Is It The End of the World Yet?

Hello and Happy (belated) New Year! Here’s hoping all three of my faithful readers have had a joyous break and a positive start to the year prophesised to mark the end of humanity as we know it. Anywho, I’m popping in simply to confirm that a) I am still alive and well (mostly) and b) I haven’t allowed myself the luxury of sinking into the abyss of utter melancholy or depression (thank goodness).

 The past couple of months have been incredibly difficult for me. On a professional note, I’ve been pushed both mentally and physically to the point of absolute exhaustion. My experiences have been invaluable and I am grateful for what they have afforded me in both tangible rewards and character building. However, I have also felt an incredible push; to expand, to grow, to develop. It felt like my feet were barely touching the ground and I was required, nay, forced, to keep up or be left behind by the overwhelming, and often daunting, film industry.

Personally, I have undergone some dramatic changes. It has never been easy for me to be me. With fear of sounding like a broken cliché pop record it’s been (and remains) a difficult journey to self-discovery. Understanding what it is that makes me happy, trying to adapt to this fast-paced (Arab, conservative, bizarre-at-times) society without losing my unique identity and strengthening my independence are all issues that I continue to battle with on a daily basis.

In the spirit of the New Year, apocalypse or not, I do continue to count my blessings. I count myself as one of the immensely fortunate few, not only with a roof over my head and food in the fridge, but the indulgence to undertake this life journey. I will continue to explore, succeeding and failing, upholding and disappointing, loving and loathing elements of both my inner workings and my physical reality. But this year, I will learn to be more grateful for what really matters.

Family first. Spiritual peace. Loving sparingly. I will continue to exercise my fierce loyalty and protective nature where applicable. Less bitterness, more joy. Less sarcasm (unless it’s really funny), more sincerity. Less time online and more connecting offline. Less junk food, more green beans. Less shopping, more saving. And so on, but you get the point.

What am I most excited about this year? I’m very sorry, but the first thing that came to mind was ‘The Hobbit’ in December. But asides from hobbits and dwarves, I am looking forward to a new season of festival circuits that I can potentially engage on a whole new level. I am incredibly excited about the prospect of investing myself further in film production experience. I am also looking forward to getting stuck into an event that deserves all the exposure it can get, in TED. Getting back in shape, getting back into the kitchen, spending more time with my beautiful family (and my dog), living and loving myself and my life. 

This is 2012’s challenge*. I’m ready. 

*I will also be building an apocalypse shelter, but that's a whole other blog post. 


Image: BizzaroComics