Excitement Alonely

Hey guys!

This subject struck me and I don't think I can possibly be the only one who's ever felt this way, but sometimes you get excited and you're jumping all over the walls, all giddy with excitement with glee and joy but there's not anyone you can find who is willing to share that with you. Or just doesn't see the same thing and sometimes with me, it feels like I can't tell anyone who won't share my enthusiasm for whatever it is because I feel like it loses worth because it doesn't receive the same amount of feeling as it does with me.

In some ways, it makes it feel less valid unless someone can share it with me but can feel sort of weird if someone feels exactly the same way? For me, the greatness expands when I can share the feeling with someone and watch them grow happier as a consequence of what I've told them. Then, in my mind, we share more. It's the understanding and empathy that my mind feeds off of and it's something I quite often need which feels quite selfish really.

What scares me is feeling like my excitement is withering away with me because I can't find people irl or on the internet who feel like they genuinely understand where I'm coming from and that makes me sad. But should I? Should I be entitlted to people understanding my excitement and why I feel the way I feel and vice versa or is happiness and love and excitement still as true without the sharing element that feels like it matters so much.

Have you guys ever felt this way? Please do let me know however you like and I hope to speak to you soon! God Bless!<3

Addiction: My Story - Connor Manning

Hey guys, I hope that you're well.

Before I start off this post, I do want to warn you of trigger warnings about drugs that will follow in this post. If you think this will negatively affect you in any way, shape or form, please click away now.

For you guys who want to continue reading, this post is about a video by Connor Manning that resonated really well with me and continued on from a conversation me and a friend of mine had been having earlier today about drugs and the way that it can affect people. It's a lot different to my usual stuff but it's really something I'd like to share.

Connor's video, for me, really put that into perspective and also added to the opinion that I'd held earlier today during the conversation.

First of all, something I think is worth recognising first of all is that during drug addiction, using the drug becomes the thing that controls your life and that can drain your personality and the awesome person that you would have otherwise have had the potential to be. Using becomes both the best thing and the single most thing you hate with every fibre of your being, all at the same time. And that is probably one of the hardest things that a person has to face during their life. Drug addiction is a plague, well and truly and honestly needs to be understood a lot more amongst the rest of society because without understanding it, how can we hope to improve the situation or understand how it can be aroused?

One thing I learnt from this video that I definitely didn't know before was the fact that you can be predisposed from birth to become more prone towards addiction. I guess this can be attributed to whether your parents used drugs whilst you were developing or whether your parents used before your birth and how that affected their eggs/sperm. It can also be genetic disposition and therefore, it's not always the user's fault if they end up in that situation. However, this is by no means an excuse for their situation, merely a contributing factor, if you will. This is also something to consider as a factor because we all think we understand why users end up how they become, forgive me for not going into details, but honestly, every user is as unique as the person they are. That is something we need to understand as a society too.

I think the one thing I've learnt from both my friend and Connor's video is that these people are in desperate need for compassion and empathy during addiction as well as recovery and they don't deserve to be shunned away from society and frowned down upon because they're quite often normal people who don't want to be in that situation as much as you'd like to be in that situation or perhaps even more so. They deserve to be shown that they are still loved and that people still care and that people will do whatever they can to help them and drag them out. As Connor points out in his video, that's often as much as you can do but believe me, it makes the biggest difference knowing that you're not alone. Kindness is honestly one of the best things of the world and sharing it with everyone is something our society really needs to learn, in my humble opinion.

Addiction, once it's developed and become a fully blown thing, is a mental illness and shouldn't be treated as anything else. However, unfortunately, our society has a stigma towards illnesses of the brain that we don't completely understand, however, this definitely does not mean that we shouldn't talk about it and educate ourselves so we can help others. After all, isn't that the best thing that you can do?

Thank you so much for reading this guys and I hope that you can take something from this post. Whatever you thought or if you want to add something to the discussion or something I should've  mentioned (many things) leave a comment below and I hope to talk to you soon! Take Care :)

My New Year's Resolutions

Hey guys!

Now, I know that the day has officially past but I have the biggest part of the new year ahead of me so here are some of the things that I want to achieve this year!

1. Spend more time with my family and friends rather than on the internet or hiding away - yes Zainab, you may be quite an introverted person but who knows when you'll be able to spend so much quality time with the people that are near and dear to you? Who knows what could happen? Treasure the time you have the ability to spend with other people.
2. Speak your mother tongue more - when I was a child, I was literally the best at my mother tongue but with school and growing up, I've literally become the worst. But learning languages is a favourite thing of mine and if I can connect with relatives better as well as new people, why shouldn't I put the effort in properly and not look back?
3. Eat less biscuits - my guilty pleasure, you caught me. I feel kinda bad knowing I do exercise but I probably eat back all the calories I lose aha, I have a high metabolism naturally so I'm still pretty thin but I'd like to know that I'm doing most of the things I need to in order to keep all parts of my body healthy. Maybe I should turn to fruit instead :)
4. Don't be afraid to give - a reason why I don't do things is often because of fear. When I want to help someone or even just crack a joke, I'm afraid because I don't know how I'll be received. What I need to remember is, even if it's not much help or the joke isn't funny, I can still make a difference and doing that and still being true to yourself - not much more you can ask for!
5. Work harder, then play - I learnt this the hard way during my GCSE's and though I didn't do drastically badly, there's always always room for improvement - don't be afraid of working your butt off because trust me, every single moment you spend will contribute to the end product. Just because it doesn't feel like revising for half an hour will help, trust me, it most probably will. Also, that doesn't have to be school related, working with the team and relaxing with them will mean you'll work better altogether rather than only chipping in when it's convenient. Not a good habit, I can tell you that!
6. Do more of what you can't do very well - This kinda links back to my mother tongue resolution but it's a bit  more general and links to some inspiration I got from this video from Connor Manning who you guys know I've been loving at this moment in time. It's all about doing things you love but 'aren't very good at' - no one is born amazing at what they do but with work, you can become more and more decent and even amazing, but only if you take that step yourself.
7. Write more gosh dang it - I love writing so much, it's definitely a release for me and something I love, so I want to try and write 52 blog posts this year - one for every week, hence the specific. Even if it's two on one week and none the next, just so long as they're quite frequent, I'll be a happy bunny and be a relaxed as a..... oh you add whatever you like in the gap!
8. Finally, keep smiling :) I love smiling and it makes me feel so happy and happiness doing whatever you're doing is the best thing ever, so you there, have a good day! (brownie points for the person who knows the reference ;) )

Those are the most of them I think so I hope that you guys have a good ole list and try and smash them out as much as possible because becoming a better you than yesterday's you will end the year with the most awesome you that's even been before. Many you's in that sentence, many you's.

Have a great one, whatever you're doing and I hope to speak to you guys soon!

Connor Manning - A New Phenomenal Discovery

Hey guys!

For me, as my sister put so very nicely, finding  new YouTubers is like how other people find new TV shows and this week, thanks to this article, I think I've found a real gem - Connor Manning.

From the article, I wanted to watch this guy because he was described as mature and that's honestly something I value in the YouTubers I watch. I can't always stand comedy but I love inspirational videos that give me more reasons to move forward with my life and keep striving forward to become a better person and find the thing I want to do.

Connor's videos really put things into perspective and they're very good explanations and daily inspirations so I would highly recommend that you watch his videos. One of my favourite videos of his that I've seen so far is this one called 'Finding Your Passion' and it just reverberates what you know is true but you need articulating. I'm going to write a more detailed post on why I love this video so much on my daily inspirations blog so check that out but yeah, enjoy him! In hindsight after watching another one of his videos and thinking this all over, I realised I love his videos because I think a lot like him and have gone through a lot of things like him and that just makes his videos all the more meaningful because I can relate to them and I hope you can too.

In a way, I'm glad that this is a shorter blog post but thank you for reading it anyway and I hope that you guys have sources of inspiration in your lives too! If you have any that you'd like to share, leave them in the comments! I do try and write some things that have inspired me on my side blog so if you use tumblr or Bloglovin', go follow it and perhaps we can become inspired together!

Have a wonderful week and a belated Happy New Year to you all! I hope this year is the year that's the best of our lives so far :D

About Time - Lessons I loved from this film

This film was recommended to me by a good ole YouTuber, Will Darbyshire through this tweet here:

It made me incredibly happy to see the trailer so later the same day, I embarked on the journey of watching a beautiful film blossom.

Instead of ruining it for you, here's the gist: Tim is told by his father (Bill Nighy) that he can time travel back into his own past and this means that he can do lots of things that he didn't do the way he wanted to, in a way that is most suitable. But here's the catch - he can only be in one place at one time - and I'll leave you with that!

It's a wonderful concept and it's driven so beautifully through the film but here's the main thing I took away from the film that made me incredibly satisfied:

Imagine you could time travel like Tim and you could live every day again, if you really wanted to - imagine that you've picked today to come back to because you know you're going to have the best day, and when you wake up in the morning, you treat it like so :) 

This just made me happy because it made me think of all the small moments we often fail to recognise and we fail to take full advantage of. It's something I believe the film illustrates it too well for me to try and give you examples so if you have an evening to spare or a couple of hours, do go and check it out! I feel like I've not really given you much to cling onto but if I tell you that the same people who made this film also made Love Actually, does that make recommend this film even more to you? If anything, it has the best ending, I can promise you that!

During this holiday season, I hope that you guys have the most joyous and wonderful time and I guess the message that I want to leave you with is that you should take every chance you have to make a good moment the best moment ever! Make the world wonderful :)

Merry Christmas guys and who knows? Maybe I'll see you before the new year? God Bless you!

p.s. I did a more picturey post of this film on my side blog so if you have a moment, go check it out here!<3

Charlie McDonnell - Our Brother Review

Hey guys!

Quite a few weeks back now, Charlie McDonnell (aka Charlieissocoollike) released his new short film series named 'Our Brother'. I feel like I can't share what it's about without injecting my views about it so here goes!

The two parter is about two siblings who are struggling to cope with the death of their brother after the films start with a video clip of them proclaiming to their brother, who was clearly suffering from some sort of chronic illness, that he was finally coming home. From what Charlie had said about the series before it went live, it was supposed to be quite a teary series and though it was definitely sad, I wouldn't say I was bawling though admittedly, though I cry when things get emotional, I certainly wouldn't have bucketed all the way through.

Despite this initial misconception, the series itself was very, very good and the one thing I loved about it was the fact that it was so completely realistic. It didn't feel like an ideal situation, it felt really organic and that's what I feel Charlie has really done justice too. The elder brother of the two siblings who are left is unwilling to admit how much he misses his brother and the psychological turmoil that he's facing and this can make him appear quite cynical and unsympathetic towards his sister who constantly asks him whether he's ready to talk yet, to which he stoically replies 'I'm not ready yet.'

It's a beautiful series because of the way that their relationship works and just how simply everything works out and how it makes sense. It doesn't feel far-fetched and that's what makes this film series work so well.

I hope that you guys can appreciate this post and go on and watch the first one of the two here and the second here. All of Charlie's videos are amazing so check his channel out here.

I hope that you guys enjoyed this post and as always, I'd love to hear your thoughts! I hope to speak to you soon, take care of yourselves!

Falling in Love with Ideals

Hey guys!

It has occurred to me many a time over the past few years or so that we often fall in love with ideals. This theme is also prevalent in many films and can also translate into real life relationships too where people go into relationships thinking they know the other person really well and that they know exactly how it's going to turn out but what they forget is that they expect their ideals to be the truth rather than getting to know and learn about the actual person who's in front of them.

By doing this, which in some way shape or form I feel we're all guilty of, we place unreal expectations on a person who's merely human and not someone who should be burdened with the expectations of being perfect, doing everything exactly like the movies and all that sort of thing.

Just to wrap up, if you ever make friends with someone or start a relationship with someone, make sure that the person you think you know and the kind of person they are isn't your ideal but is backed up by proof and evidence that you've witnessed first hand, not imagined in your day dreams.

I hope that you guys enjoyed this post and that you have wonderful weeks and that hopefully, I can speak to you soon!<3