Sand and Pebbles Travelogue - Reflections of Life

I will thus pick up certain phrase from the “Words of Wisdom” and share my thoughts and hope that it would be beneficial to all. My choice for the day is “Living successfully means pursuing your goals”. It is very important to have goals in life in order for one to be truly successful in life. The goals should never be carved in stone because we will have to constantly revise it with whatever obstacles that we faced towards reaching the final destinations. Besides that, as we progress and move into the different phases/stages in life, our outlook/goals/expectation will definitely also change. The goals one set upon graduation would definitely change or transform into something else pending the first job that one landed for example. Worst still if one were to fail to land a job. But that should not prevent us towards finding alternatives that could still lead us towards success and happiness. I have come across friends and colleagues that are successful in their career but miserable in life because of mismatch of goals. Their career path just does not match their own personal goals due to various reasons such as outstanding financial obligations, family commitment, and thousand and one other reasons. In such instances, one would have to reconcile and readjust accordingly so as one could achieve continued happiness as well as success in life. Never ever give up in life!

That’s my take on the subject of “Living successfully means pursuing your goals” in brief.

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Notwithstanding that, how I wish that the Saudi immigration system could be upgraded and better improved to portray a positive and progressive image of an Islamic nation. As muslims, we will surely be proud of it. Too much negative connotations has been associated with Islam and Muslims, among which includes backwardness in economic development and lacks progress. It is within ourselves to change that perception.

There are many new buildings towering around the Masjidil Haram since my last trip to Makkah about a year ago. Masjidil Haram looks sunken to the ordinary eyes if one were to look down from any of the towers. It is really an impressive and awesome sights seeing the congregation of the faithful circling the Kaabah. One could see numerous tunnels in and around Makkah that could help to alleviate traffic congestion as the Umrah seasons picks up. I firmly believed that the Governorate of Makkah will continue to upgrade the road and tunnel systems to improve the transportation services especially around the locality of the Masjidil Haram. Besides the traffic problems, one will not fail to see the mushrooming of new towering buildings to accommodate the ever increasing Muslims coming to Makkah to perform the Umrah and Haj from year to year.

The number of visitors to Makkah will continue to grow and will really be taxing on the Governorate in the long run to provide with an efficient and effective transportation and accommodation facilities. They will have to look at different approach and models to address future needs becasue the current development is just too compact within the vicinity of Masjidil Haram. An idea that comes to my mind is perhaps to disperse the development of apartments/hotels, etc at the outskirts or suburb of Makkah and perhaps have underground tunnels with “walkalator” (walking escalator) that would link from the new development areas to Masjidil Haram. Just a thought though!!

Jeddah itself is slowly undergoing transformation with more green areas in sight. One could see more palm trees being planted on the streets dividers. Many new areas are being developed and dispersed throughout Jeddah. The governorate seems to be spreading the development to new areas which directly helps to develop the infrastructure of those areas. The new building structures that come up also provides a refreshing, cheerful and modern outlook of Jeddah where there are more colours to the new buildings and structures rather than the mundane “off white” paint that we generally see of the old buildings in Jeddah.

I think we should seriously ponder on the problem and formulate a comprehensive policies and plan of actions to address this malaise in society. We should not be complacent in our approach and be contented by merely having ad hoc programs. We should analyze why does this situation becomes so rampant now and not in the past. Why are students becoming disrespectful of their teachers? Parents must also take responsibilities on the upbringing of their children and not merely passing that responsibility to the teachers or their house helpers. Parents should also not learn to respect the teachers. How does one expect the students to respect and listen to the teachers when the parents themselves show disrespect and look down on the teachers? Teachers are always blamed and targeted by parents when their sons/daughters failed to do well in examinations. But the moment a teacher scold or take disciplinary action against a student, the parent will come scurrying to the school and raising voices and running tantrums. There need to really be a serious concerted effort to have dialogue to better understand the respective role of the teachers, parents and the school. The expectations of parents in the past and now are different. But that should not negate the responsibility of parents in raising their children.

The question of juvenile delinquency is closely related with morality. And the problem of moral decadence has surfaced quite some time back and programs have been introduced to address it. However, based on the current findings of the above two institutes, it has not improved but the situation has actually deteriorated further. Government may need to relook at all those programs and change it accordingly for the interest and wellbeing of the nation in the future. More importantly, parents and societies need to be equally responsible in mitigating the moral decadence especially among the youth by being role models and setting good examples for them to emulate.

The two are just some examples of our achievements. There are in fact many more Malaysians that have achieved international successes and recognitions in various fields. And these people are not extraordinary in the beginning; they are just normal Malaysians with normal upbringing and background. They should all be role model which could be inspirational to the future generation. We do not have to wait to tell the younger generation of their successes posthumously. Perhaps one of our many TV channels could have some kind of program not only to highlight their successes but their background story – more to the human side – which ordinary people could easily relate to on the personal front. By having it on the TV, it would be able to reach all sectors of societies. Our media should not only highlight the incentive aspect of the successes because in the long run, our youth would only be relating success to incentive. Thus indirectly continuously propagating the materialistic aspect of successes rather than the importance of creating a wholesome responsible individual. Its a pity that Malaysian society are slowly losing its moral values. Everything now seems to be valued in monetary equivalent. Are all things for the taking in this so-called “development” era?