, ok why not. let’s learn to love this book. although i doubt i will love it as much as the alchemist still. but i guess it was a good choice. as of today, only two days after starting reading it, i am left with about 40 more pages. thanks to the waitings and travelling journeys to and fro the hospital. i found myself engrossed in reading it and i finally came to really read and understand what the aleph is. i was so relieved. because i hated finishing a book without knowing what it was all about and rereading it, i finally understood what aleph is and it was exactly what i would have understand it to be if i had read it carefully the first time. and i even came across some quotes and lines which makes me think or simply like.
im feeling happy because of this. excited. im going to finish the 40 pages left and put aleph back on the shelf with the good thinking that it has benefitted me and probably inspired me a bit, as do paulo’s books always have. but. but there is something i dont agree with him in this book. i am so going to talk about it later.
toodles. da.
why Quiet affected me… a lot…
i realized there is nothing wrong with me. why would i say that? because i used to question myself. why can’t i be more friendly? why wasn’t i confident enough to just strike up a conversation? why am i too quiet? why do i retreat to my own shell all the time?
i came across the word introvert when i was much younger and loved using it to describe myself without really understanding what it implies to. i understand it now. i am an introvert. with full knowledge of who i am.
i have known there are people like me but i never get to connect with them and reading Quiet makes me feel like i am connected to all the 1 to every 2 of human beings out there who are introverts. well, except my husband, who is the only other person outside of my own family who is your very male version of an introvert. no wonder i connected to him, despite the age gap and felt that he accepted me wholly. during the get to know each other days, i never felt pressured to be someone i am not. i never felt pressured to always do the talking. we were comfortable with each other’s silences.
i have many things to reflect on the things i found out while reading Quiet.
i thought i was not confident enough when really it is just being me. i was too quiet and not a conversational kind of person, i am not weird in that sense, its just me, because i have always thought of myself as a very boring person. i have been underestimating and degrading myself for being too quiet, too shy, too boring, when if i could just embrace this self as it is, i would have soared more. and if i really embrace this me, i think i can be confident enough to face anything.
gosh, i really thought i was not good enough, i bought books on how to have small talk, for God’s sake! books on being confident, how to make friends because really, i do not know how to be an outgoing person, not friendly enough i guess, because i thought there is something wrong with me. it is not.
as the book mentioned, the world is made for the extroverts. but surprisingly, introverts have made equal success in their own special way. but many introverts had to be pseudo-extroverts because no one tells us otherwise. throughout reading Quiet, many things strike close to heart and i find myself diving into memories of childhood and school, teenage years and even uni years. well, my past was not so bad. it became better with the realization that my actions are true testaments of being an introvert. not because there is something wrong with me.
i am glad i picked up that book and head on read it. already my perspectives on life is more positive, i am more myself without feeling awkward and there is some power in being me. i am close to knowing myself better and better.
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Really enjoyed reading Quiet. It does not call for a review but calls for tonnes of self reflection and re discovery of the self. Im just really glad I picked up this book and read it page by page, pagemarkers on when something strikes really close to myself.
This book is going to help me in many ways, especially understanding me.
living seri 