Month / July 2009

by Fadi Zaghmout

10 normal things that people do or believe in


In “The winner stands alone” – Paulo Coelho‘s latest novel – there is a list of *normal* things that people do or believe in.

I have picked 10 from the list, some that I had break off, and others that I am working on:

1. Working from nine till five every day at something that gives you no pleasure at all just so, after thirty years, you can retire.

It is actually from eight to six for me! Long working hours – I know. That is something that I still need to do, but I won’t wait till my retirement. I will for sure find other doors that would change this (already working on it).

2. Retiring and discovering that you no longer have enough energy to enjoy life and dying few years later of sheer boredom.

I CAN’T let this happen, and I won’t! To be honest, I feel less energy now being in my thirties than being in my twenties or teenage. Maybe it is due to hectic long working hours, or maybe it is age. I am afraid that it is true that their won’t be enough energy for me when I retire, but who said that I need energy to enjoy life? ;). That is the beauty of being a lazy man – you never die of sheer boredom 😛

3. Believing that power is much important than money and that money is much important than happiness.

I see it everywhere, but I have never adopt it. Happiness always comes first for me. I know that pursuing money have ate from my happiness in the past year or so, but that is something I felt needed for more happiness in the future. I may be wrong, I will try to balance, and keep a smile.

4. Making fun of anyone who seeks happiness rather than money and accusing them of ‘lacking ambition’.

Same as in the previous point, but I know that people who do this, do it from sheer jealousy. Those who are happy are truly gifted. The truth is that no matter how we claim that money is everything, deep down inside, we all know that happiness is what really matter.

5. Waking up each morning to an hysterical alarm clock in the bedside table.

Akhhhh! You know what, the day I stop waking up to my phone alarm would be the day where I would declare that I have wonderful mornings.

6. Believing absolutely anything that appears in print.

I am a person who prefers to give trust rather than doubt, but I also have the ability to smell when something is fishy and when it is not. Unfortunately, I know many people who don’t just believe anything in print, but also they believe everything that hit their email inbox! (especially those related to religious myths)

7. Eating three time a day even if you are not hungry.

I eat 6 times a day and I don’t mind more! This is one of the beautiful things that people do.

8. Assuming the women don’t like football and that men aren’t interested in home decoration and cooking.

Strict gender roles! I have broken mine and do enjoy what ever make me happy. Cooking and home decoration do sound really more fun than watching football!

9. Blaming the government for all the bad things that happen.

People who do that really annoy me! I believe firmly in the saying: It is better to light a candle than to curse the dark.

10. Being equally convinced that aggression and rudeness are synonyms with having a ‘powerful personality’.

I feel sorry for people who believe in this and actually build their personality on it thinking that they do really have a powerful one where in reality it is just a stupid thing to do because deep inside they know that aggression and rudeness is just a form of protecting their fragile inner-self

by Fadi Zaghmout

Social Hypocrisy 2


In Jordan, a woman may disable her facebook account after she gets into a serious relationship, do you know what else she may do? Fake innocence! That is not an uncommon advice, where married women would advice their friends who got recently into a relationship to act *surprised* if her boyfriend/fiance tried to touch her hand. If it is her wedding night, then the advice would be for the woman fake shyness and ask her husband to shut off the light!

Sadly, Jordanian women are still expected not to be sexually active before marriage. Although many are indeed sexually active, in discretion, but with no intercourse (to maintain the hymen), it is nothing acceptable to be mentioned infront of your future husband. The common perception, if a woman made out with a man, he won’t marry her! So if she made out with her first boyfriend, and his didn’t marry her, she won’t make out with her next one and end up marrying him! He, on the other hand, would try with her before marriage, and if she refuses, then she would have passed the test, and then he would end up marrying whom he thinks to be the pillar of virtue (in his own moral values ofcourse).

Well yes! That is a great advice. With such social values, and such mentality of men, women must have learnt how to trick them! and then again, it is a trick that most men are willing to take because it spares them the hectic of carrying on with what society expects from them if they know the truth!

Well let’s look at it closer:

A man waiting for his wedding night, he is eager to have halal sex with the woman he has married but he expects her to act cold, shy, and inexperienced. He still hopes that he will have good sex – that is the reason he got married afterall!!

Well that doesn’t really work! It takes two for good sex. But if she is going to please him, then she would show some knowledge, and thus alert him of a potential pervious experience which would push him to divorce her.

Do we really have to be this hypocrite? Can’t women just stand up for themselves?!