My Five Fs (+1) for Fulfilment

This entry will be a bit different. It is perhaps – well, probably – slightly cheesy. But a bit of ‘cheesy’ is not necessarily a bad thing; I think cheese in moderation, much like a creamy slice of Havarti, can often add some much-needed satisfaction to a daily routine of unsalted crackers.

I have been thinking lately about what brings me fulfilment in life, and I discovered that the key components of my general satisfaction and happiness at this moment in time could be summed up in five words, all of which start with the letter F. So below I outline a list of my FIVE Fs (+1) for FULFILMENT as I see them unfold in my daily life.

Lost letters

(A version of this story was carried by the Huffington Post)

One memory from my childhood was watching my mom sit at the kitchen table with a pen and stack of lined loose-leaf sheets of paper to write one of her three sisters a long letter, handwritten in attractive Arabic script.

This was one of the only activities that could draw mom away from her rigorous daily routine of managing every family affair and caring for three daughters with boundless dedication. Taking the time to write letters was a rare respite for our supermom. She would become immersed in her thoughts and intently focus on the blank sheets in front of her, as well as the multi-paged letter she’d received in the mail a day or two prior and was then replying to.

For more than an hour, swiftly and with ease, she would craft page after page of prose, pouring onto the paper the multitude of thoughts and feelings that she had stored in a crevice of her mind for the months, if not more than a year, since the last time she sat down to write to one of her sisters.