So I have returned to snowy Yorkshire after a rollercoaster 3 1/2 day, 3 night return to London. No matter what is said by people from all walks of life about this place and how many times I leave, or come to the realisation that this place just isn’t for me, right now, for many, many reasons.. I cannot think of anywhere else that I feel more like myself. Rather, where I am more able to be confronted by myself and thus allowed some time to consider life and myself.

A great woman in this city taught me many pearls of wisdom. The ones I keep returning to often are those related to family, friends and religion. After all, like the age-old saying goes, “You can choose your friends but not your family”. I’m just struck by how many times and how many people, well-meaningly may attach themselves to or try to help other people but where does this boundary blur?

Often it is when morals, spirituality, religion or received wisdom is discussed. By our natures, we humans are beings who are constantly learning and trying to evolve, in some way or form. But I think when one is overcome with pride over their own ways of understanding the world they fall quickly into greed. It’s greedy to want more than your two hands, two feets, brain and life allows. We are all given one life (arguably). It is only the two God-given hands and feet, our brain, our heart and understanding of our selves that we can and should have any control over. But when you over-ride another’s life or impinge on it in anyway, your committing a grave ill, sin-like. It’s pride and greed rolled into one. Now don’t mistake me, I am not saying that in this case we should all be individuals well and truly and have no interaction. After all by our natures, and especially mine, we are social beings and collectively attempt to understand and construct life and knowledges around us.

Part of this is the age-old awareness-advice-experimentation-attainment model. Say for example, the issue is not being consistently productive over writing, you first have to become aware of the issue, why it’s happening, what can be done etc. Then you may go to someone to discuss it, or even write/call/text/skype to someone or even to yourself t received or form relevant advice, say for example “Write everyday no matter how big or small. don’t look to always having a finished product or polished argument”. Experiement then ensues, as the phrase suggests, you (or I) try this out.. whether it be the exact advice or a reworking of it and others to fit the lifestyle of the person with the issues. Then hopefully some sense of achievement, overcoming or feeling of attainment is left at the end or during the more fruitful days of experimentation.

But when helpful advice, from a place of caring turns into judgement, competition and over-riding another’s god-given right to process and become who the hell they are meant to. You are intervening on something larger than yourself and it is not your place. Yes a discussion, the start of dialogue is welcome and should always be open, I mean even the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) invited people to ask questions and try and make sense of any commands or the way life should be lived. Communication and the striving for awareness is key and central to our life’s agenda, is it not? If we did not need others to be sane or live our lives, we would all be borne into islands with no social, cultural or religious constructs. As one wise woman said “Even if the way the religion is done annoys me, I was born into it. God choose to make me one of these people, I can’t turn away completely”.

once, ‘people come and go,