As a writer and blogger, I have always been told to write about my passions and what I know. What I am at my core is a Bahá’í who believes that this world is transitory, a preparatory phase for the next world, much like our mother’s womb was transitory and meant to prepare us for… Read More Taking the Plunge: The Launch of Product Reviews on Sahar’s Blog
The question of gender equality is a fascinating one, to say the least. I recently had a great chat on Facebook with one of my friends on the implications of the advice given in this post about men encouraging women’s quest to be modest in their dress to help decrease the level of objectification of… Read More It’s Quicker to Get to my Service Project with a Car that Works: Some Thoughts on Material and Spiritual Progress
Last June, I came across an article by John Haltiwanger in which he explained why optimists are always late. While articles such as his do help understand how people—ourselves or others—think and function, the way Haltiwanger went about excusing lateness as a natural consequence of a virtue didn’t jive well with me. I felt that… Read More Developing Virtues: Never One At the Expense of Another
The process of refining one’s character is a highly exciting one, but isn’t always easy. While there are a lot of great tools that help us along, there are also many pitfalls we can get stuck behind. There seem to be a lot of self-empowering messages in North American society. Some of the first ones… Read More The Shady Friend that is Leniency
Faith is a powerful ideological force in American politics, and God in the Obama Era gives readers a better understanding of its influence on the way nineteen presidents of the United States performed their duties, as well as how it might influence the current president. Helping readers navigate the tricky waters of the role of… Read More Book Review: God in the Obama Era: Presidents’ Religion and Ethics from George Washington to Barack Obama by Niels C. Nielsen
I have been asked to share my thoughts on what happened to Rehtaeh Parsons. I have been mulling my thoughts over for the last month. There was of course horror, shock, and anger. There was grief for the darkness of the last two years of this young woman’s life on Earth, and a sincere hope… Read More A Tragic Loss of Life: Some Thoughts on Rehtaeh Parsons
The culture of backbiting and gossip is clearly an unhealthy one, and while it is (relatively) easy to stop talking about people, it often does not mean that we are not thinking about other people in a negative light. I have seen, in the last couple of months, how poisonous these thoughts has been to… Read More Refusing to Undermine One’s Integrity: The Role of Dwelling and Self-Doubt
Yesterday’s post does not imply that I have not been writing at all. Interestingly enough, I have been writing a lot, in the context of small projects with deadlines and specific content (which of course makes me think of Leigh Anne Jasheway-Bryant’s fantastic post). So here are links to the six articles I wrote for The… Read More Some Completely Shameless Self Promotion