No More Words (Enough Is Enough)

I think it’s probably time for us to part ways. We no longer have the same interests and haven’t been on the same page for some time now.

I’m not the type to sit back and bite my tongue every time something wrong happens. I need to voice out my dissatisfaction and unhappiness.

I’ve given way too many allowances to you and yet every time you come around and hurt me all over again.

I’ve defended you and endured crap. Teases, jeers, mockery, sarcasm. I had persevered this far but there’s got to be a final straw.

I’ve invested so much in you: time, energy, effort, passion. I’ve defended you many times and you don’t care, don’t even know it, what more appreciate it.

Not to mention all those money I spent on you. So enough is enough is enough surely.

This just can’t go on anymore. I can’t and refuse to be taken for a ride time and again.

You keep making promises, you keep saying things, but you are never good at keeping your word.

I hate you for making me care for you when you don’t even care for me. You don’t give a damn. You can’t be bothered. You don’t even try!

All the promises made, all the pledges given, all the nice words said meant to comfort, when all along you’re just playing with my feelings!

You can’t say that I haven’t been trying my best. Sometimes I feel as if my effort has all been for naught. Unappreciated, unrecognised.

You take me for granted and treat me like a fool. Anyone deserves better than this!

Stop promising things, stop pledging, stop playing with my feelings, just stop. You say all these but your actions don’t commensurate at all.

You say one thing but it’s not matched with your pitiful effort. You make me hope and it’s the hope that kills me.

Sometimes I feel like you just don’t care. You’re cruel and unfeeling. You’re indifferent to my feelings and needs. You hurt me and you make me cry.

I don’t care to be hurt again. I don’t want to hope in vain again. Because I’ll just end up disappointed and gutted at the end. Heartbroken and hurt.

You are just stringing me along. You hope I’ll turn a blind eye and ignore your shortcomings. You use me, manipulate me.

Well, I’ve had enough. Enough of your uncaring, unfeeling, indifferent ways. I keep giving you chance after chance but I needn’t have bothered.

I probably should have done this a long time ago before you hurt me as deep as you have. I should do it now before you hurt me even further.

I was blind to your faults, I kept excusing your indifference, I kept fooling myself. Well, no more!

Goodbye, Arsenal. You’ve hurt me enough.

I’m however prepared to give you another chance if you promise to turn over a new leaf for good and stick to it.

No more hurting me, no more disappointment, no more heartache, no more pain. Because I’ve had enough of those.

No more lies, no more empty promises, no more pledges. No more!

To be honest, I’m not sure if you deserve another chance from me when you’ve hurt me so bad, when you keep disappointing me, when you keep letting me down, when you keep breaking your promises.

You’ve hurt me enough, Arsenal. You should be ashamed of your sorry self.

When All Is Said And Done

I’ve bared my soul to you, I’ve been honest, I’ve told you what I’m looking for in a potential life partner, what my expectations are. I don’t think I’m unreasonable in my expectations. It’s not as if I demand a Porsche as a wedding gift (I won’t say no to a Hermès Kelly 32 though), not at all. You know all this and yet you still hurt me big time.

You lied to me, you led me to think you were still struggling financially when you’d been secretly spending your money on something else. And even when you are broke, you still spend on it at the expense of food. You broke my heart into a million pieces. I told you before that I didn’t know how or what I feel towards you but I suppose in my own twisted confused way, I must have cared for you because why then does it hurt so much and so deep? Why, what I have done to deserve this, Oh Allah? I can’t be that bad, can I, to deserve a man who can’t lead me. It’s a poor unfortunate woman who wrongly chose a life partner and I don’t want that to be me, nauzubillah. Love, affection, care are not enough for me. I don’t want to live a secular, liberal, hedonistic, debauched life. You already know all this so why do you still want to pursue me if you can’t and may not change?

I’m disappointed, I felt let down, I’m gutted, heartbroken. I couldn’t sleep after the discovery and have lost my appetite too. Imagine me, having no appetite (it’s not because I’m a foodie or love to eat, just that I have a good appetite despite what everyone else thinks).

You’ve hurt me, you’ve lied to me, you can’t promise me you will change and repent. I deserve better, no, scratch that, I deserve the best, for all this long wait and because everyone deserves the best (people, don’t even settle for second best, ever) and if you continue on as before despite this last chance I’m giving you, then you’re simply just not good enough for me. But it’s better for me to know it all now rather than later and I thank Allah for that. I already told you at the start that it’s OK if I don’t get married. I’m already redha with it. If I were to leave this bachelorhood, it must be for someone worthy of my love, someone who can be worthy of me and someone I can be worthy of. Otherwise, it’s all for the best because Allah knows what’s best for us all. I wish you had been truthful to me from the start and not only now when I found out by snooping around. Yes, it sounds ugly and it is ugly but Allah is Most Powerful and He meant me to find out the way I did. 

Love shouldn’t be about blackmails so I’m not going to issue you with ultimatums saying this and demanding that, that if you love me like you claim you do that you must stop doing what I hate. After all, if you do love yourself and Allah, you would have done it already. Still, I’m prepared to give this last chance saloon. It doesn’t mean we’ll end up being married. It just means I’m willing to give you another chance to kick off your bad habit and to start being friends all over again. Yes, we have to start all over again because what good is a friendship if it’s based on lies? If you can’t, then we might as well stop seeing each other because I don’t want to waste any more time in a venture that will prove fruitless. I’ll be your friend, nothing more, nothing less. If something comes out of it later, then fine. If not, it means there’s no future for us. Now that’s the ultimatum in this last chance saloon. I will choose Allah over any man, and religion over worldly love. I told you I don’t care about what you did in your previous life before we met because, well, that’s all in the past. I just don’t understand why you have to hurt me when you already know what kind of man I want.

If you can’t be that man for men, if you can’t be strong enough to want to change and be strong enough to be my man, we’ll just remain as friends. I won’t abandon you but at the same time I won’t be bothered if you can’t be bothered to change. A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down and I hope that I’m at least a good true friend who will stop you if you’re going down the wrong way. I’m not special and I’m not strong enough to think I can change anyone. A person can only change if s/he wants to change her/himself. I do wish I have this ability to make a difference in someone’s life but it looks like despite all this time, I’ve not made a dent in your life.   

Ambassador

I seem to be finding inspiration from the IG of Chef Wan of late and this post is no exception. Recently, he responded to a post by Aliff Syukri (I don’t know this Aliff at all and I’m not interested in knowing him as I’m indifferent to local ‘celebrities’) who was in Switzerland with his family. The latter stated that he and his family had to eat by the roadside after being denied entry to eat home-cooked food at a restaurant. He reasoned that it was difficult to get halal food abroad and hence why they brought along home-cooked food.

My reaction was like duh, what did you expect? Even in Malaysia, restaurant owners won’t be happy if you bring outside food into their eateries. They don’t like it for a number of possible reasons: because they want to you to order their food, they don’t want to clean up your mess after you, they don’t want the risk of whatever you bring possibly causing discomfort to other customers. Maybe other customers would even prefer the look of your ‘outside food’ to the restaurant and they ask for the same from the restaurant and of course the restaurant wouldn’t be able to satisfy their request. Whatever the reasons, almost all restaurants have this policy of not allowing outside food to be brought in and regardless of whether we agree with the policy or not, we have to accept that the restaurant has the right to turn you away if you do so. So surely you shouldn’t be surprised if a restaurant abroad does the same too.

As for the excuse of difficulty in accessing halal food, well, I’m sorry that I don’t think it’s a valid excuse. Please don’t use religion or your observance of it as an excuse to justify your behaviour. Islam is never meant to burden its followers. There are other halal food options available (even though they don’t come with halal certification): you can opt for seafood, sandwiches with halal ingredients, salad, potatoes, sushi (depending where you are in the world but most cities offer these anyway) or even vegetarian. And Muslims are a large minority in Europe. You won’t have a problem finding Muslims in Switzerland! So don’t give that excuse of difficulty in obtaining halal food in Europe. It would be better if you told the truth that you were trying to be economical. I myself don’t stop to eat at restaurants as I’m usually too much in a hurry. I’d rather buy some buns or pizza slices and have them on the train or something. I also pack some cereal bars too as snack. Nothing wrong at all with either being economical or bringing your own food just as long as you know where and when you can eat your food. Money can buy a lot of things but not class.

And what’s with the idea of eating by the roadside and sharing it on your IG? Was that to draw sympathy or attract more followers? Or was it to get your followers to praise you for your humility or humbleness or nobility? Also, there are so many parks in Europe; all you have to do is find one and have a picnic in there.

I’m sure we’ve had our fair share of encounters with the Chinese tourists. I’m talking about those Chinese tourists who cut into queues, who go somewhere and act all kiasu and are oblivious to other visitors, who act like they’re the only ones who matter at any attractions sites, who pile up their plates at buffet tables... in short, those tourists who give Chinese tourists such a bad rep that they repel and disgust the locals and even the tour guides. Whenever I come across them, I get uncomfortable and I can’t help wondering if that is how they behave back home too. So, do we want to also give a similar bad rep to ourselves and our country by behaving in ways that may cause discomfort, disgust or disturbance among the locals? Do we want them to wonder if it’s normal for people to eat by the roadside here too? Do we want the locals to immediately dismiss us by lumping us in some category (‘oh typical Malaysians!’ ‘Asians, what do you expect?’)? I don’t think so either. Oh, I know there are people who would claim that they’re being true to themselves and they don’t care what others think of them but, please, do have some pride.

We are like ambassadors of our country when we travel abroad. As such, we should strive to maintain the good name of our country by behaving accordingly (even if the said name has been sullied by those in power who should know better, do we still make things worse with our thoughtless behaviour?). Is it so difficult to uphold the good name of the country and project a good image of oneself?

And while we’re on this topic, what is it about the Malaysian lazy attitude? I’d touched on this only last year. We’re inconsiderate and we don’t care if we sit down too long at the restaurant - never mind that we have finished eating – and obliviously deprive others from using the table. We claim to be well-travelled but we fail to observe how other societies behave, their hygienic and tidy ways, how they treat and respect everyone else, animals and the environment. We are just too self-absorbed, selfish, inconsiderate, narcissistic, arrogant, blind and uncaring. Maybe we’re not much different from most mainland Chinese tourists then. We have the money to travel to new places, to learn and observe from the locals but money can’t buy us awareness, wisdom and, as mentioned above, class.

I’ll leave you with these respective quotes by William G. Taylor and Henry Fielding: ‘Travellers are just commuters with a wider perspective’ and ‘I describe not men, but manners; not an individual, but a species.’ I’m not sure if we Malaysians can say we have a wide perspective nor can I say if we can be proud of ourselves as a species.

Earth Overshoot Day

The Earth Overshoot Day, the day when humans’ annual demand on natural resources exceeds what our planet can regenerate or reproduce in one year, fell on 2 August this year. Yes, we had managed to use a year’s worth of resources injust seven months. This means we have used and consumed more trees, fish and water than can be regenerated over the entire year and emitted more carbon than what the forests and oceans are able to absorb.

The Global Footprint Network calculates each year’s Overshoot Day and according to the calculations, we’re using the resources of 1.7 planets every year. The equation has four main factors: how much we consume; how efficiently products are made; how many of us there are; and how much nature’s ecosystem is able to produce. The Overshoot Day and how many earths we need differ among countries as the pictures below show.

When will we ever wake up and acknowledge that global warming is real? When will we realise that our greed, insatiable appetite and unthinking ways are putting constraints on the environment? We are using more ecological resources than nature can possibly regenerate and this is putting the Earth on an unsustainable trajectory. We are demanding more from the Earth than it can produce. You can track what impact your own actions have on the world’s natural resources here.

  

I was at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel prayer room just last Saturday. As my usual practice, I went to the bathroom first before performing part of ablutions at the bathroom (the bathroom tap dispenses water automatically so I could control how much water I should use and not get my clothes wet as I’d be prone to do if performing ablutions at the prayer room. Of course I still had to wash my feet in the prayer room) before heading to the prayer room. There were two ladies who were there ahead of me and they took so long to perform ablutions that I had finished two sunat prayers and started on my Zuhor prayers before they were done with their ablutions. The taps were on full blast and I couldn’t help wondering at the gallons of water wasted and how they managed to keep their clothes dry. Was it necessary to waste so much water (and mind you, that was no isolated event)? In Mecca and Medinah, pilgrims are able to perform ablutions using only a small bottle of water so why do we use so much water here? Similarly, why do we use so much water to wash our cars and porch? Have we forgotten the drought days of El Niño when it got so bad that we had to live days where the tap water was switched off and only had hours to refill our containers and pails when the tap water was switched back on? It’s alarming how short our memories are!

It’s time we start changing our unsustainable ways of living. Educate our children and teach even our pets not to waste resources (I wince whenever I see video clips of cats playing with tap water). We are already living in deficit as it is. The world’s resource bank has gone into overdraft!