It's how you play the hand!

"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand" - Randy Pausch.

Once in a great while a book comes along which opens our eyes and provides inspiration in life. Lately, during my many hours on planes, I've read two books which have deeply affected me and how I live my life. I'd like to pass it forward...

Our Dubai blog is usually - on purpose - kept light hearted, with a dash of humor and sarcasm, because we should never take ourselves too serious. It is after all just a snapshot of what the four of us go through as we travel through life in the sandbox. While we face numerous of "brickwalls" every day, life should never become one big complaint.


Many professors give talks titled "The Last Lecture"; talks that tell what legacy they might want to leave behind if it was their last chance. Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, truly gave his last lecture a year ago. He was diagnosed with cancer and had a few months to live so he gave a talk called "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams". It is the most inspirational speech I have ever experienced and one of the best books I've ever read.


If you suffer from attention deficit you can watch his lecture on 'youtube': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo - but I really recommend reading the book because it has more personal description of his life and dreams and more emotions than the video. Be prepared to cry if you read the book!


Randy provides a lot of advice which we can all learn from; he says for example that in the grand scheme of things complaining does not work as a strategy. We all have finite time and energy. Any time we spend whining is unlikely to help us achieve our goals and it won't make us happier.

I find that to be so true. Complaining just leads to negativity which can consume our life and take away our opportunity to enjoy the good moments. Certainly the past 4-5 weeks in the sandbox have been challenging, frustrating, and depressing at times and I've let that show on the blog (trying to keep it fun though) because it is part of our ever changing life, which we chose. What most of you haven't seen or heard about are all the barriers Aric and I hit the 6 months prior to arriving, but as Randy also said in his lecture: "Brick walls are there for a reason. They give us a chance to show how badly we want something". The problems prior to moving are now water under the bridge.



I won't steal Randy Pausch's thunder or give away the plot. Suffice it to say that every morning in Dubai the sun comes up, bright and big and hot. Every day there is a blue sky above us. Every day we meet people who make life interesting and become new friends. Every day I see big smiles on our boys' faces because they are excited to be in Dubai. All of that is free and comes with no conditions. It's ours for the taking unless we want to spend our life complaining and feeling sorry for ourselves.



I mentioned that I had read two books. The other book is called "The Secret Life of Bees", by Sue Monk Kidd. It's just about to be released as a motion picture - again, for those ADD people out there. My friend Brandi passed on the book (I believe in book sharing among friends...don't be surprised if one pops through your mailslot one day). In this turmoil of the Presidential election, the book reminds me how far we've come in civil rights, with more women in politics and a first African-American candidate.

That was not the case in 1964 in South Carolina, where the story is set. It follows 14 year-old Lily Owens, whose life is shaped by her blurred memory of her mother's accidental death. When Lily's black "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three racists in town, Lily and Rosaleen escape to Tiburon, South Carolina, a town that holds the secret to Lily's mother's past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters, Lily is introduced to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey.

But underneath this plot runs a different theme of civil rights, religion, forbidden love and feminism - of how blacks fought for their right to vote; how narrow-minded so many people were. The purpose of our blog is not to discuss the financial crisis, politics, religion and racism - there are plenty of blogs out there where you can have your say! All I want to illustrate is that the world has come a long way... and it's not a girlie book!! Enjoy.