I always remember my father, he died (god bless his soul) in 1996, but till today if I want to figure out anything in life I will imagine what he will say about it. He once told me that Islam insists that every person looks after his neighbors. The vicinity of looking after our neighbors does not stop at the one next door, it should be seven houses in all the direction, so if you imagine my house, I would need to have a circle around me of seven houses in every direction; of course this is just a saying; no one applies it today. Imagine if every body applies this principle, nobody will be hungry or goes out of business or be homeless.
That is why I always try to help people in many ways without expecting a return; if I have a student who wants an Arabic teacher, I will give him the phone number of the Arabic teachers that I know, and ask him/her to call them and contract with them directly. I don't even talk to the teachers about this. Also if a student checks with me about a local university I will give names. I don't want the offices next to my office to close down and I would like them to think in the same manner. However I do not find this attitude spreading like fire any where. Why is that? I think its because the people that work in organizations do not have the concept that my father taught me instilled in them. Or maybe they just do not care. People think that they can live in isolation, but no one lives in isolation, we are all linked in one way or another.
For example I live in an area that has few hotels, a shopping mall, 25 restaurants, a supermarket or two and of course more than 3000 housing units. I was thinking of sending an email to everybody to suggest to them that if we all help each other then none of us will lose out. I am sure that every household has a person that is the breadwinner, and that person could have lost his/her job during this economic crisis, my friend who is a well known designer is one of those people. I thought that all of us may have a job or two to be done in our houses, if we give her those jobs, she can be on her feet again and be able to survive the crisis. But is this doable? I don't think so as I am sure the people will not welcome my idea and would think that I am intruding. I would hate to see the restaurants closing down, or the hotel going out of business, I am sure the owners have invested considerable amount of money to make us happy and entertain us, and its time for us to pay back.
I always relate to the movie that was called pay it forward, imagine that everybody does that will we have a block of offices that is empty just because its an economic crisis time? no we wouldn't.
So what do you think we should do?
That is why I always try to help people in many ways without expecting a return; if I have a student who wants an Arabic teacher, I will give him the phone number of the Arabic teachers that I know, and ask him/her to call them and contract with them directly. I don't even talk to the teachers about this. Also if a student checks with me about a local university I will give names. I don't want the offices next to my office to close down and I would like them to think in the same manner. However I do not find this attitude spreading like fire any where. Why is that? I think its because the people that work in organizations do not have the concept that my father taught me instilled in them. Or maybe they just do not care. People think that they can live in isolation, but no one lives in isolation, we are all linked in one way or another.
For example I live in an area that has few hotels, a shopping mall, 25 restaurants, a supermarket or two and of course more than 3000 housing units. I was thinking of sending an email to everybody to suggest to them that if we all help each other then none of us will lose out. I am sure that every household has a person that is the breadwinner, and that person could have lost his/her job during this economic crisis, my friend who is a well known designer is one of those people. I thought that all of us may have a job or two to be done in our houses, if we give her those jobs, she can be on her feet again and be able to survive the crisis. But is this doable? I don't think so as I am sure the people will not welcome my idea and would think that I am intruding. I would hate to see the restaurants closing down, or the hotel going out of business, I am sure the owners have invested considerable amount of money to make us happy and entertain us, and its time for us to pay back.
I always relate to the movie that was called pay it forward, imagine that everybody does that will we have a block of offices that is empty just because its an economic crisis time? no we wouldn't.
So what do you think we should do?
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