Hi guys
Today I wanted to UM I don't know just do a little bit more of a chatty video. That's
totally unstructured and random and I just... I don't know I just wanted to talk. I miss just
talking. My moods been fluctuating a lot these past couple of weeks
So like I dropped a video and I feel like I disappeared right after I dropped one.
So I'm trynna to slowly get back into it. But basically the main topic that I wanted to discuss today is
Kind of reflective I wanted to talk about modern Sydney and what it means to me and how I came
Came up with it and where I'm hoping to go with it and things like that
And I usually take the last couple of weeks
At the end of the year to kind of reflect on my growth throughout the year and count all my blessings and trying to start
picking up and and
Integrating all the better habits that I want to incorporate into the new year like now instead of being like waiting for January first
I feel like now is the time because now I was what I'm thinking about it
So I feel like now is when I'm the most motivated and I don't actually wait for it to actually be
2019 before I start changing my life
My name Su'aad, I'm Sudanese and Filipino
My dad is from what is now Sudan (North) and my mom is from the Philippines
I was born and raised for a large portion of my life in Dubai, but I currently live in Canada
So I graduated from University about a month ago, and I'm taking this time to kind of navigate in my life
But yeah, two years ago
Social media was not a thing for me
and
Then eventually I started to get into it and I was like using it to express myself and like my fashion sense and all that
jazz, because before university I went to a private school where I had to wear a uniform and then I also
felt like I
was just being very very restricted in what I could wear and so I
Didn't really express myself through clothes in any type of way. I just swore whatever. I was never really happy with how I appeared
I only started kind of coming into my own and like being comfortable with myself when I was maybe like 16 17
Before that I feel like I was just kind of moving through that. It was just like strolling
So yeah, and then I started to kind of get into social media
picture-taking
amateur modeling
amateur styling all that kind of stuff
And then all of a sudden I started wearing hijab (head-scarf) and then with my transition into hijab
I also kind of revamped my whole social media presence and I changed it from my name to
something a little bit more
ambiguous, I guess if that's the right word to modern sudania because
My process of like getting into wearing hijab kind of involved a lot of self-exploration and self-learning
I wanted to learn more about my history
I wanted to learn more about my culture but in a way that related to me. I feel like as
Someone who's Sudanese or Filipino, but who lives outside of their home country..
I
Can't really learn about my culture the same way that my cousins did who lived back home or any f amily members that lived back home
I can I
the lens that I see through is very much so
Molded by having grown up or being influenced by Western society or Western environments and things like that
and it was only through social media that I actually met people who were Sudanese but who grew up in America and
Who were kind of in the same boat that I was in. I felt less alone in
Not being Sudanese enough if that makes sense
So it kind of urged me I guess to explore my culture a little bit more
but again, like from from a different lens and
That's kind of how I came up with modern sudania. So, modern sudania is kind of
What I'm doing at any phase in my life because it's not always about fashion for me right
It's not always about like the toub. It's not always about the colours or the makeup
It's sometimes about the music and the language and I'll go through phases of
Exclusively listening to Sudanese music or trying really hard to speak Arabic with my friends or people that I know that speak Arabic so far
It's been fun. As long as I'm learning as long as I feel like I'm growing as an individual and as long as
It does not bring any sadness because I don't think it could ever be a source of true happiness for me
But as long as it's not a source of a sadness then I feel like I can keep doing it. And another thing that
I use my page for or like an element of it that I'm not sure
I'm not sure if it relays the way that I intended to relay but
Kind of falling in love with myself again
I just feel like when I was younger when I was like 16 17, and I was like coming into my own
it was just like I was just so
Content with the way that I was physically mentally emotionally
And it was only when I started to kind of experience different things
that I
realized that that level of content that level of comfort that I thought I was at that level of
Self-love that I thought that I had was kind of surface level. I wasn't really
acknowledging
all the different
issues that I had I kind of just covered them up with "oh
but I like this and I like this and I like this" and I
I don't think it's fair. I don't think it's fair to yourself to focus on only what you love about yourself
There are some things that we have to acknowledge that we don't like
But in those things I don't want to hate myself for the things that I don't like about myself
but I don't want to pretend like I don't have anything to work on right like I want to love what I love but I
Also want to work on what I don't love. And I feel like I wasn't really doing that
I was just focusing on the positive and like
Covering up and bandaging up the negative and then it kind of led to an emotional roller coaster and here I am today
Having to relearn how to reach that point that level of comfort, but I want that to be not surface-level
I want to be comfortable with all aspects of my being and I have to
Get to that point again, and I feel like it's a cycle. There's always going to be things that happen in my life
That knock me off my high horse
your body's always gonna go through changes life's gonna hit you like a truck a thousand and one different times and
Every time you have to find a way to kind of learn and grow from that and then move on
One huge I wanna say
18-wheel semi truck
More like I feel like life kind of hit me with a bullet train more than it hit me like a truck
I experienced loss for the first time in my life like true true loss and
There's nothing like loss to
teach you the fragility of
of life, I guess I
Feel like lost planted a seed in
Me and I just can't get rid of it. Like I was always someone that was very rational with with everything anything and everything
I would always try to rationalize it I I reacted with
thinking first rather than emotion first
But now I'm finding that I'm becoming increasingly emotional and I don't know if I've always been emotional
But I was just really good at covering it up and then experiencing loss or you know
the other semi-trucks that life hit me with kind of
Dismantled whatever bandages that I had and now here I am or or it has made me into the person that I am
I'm not really sure. But that doesn't really matter
I kind of have to deal with how I am I can't focus on how I got here
yeah, man, like I find myself just
Being sad a lot of the time a lot more than I should and I hate when I feel a type of way and then
I try to rationalize it and then I feel worse
That's another thing that I really have to work on like
Dealing with my emotions when I feel them instead of letting letting them take a root and letting them fester
within me and then
Growing it to something that I feel like I can't really control anymore and then leading me down a downward spiral where I disappear for
weeks or
Isolate myself, whatever have you?
And I'm realizing that that's not uncommon
people describe it differently maybe and define it differently, but everybody goes through their own little
spiels throughout life. Their own different
semi-truck analogies
Their own different lessons and things like that
So yeah, another thing that I've been reflecting on a lot is relationships, friendships
.. familial relationships
Etcetra, etcetra. A lot of my friends have been getting married lately. A lot of friends that I had the beginning of the year
I don't really have anymore. And one major friend lesson I've learned is
I'm the type of person that like I will try my best to rekindle a lost friendship if I can
but
what I've learned is
Even if you still have a love for each other it's okay for your friendship to fizzle out. You know what I mean?
Like if you if you were talking very frequently. It is sad, of course not to talk
as frequently, but there's a lot of people that I used to talk to a lot
And I still have so much love for and they still find their way into my du'aas (prayers) and things like that
but I don't talk to them anymore like
There's the off chance maybe that I'll shoot them (a message) something or I'll see something and I'll comment on it
But I feel like our friendship fizzled out but the love is still there and I'm ok with that
I've come to terms. I've come to terms with that
I feel like I'd still invite them to any major life event. Like my first child's birthday or something like that. But uh,
It was harsh. It was harsh. I'm very dependent on people that I care about because I want people to depend on me
So I also feel like there's an element of reciprocity there. If I want you to depend on me
I feel like I should be able to depend on you and that is not always the case. But another thing I learned I
think I should value
my own time with myself
more. I have a lot of time to myself
But I don't use it for myself as much as I should if that makes sense?
It's like I'll have the day to myself. But what am I really getting out of this day that I have to myself?
How am I using my time
wisely? There's so many moments I have where I'm watching something of someone else's, be it a YouTube video
be it a show. I myself take a lot of time (to do anything) and
waste the time that I could be dedicating to myself
doing idle things or
giving other people my time, which is not fair. I'm reclaiming my time in 2019
I have to. I can't not. And it's not like I'm going to see my friends less and like the time that I give to
Other people I want to take that back. I'm reclaiming my time with myself back. I don't want to be idle
I want to do things. I want to finish my day and feel satisfied
not just because I made my bed in the morning, or made myself food
small wins but wins still
But because I did something significantly productive
That and I need to get better at long-term planning. I used to hate long-term planning when I was in
When I was in high school 9th and 10th grade
I was already thinking about what I would be doing after I graduated from high school
Which I didn't want to be thinking about. I wanted to at most think about one year down the line
and what I would be doing. But now I'm realizing there's so many things that I want to do
Not that I'm making two year plans or three year plans
but the things that I want to do the goals that I'm setting for myself are going to take two to five years, so
therefore they're becoming my two to five year plan and I have to be okay with that as anxious as making long-term plans makes me
Just because in my head I feel like the longer it's going to take to achieve it the more likely it's going to fall apart
Everything is kind of a learning process
everything is a learning process and
As obvious as that may seem again. Maybe this one isn't a semi-truck, maybe it's more of like a school bus
it kind of got
I got hit with that school bus a couple of times after I officially graduated because I just I was so lost
I had idle time that I was wasting
Therefore urging me to kind of try to reclaim my own time for myself
And then I had all these things that I wanted to do
That seemed like they were going to take forever
but I wanted to do them now and I also kind of
In the back of my head wanted to see the results now
even though I knew
realistically the things that I want to do are going to take two to three years or maybe even more than that
So that's something that like I really need to to work on
I need to be a better long-term planner because I
Build up all this motivation because I think that I'm going to see the results in like a month
But I want long lasting results and if that's the case
Then I need to put long term work and a lot of effort and divide up my energy
so that I don't like expend it all in one week and then fizzle out with the things that I want to do and then
my 1 year plan or two year plan turns into a ten year plan because I'm gonna keep
doing it for a week fizzling out take a break for a week and then doing it again
I'm like that just doesn't make any sense. It's not feasible. And I understand that it's not feasible
I'm saying it. I'm like, I can't believe I tried to justify that to myself at some point
but again
like it's something that I need to work on and I'm
Recognizing that and I'm acknowledging that as a dumb as it makes me look. I
know that it's something that I need to work on
But most of all
I'm really grateful
For everything that happened to me this year. It was it was a tough year because there was a lot of
changes happening in my life and my personal life that I can't really talk about but
I'm really grateful. I met a lot of people who taught me a lot of life lessons
I've grown in terms of my faith another year no matter what happened is another year worth of experience
Sometimes I cannot
vocalize those experiences, but I've internalized them and I'm growing and I'm learning
so, alhamdulillah (Thank God). Whatever small or large winI had this year I'm grateful for. Whatever loss I had this year
I'm grateful for and
whatever
small or big
growth I've gone through I'm really grateful for. A little bit of growth is better than being stagnant and
for as long as I'm not stagnant, I feel like I'm going to be content and I'm hoping to continue to use
whatever social media platform to kind of reflect on my growth
Modern sudania to me, is me.
That's who I am as a person like my Sudani identity to be fair to myself is more prominent
even though I don't look that Sudanese and like I've obviously grown up for a large portion of my life
outside of Sudan and away from the Sudanese of my family
It's something that identify with more and it's not like I'm trying to modernize Sudanese culture
But the way that I'm learning it and the way that I'm going about
growing in that sense is
kind of tied to other aspects of my modern-day life
*sigh* A lot of thoughts. A lot of thoughts
that I'm happy to vocalize and I'm realizing this video is kind of like a video diary. Like
reflecting on 2018 kind of. Even though I kind of wanted to be more about modern sudania specifically
It's a mess. I like talking without a schedule though. I like talking without
like a list of topics that I want to cover
I feel like I sound more genuine that way and that's how I like to be. I also like sitting with my leg up
I'm just so informal. I'm sorry, but this is this is how I'm comfortable. I'm in my own home
I want to be comfortable in my own home
and
I don't know so far I'm happy. I'm happy. I had a good year. I'll probably rate it like an 8.9,
8.92 out of 10, but I'm happy with that. I'm happy with my with my 8.92 out of 10. It's like a 4.0
Its like a 4.0, which is great
But thank you guys for watching if you had any questions, if you resonated or related to anything that I talked about
please let me know in the comments. I love to engage in conversation whenever I can
I try my best to reply to whatever I can reply to and
On that note, I'll catch you guys in the next one.
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