It takes some effort to figure out what we really think. Most of the time, we tell ourselves stories in order to make sense of our world. For instance, if I give a public talk or training (something I do almost daily), and the audience is lukewarm or distracted, I might start to tell myself a story. Like, the room is too warm. Or, it’s after lunch which explains the sleepiness.

“Your options get narrow as you get old,” my friend told me. “There’s just less you’re able to do.” “Or maybe it’s just that most people feel forced to make certain choices when they have kids or get married. Maybe the options are still the same and we’re still in control,” I offered. It crosses my mind quite a bit. I had a similar conversation driving with an uncle once when I was 15 or so.

+++ title = “11” date = 2019 +++ I was nervous right before the first time I sang in front of people on a stage. My friend, who was in the same choir as me, said “take a deep breath.” I’ve thought of the “take a deep breath” line as a less direct version of “calm down, now you’re making me nervous.” But maybe it could mean something else. Because taking a breath is connected to being alive, and when we breathe, we are quite literally living.

A few years ago, a routine doctor’s visit got me very interested in what I was eating to cause high cholesterol. Surely, my diet couldn’t have been that bad. But it was. The area that I lived in was full of walkable restaurants, and most of them used dramatic amounts of oil, sugar, and salt in their foods. At the time, I didn’t cook much. We did get mealkit delivery, but this gave us three meals a week at most.

When I was a child, I remember asking my father why we (Muslims) fast during Ramadan. “Because it evens everything out,” he said. “There are Muslims in third world countries that are starving. They don’t have a choice but to fast. When we fast, we’re reminding ourselves of how lucky we are to have access to food when others don’t.” I didn’t fast much during Ramadan when I was young, maybe once or twice in the month.