Solution needed!

I have an apartment I don't really like. It has stuff that needs to be fixed and just hasn't been since I moved in in July 2008. I haven't made a formal complaint or sent a letter about it, but it has been months since I asked to have a certain important problem fixed (my bath faucet leaks cold water since June) and I've asked a few times since to have it done. It was a mess when I moved in and we managed to fix stuff ourselves that they were supposed to fix, but others, the less important once, we haven't... They have been pretty crummy owners, but I do have a contract signed to live there until July 1st...

I have an opportunity to get a really nice apartment. It's a bit more expensive, but it also has an extra bedroom, bigger rooms, a separate laundry room, a gorgeous bathroom, a balcony and a backyard! This would be starting in January or maybe February... I don't think anyone will want my apartment. In fact, I am sure that they wouldn't find someone even for moving day July 1st. It needs too much work. I'm sure after I leave they will fix it all up - out of necessity.

Anyway... I need to get rid of my current apartment... I don't think the owners will allow me to at all... Options become:

1) have both, which I can't afford
2) rent my current one cheaper so someone will have it and pay the difference
3) stop paying my current one and risk getting a complain at the Régie (most owners of decent apartments will look into your file to see if you have a complaint) as well as having my credit affected
4) lie my butt off saying I am in difficulty and to give me this chance since I have always been fully on time with my rent and she gets no annoyances from me.
5) be dishonest and get her to rent it to our friend who is being expelled from the country (the person whose apartment we want...).

Or the final option is to nevermind this apartment and stay in our's until July 1st. And hope to rent something awesome on July 1st.

I seriously fell in love with this apartment so I wish to find a way to have it... Any other ideas or comments?

Calendar

The Islamic calendar, working with 12 lunar months in a year, makes the months vary with the seasons since a solar year is 365.25 days and 12 lunar months is 354 or 355 days. So the days of the lunar year fall 11 or so days earlier every solar year (like the 1st of Ramadan falling 11 days earlier each year of our gregorian calendar). Muslims often make this a positive thing, since over a period of just over 30 years, Ramadan will have fallen at all times of the year (all the seasons, the longer fasting times, the shorter fasting times)...

But shouldn't a calendar be more useful than simply using it for knowing when to fast (and for eids)? This Islamic calendar is useless when it comes to the seasons because of the variation. Every month changes seasons, so the winter can fall in Ramadan one year but will fall in summer too some years later. You cannot rely on the months.

I see Islam as being perfect because surely God's system is perfect. But I don't think the current Islamic calendar is perfect. I think it's no wonder no Islamic country even uses this calendar exclusively. Seasons are an important part of life... We live our lives in this cycle with the seasons (the solar year cycle). This is the natural way we live! This is the way it was meant to be! I cannot imagine that God wants us to ignore the seasons he created for us.

I know the Qur'an only people overall believe in a luni-solar calendar. It is clear that the Qur'an speaks of lunar months. I know of something in the Qur'an though that has been seen as meaning that we cannot use intercalated months, which is why Muslims don't use this luni-solar system, but the Qur'an only people have managed to find a way to make it mean something else. I don't know exactly what the argument is so I need to continue learning. Even within the Qur'an only people, there are different opinions about the calendar. I don't believe hadiths are to be totally disregarded in Islam, so I don't have the same views as they do, overall, but as I have been saying, I also don't think the lunar Islamic calendary is right. I haven't figured out what the way God means for us is, but I do think it lies in a luni-solar calendar.

It gets pretty confusing though because I have no idea where Ramadan would lie in this calendar...

I feel OK with using the gregorian calendar in my daily life. And I feel OK following Muslims in fasting and religious holidays for now based on the lunar Islamic calendar. But I think the real system would be useful in my religious AND real daily life, so I don't think either are right... A mix of both like this makes a decent average. But what is the truth?

I have no idea!!

Happy Eid everyone!

I'm sad, I can't go to prayer this morning. It's at 8:30am and I start work at that time... Which is now... OK, I need to start working :p

Blessed eid to everyone! :)

Thinking...

What do I really believe?

I consider myself Muslim as you might know. But I struggle in finding what I really believe. I don't think everyone who doesn't consider themself Muslim is going to hell because I think that a bunch of people, even if they don't use that label on themselves, are still Muslim in the real sense of the word. My definition of a Muslim is one who submits to God. The person believes in one God with no partners, as well as the judgement day, and does good works.

It makes me wonder about the Qur'an. Of course, the reason I even consider myself Muslim is because of the Qur'an! So there must be something that makes a Muslim who follows the Qur'an better than a "Muslim" (not considering himself Muslim, but who still submits)... If not, then the Qur'an would've been brought to us for nothing! I think that everything in the Qur'an is in all of us already, but that it can be easily lost under other influence. So I see the Qur'an as a reminder of sorts from God. And so it should remain a very important book in our lives so that we don't forget what our real purpose is.

I had more to say when I started writing this but I'm at work and since I've been writing on and off (mostly off) for like 2 hours, I forgot... Will continue later. :)

The way I dress

I have slowly been dressing more and more modestly. Here is the evolution of the way I dress.

I mostly never liked to wear shorts or skirts above the knee, but I'd often wear 3/4 pants with spaghetti strap tank tops when I was 15-18. I have a pretty petite body so even then, there was nothing too too bad about it (here in Canada, compared to what others were wearing in that same season). When I met my husband at 18 and went to Egypt, he told me it was not appropriate to wear tank tops out and that I'd have to wear a t-shirt at least, so I did of course. When he first told me that, before I got there, I thought it sucked that they didn't have the choice to wear what they wanted, but soon after arriving, I realized it was right to cover a bit more. People don't need to see my whole upper chest area and shoulders. After coming back to Canada, I didn't wear tank tops out anymore. So from 18 and on, I covered with at least a t-shirt. I also phased my 3/4 pants out of my wardrobe for the most part and wore long pants. . Since having my daughter 2 and a half years ago, I did not buy any tight pants and I've made efforts to buy longer shirts. But my baby weight melted off and my old clothes fit me in a month or two, so I continue to wear my tighter pants and t's... More recently, sometime before the summer, I started getting rid of pants that were tighter on me, and I stopped wearing anything that stopped at my waist because every time I bent down, I'd show a couple inches of back. That just got annoying. I'm tall, so it was a hassle finding long things, but I managed to wear longer stuff with the help of the layering technique. :)

The bigger changes happened more recently. Sometime before the summer, I stopped wearing 3/4 pants out, and somehow, with no real thought or planning, started wearing long sleeves. I'd often roll them and yes, I still wore t-shirts sometimes, but I was mostly wearing long pants and shirts! It was so gradual and natural that I only noticed when my mom told me! I also got myself a modest bathing suit before summer started. It's 3/4 leggings with a tunic t-shirt that covers the bum so I am super modest compared to the others swimming and it's totally light and safe and comfortable.

Anyway, sometime after the summer, after I'd officially converted, I got a bit more serious about getting looser clothes. My husband bought me some skirts in Egypt that I love, and I manage to wear a skirt about half the days of the week. And with adding some better shirts little by little, I am also wearing something not too tight about half the days of the week. The other days, I make sure to have a scarf around my neck that covers my boob area so there isn't anything to see then either.

I'm so glad that everything came so naturally and gradually for me in terms of dress. I could slap on a headscarf on most of what I wear and be considered pretty close to correct hijab. I hope to wear hijab someday, even though to be honest I am not seriously considering it right now. When I do, it'll be much less of a shock to everyone I know, seeing as the heascarf will be the only difference!!

Backbiting

I didn't understand the concept for a while. English is not my first spoken language (it IS my first language in the written world though) and so I hadn't really heard of the word before Islam! I could imagine what it meant... Talking behind someone's back (in a way that would not please them - like getting bitten). But I had a difficult time knowing what to consider backbiting and what to consider just talking about someone... I guess the main thing is to think about if the person would want you to be saying that about them. If the answer is no, then it's backbiting. Backbiting is saying something that is true about someone that they wouldn't want you to be saying. If you are lying about someone and saying something they wouldn't want you to be saying, then it's slandering.

Slandering is not a problem for me. But with time, I realized that backbiting is. It's one person in particular who makes me do it the most... For the sake of demonstration (and hopefully making someone else out there realize that they're doing the same thing), I will give a brief anonymous idea of what I was doing and have trouble not doing that is backbiting...

She is my good friend and works with me and the thing is that she is not doing the job well. I don't feel it's my job to go up to her and tell her directly that she needs to change. I am not her boss... But the bosses are not doing it. So I am in a situation where I try to give her pointers but it just doesn't work. The other co-worker in our area also tries... It doesn't work. So we find ourselves discussing her and what she does... Mostly what to tell her, but sometimes getting our frustration out about the situation, simply, by going over things she does wrong. This part is backbiting because we are not doing anything else than just talking about her faults. It stops being to help her and becomes just venting at her expense.

The next part, because yes, there is more that I do, still related to this person, is that I love her, but I cannot find it in me to tell her to have some self-respect in the way she dresses and acts outside of work. I become so very frustrated that this person I love and know is so sweet and kind can act that way and have so little respect for herself. I can't tell her, so it comes out when I talk to my husband sometimes. Or my mom, who knows her and feels the same way. This is so totally backbiting...

Any advice? Should I get that second frustration out of the way and just tell her somehow? Might ruin the friendship and make work so very awkward (we are literally facing each other at work) if she takes it the wrong way, but if she learns from it, it could make her realize things... Or it might put her in a depression to see what she has been doing for so long... :(

Akh... All to say... I wish to not backbite and I'm trying, but I slip up way too much. I'm so glad at least to understand the term better and the position of Islam with regards to it. Thank you to all the sisters who have written posts about it in the past couple months because they helped me figure it out.

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

I ordered some books on amazon.ca a couple weeks ago, which included Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. I got the boxset, which is both books: The Story of a Childhood and The Story of Return. I so totally loved them!!

Persepolis Book I is the story of an Iranian little girl (Marjane) during the revolution and afterwards under the Islamic regime and during war between Iraq and Iran. She comes from a liberal, well-off family so it is seen from that point of view. Book II starts with her departure from Iran to Austria where she lives for a few years before returning to Iran. The books taught me a little about Iran and its situation and made me interested to know more outside the story. It was also funny and clever. I have to admit that even though I'm here a francophone, I got the English translation. I am not French from France and I was afraid I would get too annoyed with the Frenchy style talk so I stuck to the safe side. I found the translation good, even though it's true that I didn't read the original :p

I really suck at book reviews... Never did one. Won't start now; I will just give my remarks.

As I said earlier, they are a liberal type of family. They aren't religious, even though I guess they are considered Muslim somehow. They are "westernized" and like to have parties with alcohol and hate having to wear the veil. In the first book, Marjane is a young girl and the story is of what she went through, so it's normal for religion and beliefs not to be very clear. I think that's why I liked the first one more... In the second one, it bugged me a little I guess that she was a teenager and young adult and didn't really have it figured out about Islam... Because of what she went through, it was as though Islam was what was forced on her in Iran. Islam was not part of the story so it's perfectly normal for it not to have come up that this regime is not Islam, but it just bugged me a bit that it felt like it was. Know what I mean?

It's a book (well BOTH, really!) I so totally recommend reading that I've tried to force it on numerous people around me. So far no one is really interested and I cannot see why! It's so good!

It was not halal!

I just learned that the place I went to for halal meat was not halal afterall! They lied! The advertized halal and lied to our faces when we asked in person! Feels like we can never be sure... I'll have to look for a place owned by Muslims. This place was owned by Christians and we knew it, but I figured they were doing halal for good business (which it was) and had no reason to cheat us.

So in the end, they did want to just cheat us, it seems... I think it would be safer to go with Muslims, since they probably actually care about halal... I will need to look for another place!

I am DISAPPOINTED!

"Je porte le voile" ("I wear the veil") documentary

I can't give any real critique on this documentary because I haven't seen it, but I still have to mention what I know about it... It's a bit weird!

I was talking about Eid yesterday and my co-worker was saying that I shouldn't try to understand everything, I never will with "this religion". Kind of an insult, she obviously has no positive feelings towards Islam.

She tells me she saw a show where a woman who put out a documentary was being interviewed about it. She converted to Islam after marrying an Algerian Muslim man and began wearing the veil when her now 13-year old daughter was born. She started making the documentary as a way to show her daughter the beauty of the veil and the reasons why to wear it. At this point, I was like... Aw, that's nice. (Why is this co-worker using this as an example to show that Islam is hard to understand?)

That's when she says that she actually was not wearing the veil in the interview. And that through making the documentary, she started wondering herself why she wears the veil and ends up taking it off... So in the end, she gives the impression that even a Muslim who wears it out of free choice (like she did) is really doing it for her husband or for following the norm of what a Muslim woman wears (which is pretty much what she discovered). From what my co-worker said about the interview, she made herself seem so confused about whether hijab was part of Islam or just culture, all while trying to explain that it was religious...

Great... more reasons for non-Muslims to think they have the right to ask a woman to remove her hijab.

Sirat al mustaqeem - The straight path

My husband knows I will be mentioning him in this post :p

I made him read an excerpt from something I was writing; a fictional character writing a letter to Allah. In it, she asks Allah help keeping her on the straight path and continues, describing the path as what Allah has laid out for us to follow in this world. (What we should do as Muslims, how we should live, to gain Allah's favour as we continue on in this life).

This is how I see the straight path. It's everything that we should do in our religion for Allah. So if we are doing well, we are on the straight path... If we are doing wrong, we are deviating away from what God has told us to do; away from the straight path.

My husband said this was a mistake in what I wrote. That the straight path has nothing to do with this life and that it's a line we will need to walk across on the final day where we either fall to Hell or make it across to Heaven.

I'd heard this before, but I never thought a person could dismiss the straight path as simply a physical path we'll need to deal with only after we die!

The straight path is something I strive for in this life. The straight path is all that is right that I hope to be able to achieve. When I hear sirat al mustaqeem, I think of myself and how I need to do better to follow what God has laid out for us in his perfect system. I don't think about a path over Hell that I could either fall into or manage to walk across.

Are there any scholars that actually don't believe the straight path has anything to do with this life and the way we are supposed to live? Are there any who actually see it as nothing more than a line we'll walk across? How do you personally see it?

Parenting as a Muslim

My Nora is only a toddler, so Islam has not had that much influence on the way I parent. I have always been an attachment parenting type of parent, and I continue that now. She's too young to have issues need to be dealt with in an Islamic way like boys, starting to pray, wearing hijab, thinking about partying and alcohol, all those things. But I start to realize how quickly these things are coming!

It started with my co-worker's niece who started school in September (kindergarten, I think). My co-worker told us about how the little girl got home sometime near the end of the first week in school and declared that she had "un amoureux" (means a lover in French)! A few days later, more development to the story... there's an other little girl who is "into" this boy and the other little girl is dissing the competition (co-worker's niece). Like... what the heck, they are 5!!

Kids so totally don't need this type of drama in their life when for them, what would be natural would just to play together and have easy-to-solve fights. How ew that they have learned somehow to put themselves in adult roles (boyfriend, girlfriend, lover, etc.). I am starting to think more about what Nora watches lately because of how early things can start to have an influence. I'm happy not to have cable or satellite right now. We only download what we want to watch. But not everything me and Ahmed might watch is really suitable for Nora and she is often there with us or at least in the room when we watch TV.

The show that is bugging me most right now is the Simpsons because of how much she likes it, but how adult a show it really is... Looks like a kid show but it is not suitable for kids. She's as interested in it as her toddler baby shows but it contains adult themes and violent content (stranglings and the Itchy and Scratchy show they watch). I don't download actual kids shows much, and I'm actually scared of the new shows that have come out. One of them that plays on kids channels here is Samantha et Chantal and it's two dudes dressed as girls! I don't know anything more about the show, but it's so confusing gender roles and just plain homo looking! Here is a link to the image search results on Google. And I saw some ads for other shows with lots of gross vomiting stuff....

Then there's these stupid Brat dolls. I think they have a show too... They just disgust me. Why should being a brat be a good thing, first of all? And then there's their look. Tiny with huge heads and lots of make-up. They also have new troll dolls out that have the big colourful hair in the air, but they are skinny. UKH.

I'm scaring myself writing this post. I don't want to shelter Nora from everything that is out there because that will not help. So that means she will have to confront the things that are out there, but I need to make sure she knows what is what... There are so many little things that could happen. I won't be with her all the time... She will be with friends and they will talk about things. Communication will be SO SO SO SO SO IMPORTANT to make sure I can make her know the right thing the day she hears something that might be off. What about the very subtle things like getting a negative body image, etc? Being happy with my body and keeping her away from images that often cause a person not to be unhappy with her's is a very good beginning and major part of my plan, but she could get influenced into disliking her body from other places... Just a few images and a few people around her like friends who dislike their body. A comment from a peer. Anything...!

I'm scared!

Note: Yeah, this had nothing to do with Islamic parenting after all... I just scared myself writing this and thinking of all the things that could happen. And that I would have tried to avoid for her were I Muslim or not.

Buying a Book

When I announced I was converting, a very sweet sister sent me a book. It was a dua book I love to look at. So many beautiful words and ways to remember Allah. I need to work so much on encorporating it into my daily life so this book was perfect for me.

I am trying to pass this on by sending a book to a new convert I know. He is a gaming buddy of my husband's who lives in Sweden and he pronounced his shahada just recently. :D I am trying to think of what book I should send him. What kind of book would you send a new convert?

I'm still a closet Muslim

I'm still a closet Muslim. Hardly anyone knows except my husband (and that Jehova's Witness man I came across on the street that I wrote about a while back!) but I'm starting to get to the point where I don't want to hide it anymore. I want people to know that I am Muslim. I want to start being able to show, from example, what Islam is, and possibly make a person interested in learning about this religion.

I have to admit that I do not see Islam the same way as the average Muslim... I think I just see Islam in a more open way... A person not knowing about the Qur'an still being a Muslim in following his inner God-given sense of what is right, and believing in Allah (the creator, with no partners). And even though I know that the best way is to follow Allah 100%, and the best way to attempt that in these times is to read the Qur'an and follow its teachings, I also think that it is sufficient to enter Paradise for a person to be a good person (more good deeds than bad, more good influence in this world than bad, etc). Of course, even I believe that the person will have to believe in God alone because shirk cannot be forgiven without repenting. But only Allah knows if I am right in this. I'm just stating my belief.

I feel that most Muslims put a much higher status on people who consider themselves Muslims. Whether or not they are being good ones, it's as though they will be recompensed for just being born in a Muslim home. On the contrary, they have had every chance to learn the right way, and if they didn't take it, I believe they will be punished more severely. And I don't think that an agnostic person who is always doing good will be going to hell simply for not being part of the Muslim community. Even I often don't feel like I want to be part of the Muslim community as it stands now. I don't think regular Quebeckers here understand me. I am much more conservative than they are! But I don't really fit in with the Muslims either. Not with the non-practicing ones because that's far from what I want to be and I don't respect that (I don't respect in myself what I am lacking in the way I practice Islam either) but I don't fit in better with the more fundamental Muslims because as much as I would like to be practicing like them, I don't see the big picture in the same way as they do. And of course, I don't fit in with the cultural ones who can't tell the difference between Islam and their culture because that's just annoying.

I'm lucky not to have had bad experiences though. But I also didn't really find anyone here who shares what I believe.

If I were to come out of the closet to my parents like I wish to, I feel sure that the first thing I would want to say is that I don't believe exactly the same thing as most Muslims. Sad, isn't it? But that's how it would go. I'd want to explain in simple terms what Islam is to me. It's submitting to God alone. And I'd explain that I believe we all have in us the knowledge of what God wants from us, which means that I believe anyone, whether they consider themselves Muslim or not, could be Muslims/Submitters to God. To separate myself from the Muslim community and make them see that they too, might even be part of what I see Islam as.

I wouldn't feel the need to separate myself from the Muslim community so much if I were to come out to co-workers and just random people. In fact, I'd love to try to show of the good in Muslims with them especially, like I do now whenever we talk about Islam. I want the Ummah to become stronger...

This has been a pretty honest post for me. I guess the only thing left to add to that would be that I'd feel the need to add that I don't follow hadiths like most Muslims do, but any details would be for another post, so I don't really want any comments on it if at all possible!

OH! Have to add that today at work, we were talking about foster parenting, which I really want to do as soon as I am able to get an apartment with an extra bedroom, and one of the girls has been a foster parent, so I asked her about the procedures and all, and then asked her if they'd be more likely to place a Muslim child with us if there was one, considering we were "a Muslim family". I didn't say that I was Muslim myself, but they know my husband is, and I called us a Muslim family. I then continued talking with them and talked about having been in the mosque more than in the Church, etc. This was with the two newest employees at our office, so I might just have given them the impression that I'm Muslim. I was quite happy about that! I don't think I could say "no" if anyone asked me if I was now. :) It's progress.

Eid al adha. Do you sacrifice?

Do any of you sacrifice an animal for Eid? Do you do anything else (like buy overseas to be donated or anything else)?

I'm wondering what the options are for me here in Canada. I don't have enough money to buy a large animal for sure... Is it better than nothing to sacrifice a couple chickens? I think I could find a place that would allow me to buy and kill them Islamically (and then arrange them for me). But a chicken (or two or three) seems like it might not be worthwhile.

I guess I'm looking for a way to celebrate Eid more than I will celebrate Christmas!

What will you do for Eid?

Back to blogging!

(I've been itching to come back and write, but I felt I didn't have enough to say, and I remained kind of upset about what happened with my husband.

We ended up talking after a long time, and I also got back into reading about Islam, something I'd almost completely let go of during this time. I realized I'd done wrong in talking about him in a way I knew he wouldn't approve of, no matter how true it might've been, and how much I might've needed to get out that frustration. What I was doing (speaking about him and saying something he would not want me to say) was backbiting and of course this is not OK. He also apologized for hacking my blog and deleting my posts and admitted he was wrong in that too. Real communication really was what we needed. It took a lot to get there but we did, and I feel comfortable coming back now to blogging.

Lottery and material things

I've never been a fan of the lottery. Never really bought any for myself but have received it in a card or something as a small gift a couple times. I really think they are a waste of money and I'd rather have never received it. I see so many people who have their weekly lottery routine. One of this, one of that, with the extra, bla bla bla. I worked at a grocery store for a while when I was 16 or so and would sometimes work at the counter that had the cigarettes and lotteries. The clients were always showing me what was what and where to get it. I seriously had no idea. And I always got them the wrong pack of cigarettes. I understood nothing of what they were saying except the brand name they were looking for. I saw so many people come to get their lottery ticket checked, hoping to have won the jackpot. They rarely did, but they often got a free ticket or a small amount (say 5$ or 10$) and I never saw anyone just take the money. They always bought more tickets with it (seeing it as an investment, I'm sure).

So anyway... Reason I'm talking about lotteries is because at work, they have started a lottery pool. I'm the ONLY ONE in the whole office not participating. Even the boss is in! It's a small company, but still, that's 8 people, plus me, not participating. I don't do lotteries. I have to admit that if I was not Muslim, I might have just felt the need to be in with them though... just in case they win maybe? And not to be the one left out...? What would 3$ a week be to my life anyway?

But I feel so much better with this decision. This is what I believe in and always have. I get what I work for and try to get ahead in life based on what I really do and learn and know. I will not give my money away to the lotteries for the tiny chance of winning 50 million dollars (split into 9)! I don't want to support that theft. I wish people would stop hoping to win millions of dollars and just notice how much they have in life that is worth so much. It hurts to see that some people cannot be content with their life and need to find hope in the possibility of winning a bunch of money. Most lottery buyers might not be the obsessive types that go nuts over it. They are people who live a regular life and are fine with their life, but doesn't the fact that they buy a lottery ticket or two every single week show that there is something they feel is missing?

I feel sad that we are so based on money and material things. I have enough money not to suffer in any way. I have an apartment I can sleep in and put my stuff in and it's as warm as I want it to be all winter. I have a car so I don't have to depend on anyone to bring me places. I am able to buy decent clothes and shoes and boots for my family. I can eat good food and cook it on my very own stove and store it in my very own fridge! It's not a big apartment, it's not a new car, I actually complement our wardrobes with a lot of used stuff, and my stove was given to me by my uncle when he was done with it, but I have all the material I really need. Yet, I always want more. Nora needs a new bedroom set. Technically, the bed supports her and the mattress is comfy, which is most important, but most of the drawers are broken on her bureau, so I have to find other places to put her clothes. I find that space and she wears clean and cute clothes. But I still want her to have a decent bureau! For myself, I feel sure that I need a new shelf. But on top of that, there are a bunch of things I want! New clothes! An eBook reader! A cute phone cover!

I'm very satisfied with what I have overall, but still, there is more I would want! My real dream is to have a nice house someday and have it furnished beautifully. I suppose if I was older and felt I had nowhere to go with my career and I felt my husband was at his max too, and we still couldn't save enough money for a house, then I might be a bit less satisfied with what I have than I am now. So all to say that I can understand where these people come from who wish for more for themselves even if it happens by luck and even if the chance is so freakin' small it's not even worth it. Hopefully I can keep my thoughts in the right place to continue to know what is really important in life even if I get to the point where I feel some of my (material) dreams are unattainable.