Shabnum Rashid Khan

Stop being so present in everyone else’s life that you become absent from your own.

You don’t need to know what everyone is doing.
You don’t need to keep checking who is happy, who is struggling, who is succeeding, who is getting married, who is travelling, or who has moved ahead of you.

Sometimes, you are not tired because your life is too difficult.
You are tired because you are constantly living pieces of other people’s lives.

You watch their stories.
You compare their progress.
You worry about their opinions.
You carry their problems.
You wonder why they are ahead while you are still waiting.

And slowly, without realizing it, you stop paying attention to the life that is actually yours.

Be absent from the noise.

Be absent from unnecessary conversations.
Be absent from constant comparison.
Be absent from people who only bring you confusion.
Be absent from the need to know everything about everyone.

Not because you hate people.

But because your attention is precious.

Your goals need your attention.
Your dreams need your presence.
Your relationship with Allah needs your heart.
Your growth needs your time.

So let people live their lives.

You don’t have to disappear from everyone. You just need to stop disappearing from yourself.

So better be absent in other people’s lives, so that you can be present in your own.

Because one day, you may realize something uncomfortable:

You were so busy watching everyone else live that you forgot to live your own life.

✍️Shabnum Rashid Khan

You can’t build a peaceful life while constantly arguing with a past that no longer exists and a future that hasn’t happened yet.

We ruin so much of our present this way.

We replay conversations that ended years ago, wishing we had spoken differently. We remember betrayals, failures, embarrassing moments, and the people who hurt us—and then carry those memories into days that never harmed us.

At the same time, we imagine everything that could go wrong tomorrow. What if we fail? What if they leave? What if things don’t work out? What if the life we want never happens?

And suddenly, the past is controlling the present while the future is frightening us out of it.

The uncomfortable truth is that neither one is actually happening right now.

Your past cannot be changed by suffering over it again.
Your future cannot be controlled by worrying about it early.

You only have this moment.

So learn from yesterday without living there. Prepare for tomorrow without borrowing its pain. And give today the attention it has been quietly asking from you.

Because one day, you may look back and realize something painful:

You spent so much of your life worrying about what had already happened and what might happen next that you barely noticed the life that was happening right in front of you.

Kids nowadays during exams have a confidence level I genuinely cannot understand. 😂

Parents see them sitting with the phone, watching TV, scrolling reels, eating snacks… basically doing everything except studying.

And the moment parents say,
“Go study! Your exams are going on!”

The child casually looks up and says:

“Exam mujhe dena hai.”
“I know I’ll get good grades.” 😭😂

EXCUSE ME????

Hadh hai yaar. 😂

I wonder what would have happened if we had spoken to our parents like this.

Even if we were the toppers of our entire batch, we didn’t have the courage to utter one extra word.

“Go study.”

We went.

No arguments. No explanations. No TED Talks about our academic strategy. 😂

During exams, we would get up from our books only for lunch, tea, dinner… and maybe to go to the bathroom.

And even while eating, our mind would be somewhere else:

“Did I revise that chapter?”
“What if that question comes?”
“Should I study after dinner?” 😭

Meanwhile, today’s kids are watching Netflix at 8:00 PM the night before an exam like:

“Don’t worry. I’ve got this.” 😂

Parents are standing there wondering whether to laugh, cry, or confiscate the phone.

And the funniest part?

Sometimes they actually DO get good grades. 😭

Which makes the parents even more confused.

“Ab isko daantun bhi toh kis baat pe?” 😂

Honestly, our generation studied with fear.

Their generation studies with confidence.

And somewhere between the two is probably the perfect balance. 😂

But still…

The audacity these kids have! Hadh hai yaar. 😭😂

✍️Shabnum Rashid Khan

Everybody asks, “What did you do at work today?”

But nobody asks, “What did work do to you today?”

Nobody asks how many times you swallowed your frustration just to remain professional.
How many emotions you buried behind a smile.
How many times you said, “I’m fine,” when you were anything but fine.

We talk about deadlines, meetings, targets, promotions, and productivity—but rarely about what they quietly cost us.

Sometimes, you don’t come home tired because you worked too much.

You come home tired because you spent the entire day pretending you were okay.

And perhaps the most uncomfortable truth is this:

Your job may be paying your bills while slowly charging you with pieces of yourself.

Reading is an experience.

Some books are small enough to finish in a day. Others take several days, weeks, or even longer, depending on their size, depth, and how deeply they engage you. But for me, reading at least one page a day is enough. It is a small thing, yet it is something I genuinely look forward to every day.

And perhaps that is what reading teaches us—not just knowledge, but persistence.

You do not have to finish the entire book today. You only have to turn one page.

This simple habit reminds us that results do not appear suddenly. They are built slowly through the effort we make every day. The size of the effort does not always matter. Even a small effort, when repeated consistently, can eventually create something meaningful.

A book does not become complete after reading one page. In the same way, transformation does not happen in a single day.

Reading takes patience, time, and effort. So do growth, healing, learning, and achieving our goals.

When you read one page every day, you may not notice a huge difference immediately. But slowly, you develop a habit. You gain new insights. You begin to understand things from a different perspective. Sometimes, a single sentence can make you think about something you had been overlooking for years.

That one page can give you hope.

It can teach you something.

It can change the way you see a situation.

And sometimes, it can simply give you a few peaceful minutes at the end of a difficult day.

There are days when reading feels like more than a habit. It feels like an act of faith—the quiet belief that even if I cannot change everything today, I can still take one small step.

It is surprising how something as simple as turning a page can slowly change a person.

And life is filled with such small moments.

A conversation.
A walk.
A cup of tea.
A few pages of a book.
A quiet moment alone.
A small effort that nobody notices.

We often miss these things because we are too busy waiting for something big to happen.

But perhaps life is not made meaningful only by the big moments.

Perhaps it is these tiny moments that quietly make life worthwhile.

So pause sometimes.

Turn the page.

Read a little.

Notice the small things.

You may not realize it while it is happening, but these little moments are becoming your life.

And one day, you may look back and realize that it was never the big things alone that made your life beautiful.

It was the small things you almost failed to notice.

Some people don’t dislike you because you did something wrong—they dislike you because you stopped being convenient for them.

The moment you become authentic, you risk disappointing people who were comfortable with the version of you that always agreed.

If you choose privacy, people may call you secretive because they no longer have access to every detail of your life.

If you set boundaries, someone may call you selfish simply because they benefited from you having none.

If you stop explaining every decision, people may create their own stories about you.

If you refuse to participate in gossip, you may become the next person they gossip about.

And if you finally choose yourself, some people will accuse you of changing—as if becoming healthier, wiser, and more honest were a betrayal.

Here is the uncomfortable part: you can be kind and still be disliked.
You can have good intentions and still be misunderstood.
You can tell the truth and still become the villain in someone else’s story.

You cannot control how people interpret you.

But you can control how much of yourself you sacrifice just to make their interpretation of you more comfortable.

Sometimes, being misunderstood is the price of finally being yourself.

✍️Shabnum Rashid Khan.

Nobody is born ugly. We are taught to feel ugly.

A baby is not born looking in a mirror and wondering whether its nose is too big, its skin is too dark, its body is too thin, its face is too round, or its smile is not attractive enough. These insecurities are learned.

Every person is born with a face that is uniquely theirs, a body that carries them through life, a smile that belongs only to them, and a personality that cannot be duplicated.

But then we grow up.

We begin hearing what is “beautiful” and what is not. We see celebrities whose appearances have been carefully styled, edited, filtered, photographed under perfect lighting, and sometimes altered. We scroll through social media and compare our ordinary, unfiltered lives with carefully selected moments from someone else’s life.

Slowly, we start measuring ourselves against standards we never created.

Someone tells us our skin should be clearer.
Our body should be thinner.
Our nose should be smaller.
Our hair should look different.
Our face should resemble someone else’s.

And eventually, we stop asking, “Who am I?”

We start asking, “Am I attractive enough?”

That is where the damage begins.

Because beauty was never supposed to be a competition.

A beautiful face may catch your attention, but kindness can make you remember someone. Confidence can make someone magnetic. A gentle heart can make someone unforgettable. Character can make a person beautiful in ways that no camera can capture.

The problem is not that millions of people suddenly became unattractive.

The problem is that we created such a narrow definition of beauty that millions of people began believing they could never fit inside it.

And perhaps the most uncomfortable part is this:

You may not hate your appearance because there is something wrong with you. You may hate it because you have spent years looking at yourself through the eyes of people who taught you what you were supposed to hate.

Think about that.

How much of your insecurity actually belongs to you—and how much was handed to you?

Because one day, you may realize that you were never ugly.

You were simply trained to see yourself that way.

# Shabnum Rashid Khan

Some of the most dangerous people you will ever meet will speak to you with the sweetest words.

They will compliment you.
They will make you feel understood.
They will tell you exactly what you want to hear.
They may call you beautiful, precious, special, irreplaceable, and even promise you things they never intend to keep.

And that is what makes false sweetness so dangerous.

Because poison does not always come with a warning label. Sometimes, it comes disguised as affection.

Not everyone who speaks gently has a gentle heart. Not everyone who praises you genuinely respects you. And not everyone who says “I care about you” actually cares about what happens to you.

Some people have simply learned that sweet words are an easy way to gain access to your trust.

So don’t judge people only by how beautifully they speak. Watch how they behave when they are angry. Watch how they treat people who cannot benefit them. Watch whether their promises survive when keeping them becomes inconvenient. Watch what they do when nobody is watching.

Because words can be rehearsed.

Character cannot.

And perhaps the most uncomfortable truth is this:

Sometimes the person you trusted because they always sounded so kind was never kind to you at all. They were simply good at sounding like it.

What if the thing you call “just a little water” is someone else’s entire flood?

I found an ant on the path outside my house.

My mom had just washed the path, and a thin layer of water had gathered across it. To me, it was nothing—just a little water I could easily step over without even thinking.

But the ant didn’t have that luxury.

She came toward it, tried to cross, stopped, turned back, and tried again. Over and over.

I watched her struggle.

At first, I thought, I should help her.

I reached my hand toward her, but then I stopped.

What if I accidentally crush her? What if my attempt to save her becomes the reason she dies?

So I pulled my hand back.

And she tried again.

She came to the water, turned around, walked away, gathered herself, and returned. Again. And again.

That tiny creature was facing an obstacle that looked insignificant to me but enormous to her.

Finally, I decided to take the risk.

I gently picked her up and placed her on the other side.

And the moment her feet touched the ground, she ran.

She didn’t stop to understand what had happened. She didn’t look back at me. She simply ran as fast as she could toward the other ants.

And strangely, I felt happy.

I had helped something so small, something that would probably never know that I had been the reason she made it across.

Then it struck me:

To me, that water was a few drops.
To her, it was a flood.

And perhaps that is how life works.

We look at someone’s struggle and think, “It’s not that serious.”

Because from where we are standing, it doesn’t look serious.

We see someone struggling with a decision and say, “Just decide.”

Someone grieving and say, “You need to move on.”

Someone exhausted and say, “You’re overreacting.”

Someone struggling financially and say, “It’s only money.”

Someone afraid and say, “There’s nothing to be scared of.”

But we are standing on the other side of the water.

We don’t feel the depth of someone else’s flood.

And here is the uncomfortable part:

Sometimes, we are the flood.

Our words.
Our judgment.
Our impatience.
Our criticism.
The way we dismiss someone’s pain because we survived something similar.

You may be walking comfortably across a problem that is drowning someone else.

So before you tell someone, “It’s just a little thing,” remember the ant.

Your “little” may be someone else’s entire flood.

And sometimes, the difference between someone turning back for the hundredth time and finally making it across…

is simply one person deciding to help instead of watching.

Everyone wants more time, yet we hand away the little we have as if it can be replaced.

We spend hours explaining ourselves to people committed to misunderstanding us. We waste emotional energy on drama that will not matter next month. We listen to gossip that adds nothing to our lives. We hold on to friendships that feel good only when they are convenient for the other person. And then we complain that we have no time left for ourselves.

The truth is, you do have time.

You are just spending it on things that will never refund you.

Your attention is valuable. Your energy is valuable. Your peace is valuable. And your time? It is the most expensive thing you will ever own because once you give a moment away, you will never get it back.

Say no to unnecessary drama.

Say no to gossip disguised as conversation.

Say no to friendships that repeatedly make you question your worth.

Say no to distractions that keep you busy but never help you grow.

Be selective with your time. Not everyone deserves access to you simply because they ask for it. Not every invitation deserves acceptance. Not every conversation deserves your response. And not every relationship deserves to continue just because it has existed for a long time.

Make room for what truly matters: your dreams, your growth, your loved ones, your faith, your creativity, and the life you keep saying you want to build.

Because one day, you will look back at the years you thought were endless and realise how quickly they disappeared.

And the uncomfortable truth?

The people and things you are wasting your time on today may not even be present in your life tomorrow—but the time you lost on them will be gone forever.