New Challenges

 It has been a while since I blogged. There has been a lot going on work as there have been new challenges and new assignments to be accomplished at the moment. Also, the employer Motorola being separated as Motorola Solutions and then being acquired by NSN (Nokia Siemens Network) was creating many doubts regarding the job status and/or security.

Despite all of this, I had been assigned to an important and a learning assignment, that has given me new directions as far as my career is concerned and it makes me believe that I know too little and there is still too much to learn. It was a difficult and a challenging assignment but at the same time really a beneficial one.

 Because of this new assignment and job insecurity, I have new challenges to face right now and to accomplish them I have to go for Cisco and/or Juniper certifications (high tech) and also to learn more about Unix/Linux and Solaris based systems or maybe doing some related certification would be much more productive. Also, brush up on some software programming & development skills as well (or enough knowledge of them to become a useful resource and expand my professional skills).

That's why, after thinking a lot, I have decided to delay my MBA for the time being. In the meantime, I hope I'll be on some leadership role to go for MBA. Maybe, after I have more years of experience. So, right now it is time to face the new challenges and accomplish them :).

I am back

It's been a long time since I posted here as was too busy with work and after that one of the deadliest flood hit our area and had to go back to village, so that could help my family to save our homes and the property. Luckily, our village survived but all of our farms were destroyed (cotton & sugar fields), but we are thankful to Almighty that our lives and homes were saved. I remember my father's face when he heard about the farms because a farmer looks after his farms & lands as much as he does for his children.

But others were affected more than us because farms were their only source of income because two of our family members (me & my brother) have their job as an alternate source of income. We were already supporting our family but now is the time to support them as much as we can. And also, support others who suffered a lot from the flood. Now all of that is over but still we can't cultivate our lands as the river has made his way between our village and our lands. And, this would be soon over too and we would be able to cultivate our lands.

That being said, we await for the time when we would start cultivation our lands again. Meanwhile, I've come back due to my job responsibilities but the project is over and I got time to start prepping for GMAT. So, I am back now and all set to embark on my journey to "Ace the GMAT" :). In next post I'll start sharing my journey :).

My Quotes

My Quotes
These are kind of quotes, which come to my mind with the passage of time. These are originally by me (of course the idea can be same as described by many).

“Always be natural as you are a part of Nature; that’s why more you deviate from nature more you create problems and complexities for yourself and ultimately get hurt”.

“Don’t stray from Nature or you will be lost in the deep ocean of darkness”.

“Be yourself; don’t pretend to be someone else, because if you pretend so you’ll never be satisfied”.

“I am Me, I am unique; I am the one who can’t be someone else and I am the one someone else can’t be”.

“Act on what you know and know what you don’t know”.

Still more to come with the passage of time. I do love poetry but I know more of it in Urdu rather than English. Maybe I have to read English poems (I did read in school but don't remember it anymore).

Who am I? What am I?

Who am I? What am I?
The most difficult question, let’s brainstorm:

•  I am a spirit (made of a spirit).
• I am a recipient (of knowledge).
• I am the truth (an example of truth, living truth).
• I am a messenger.
• I am a dirty liquid (time for a spirit to come into the world).
• I am a mixture of flesh and blood.
• I am a creature.
• I am a human (have emotions and a heart).
• I am a servant (e.g. to serve the purpose of life, to serve others, to serve the creator).
• I am weak (depends on others e.g. Parents and God).
• I am a son (An apple of my Parents’ eye).
• I am love (union of two souls).
• I am a brother.
• I am an observer and a learner.
• I am intelligent (I think everyone is intelligent).
• I am fun.
• I am pain in the *** (who doesn’t know what is it like to respect others and is care free).
• I am silly.
• I am naughty.
• I am careless (worked on it and made much progress).
• I am arrogant (worked on it and changed a lot).
• I am irresponsible (same as above).
• I am a looser (because of carelessness and irresponsibility but not anymore).
• I am bad.
• I am miserable (sad and down because of failure. Changed a lot).
• I am immature (messed up, instead of focusing and letting it go. Changed alot).
• I am emotional and sensitive.
•  I am a lover.
• I am a dreamer (If you don’t dream then how can you make them come true? So dream and dream BIG).
• I am a seeker (seek truth, seek true-self, seek spiritual teacher).
• I am a believer.
• I am spiritual.
• I am a student.
• I am a transition (turning into new me, a transformation from arrogant to humble, from irresponsible to responsible, and from immature to mature etc.).
• I am a life experience (getting through life changing experience, and learning from experience and mistakes).
• I am free and independent.
• I am in process of self-awareness (starting to know myself because of meditation).
• I am self-motivated.
• I am forgiving (forgive my self, and forgive others).
• I am humble and patient (a serene and down to earth person).
• I am rational (now never going to blame myself, instead going to learn and then move on).
• I am a joyful person.
• I am a good friend.
• I am a good person (happy to know that some people do think so).
• I am mature (according to someone sometime it makes me boringJ).
• I am a responsible person.
• I am strong.
• I am a fighter and I struggle (Simply not going to give up, and going to defeat my weaknesses for sure).
• I am a confident person now.
• I am optimistic.
• I am lucky (to be blessed with many opportunities with which many people are not).
• I am unique (I am not someone else, and no one else is me).
• I am sympathetic.
• I am caring.
• I am a loving person.
• I am honest.
• I am straight-forward.
• I am romantic (Wow! Girls do think so and surprisingly they do think that I’ll be a good husband. It makes me wonder and at the same time laugh at myself).
• I am sincere.
• I am one with good intentions (Thank God, that others do think so).
• I am a reasonable person.
• I am wisdom.
• I am respectful (I do respect others).
• I am a social person (Trying to be one and yet need much more work to do )
• I am adaptable.
• I am a natural person.
• I am a professional.
• I am a quick learner.
• I am a thinker.
• I am a team-player.
• I am a leader (leadership fascinates me. I lead by example and believe in “leading by example”).
• I am a challenging person.
• I am trustworthy (people do think I am trustworthy, it was surprising but at the same time good to know).
• I never hate others (but do hate bad habits and bad things. Even, I never did hate my enemies).
• I get along easily.
• I am a mystery.
• I am a curious person.
• I am a creative person.
• I am an explorer.
• I am athletic (I like sports especially soccer).
• I am passionate.
• I am a good adviser (never give bad advice to others).
• I am successful (after a failure changed a lot and until now have been successful in what I do, with the grace of God. I am not a looser anymore.).
• I am not afraid anymore (Not even afraid of failure, I’ve seen it and have fought it. I do fear but only God).
• I am a thankful person (especially to God and those who have helped me).
• I am in search of “Ultimate Satisfaction and True Happiness”.

That’s all I could think of now and I think I wrote a lot. Wow! Thinking process helps a lot and maybe that’s what differentiates us from others. The ability to think is a key essence of intuition.

These were 86 points to describe me, these points are a result of brainstorming.

Atif's Brainstorming

Yesterday, I was trying to brainstorm and see how Brainstorming helps us to come up with ideas and plan ahead. And, that's what Brainstorming yielded into:

• A little Thought comes to mind and then leads a human to a process.

• A Process starts and spans in human mind in a cyclic manner.

• Imagination and Intuition starts Brainstorming (Thinking Process starts).

• Questions come to mind (What, Why, Where, When, and How?).

• Questions lead to Curiosity.

• Curiosity leads to Search.

• Search for Answers, which lead to knowledge.

• First get little knowledge but prominent and authentic.

• Then, act on what I know and know what I don’t know.

• Knowledge leads to Wisdom.

• Wisdom makes us human and makes us stand out from other creatures (also from other human).

• Search leads to clear answers, with the help of knowledge and wisdom.

• Clear Answers lead to productive Intentions and clear Plans.

• Curiosity, Knowledge, Wisdom with good Intentions and clear set of Plans show you a Right Path.

• Right Path leads to a Destination.

• But what is a Destination?

• There are many destinations when you embark on a journey; these are little destinations which lie on the way.

• These little destinations lead to an Ultimate Supreme Destination.

• But what is an “Ultimate Supreme Destination”?

 This is amazing to see what brainstorming leads to. I could never come up with all of the above points if I had not done Brainstorming. And, now I know how much does it help and I am going to brainstorm from now on no matter what task I have to do. Brainstorming does help us to come up with innovative and amazing ideas and help us to plan ahead.


I am still in process of Brainstorming and I yet have to come up with the answer to the last Bullet Point. I'll post whenever I'll have time and also I have to write about what happens when you reach you Ultimate Destination and how does it affect a person.
Cheers and happy Brainstorming!