DOUBT
It's 47c outside. A typical temperature in the summer for Riyadh. The heat is unbearable for a living being.
My shirt is sticking to my back and my face is shining with sweat. I feel gross.
Helplessly waiting outside a restaurant that offers unavailable vegan options.
Dhuhr prayers are being called in a mosque nearby. I go to the side door of the restaurant, begging them to open the door for me before I melt alive. No hope.
Luckily there’s an air-conditioned bank next door so I stand there with a few drivers waiting for their passengers to finish their meals.
This is an average day for them, and I'm complaining about this one day.
Life is fair in its own ways I guess.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. In fact, lately, I'm not sure about anything. Doubt fills my mind at different moments of my day.
What am I doing? What am I not doing?
Where's the path to liberation? Because I don't think I'm on it.
Lately, I've been feeling this heaviness in my heart and throat. Tears fill my eyes at unexpected times. I feel drained, stuck, and used up. I'm not living in alignment with what I believe in and it's slowly killing me.
It's easy to change your actions. But try changing those around you.
How can I live the life I aspire to live when I'm not in control. But am I not? I know I can change it all. But I'm not. That's why I cannot surrender. I cannot let it go.
Dreams take time. It makes me angry that I'm not living my dream life but I'm getting there. Right now I'm here under the hot sun of Riyadh in a city filled with plastic surgeries and plastic water bottles. Staying here is the unselfish thing to do. But at some point, I have to take care of myself.
The heat is humbling; it's reminding me that I'm only human.
In one of my favorite books, I learned that the way to solve a problem is to identify the problem first. So I asked myself, why have I been feeling drained? I had no idea at first. I even thought that it could be the heat. But after digging down, I realized that I was doing a lot.
Be human.