Take a glimpse at selected quotes or poems from the book Mind Platter. Mind Platter is a poetry book written by Najwa Zebian. It was first self-published in January of 2016. The revised version went on to be published by Andrews McMeel Publishing in March of 2018.
You are the Sun
For them to see you shine, you must stay far away, for you are just like the sun; when you’re too close, your light makes them blind. And when you’re too far, they seek you. So let them seek you. They’re getting your light regardless, but appreciating your presence is different from recognizing your existence. If they don’t appreciate your presence, they may never even recognize your absence.
Page 1 from Mind Platter
Stay True to Yourself
Don’t worry about what people think of you or about the way they try to make you feel. If people want to see you as a good person, they will. If people want to see you as a bad person, absolutely nothing you do will stop them. Ironically, the more you try to show them your good intentions, the more reason you give them to knock you down. Keep your head up high and be confident in what you do. Be confident in your intentions and keep your eyes ahead instead of wasting your time on those who want to drag you back. Because you can’t change people’s views, you have to believe that true change for yourself comes from within you, not from anyone else.
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Broken Wings
Don’t break a bird’s wings and then tell it to fly. Don’t break a heart and then tell it to love. Don’t break a soul and then tell it to be happy. Don’t see the worst in a person and expect them to see the best in you. Don’t judge people and expect them to stand by your side. Don’t play with fire and expect to stay perfectly safe. Life is about giving and taking. You cannot expect to give bad and receive good. You cannot expect to give good and receive bad. Does it happen? Yes, but don’t make that an excuse for you to keep doing what you know is wrong. Don’t blame life for what you do.
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Lifelong Learning
If you think that education only takes place in an institution, think again. As long as you breathe, your mind, your heart, and your soul are seeking knowledge, so respond to them and nurture their needs. Ask questions and keep your life dynamic. Knowledge is not necessarily confined to a specific subject area. Knowledge is what drives your life and makes it meaningful. So, unless the institution you’re referring to is the institution of life, education does not confine itself to the limits of any institution. It extends its wings into every aspect of your life. So, what are you waiting for? Start flying.
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Be Sensitive
It irritates me when people actually believe that they are better than others. It irritates me that someone could give him or herself the right to talk down to others or accuse others of doing things without asking for their side of the story. It irritates me when people get pleasure in seeing others fall flat on their faces in pursuit of their dreams. It irritates me when people strive to please and live up to those with money, status, and power. It irritates me when people are more negative than positive and spread their negativity wherever they go. It irritates me when someone does not return a smile. It irritates me when people judge others based on their looks before they even get to know them. It irritates me when people wait for the hidden purpose behind every act of kindness, not realizing that sometimes it just does not exist. It irritates me when I see love given and not returned. Many things irritate me, and I have learned that the way to stop that irritation is not by becoming immune to these things. It’s a valuable quality to be able to recognize bad things when you see them and to learn from them. If you have that sensitivity, never let it go. If these things irritate you, work on convincing yourself that you will do what you can and that you can only do so much. At the end of the day, we’re all human, and sometimes we cannot extend our helping hands further than they can reach, especially if others are not willing to extend their hands back.
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Avoidance
Time passes, the past is inevitably created, and we get moved out of it into the present, but do we really move past it? Avoid a nagging thought or feeling for a minute and see how many days it will take you to deal with it in the future. The main reason why we live most of our lives recalling the past is that we don’t really get rid of it. We keep unresolved problems in it, and that makes us visit it often to deal with them. Feelings and thoughts that we ignored at the time that we were able to control become too complicated once the issue shifts from How do I deal with this? to Where do I even start? We are good at avoiding. We are good at just disappearing because we think if we stay away from a thought or a feeling long enough, it will just go away. Meanwhile, the complete opposite happens because, subconsciously, your need to deal with the issue becomes more persistent. That need for resolution becomes stronger. Taking time to understand why certain thoughts cross your mind, and what you need to do with them, is absolutely critical, and conviction of your decisions is even more critical. It is always better to be at peace with your mind and heart so that you lead the directions that they take. Otherwise, you will find yourself acting in ways that even you don’t understand.
Page 102 from Mind Platter
The First Step
In order to achieve greatness, you have to be willing to take the right steps toward it. Some of us will settle for what is average. Some of us will settle for what will get us by in life. But some of us do not accept anything less than what is extraordinary, and this is where the most stress is bound to come our way. What stands between us and that extraordinary goal are hundreds of steps, and that blocks our image of that end goal. When we can’t it, we start losing hope, and we start losing belief that we are headed in the right direction. We could stand in front of the first step for as long as we want and waste time. Or we could go ahead and take the first step. Once we do that, it’s hard not to go to the next step, and the next, because we don’t want to lose what we just invested. Instead of looking too far ahead to see that end goal, pay attention to how you can nail the next step and believe in your heart that your end goal exists. Now do you see why some things in life are better than others? Because they are rare, and rarely will people intend to achieve them because of the uncertainty of being able to reach them. So, if you have an extraordinary goal, go for it. Take the first step. Giving up is not easy, but holding on is definitely harder. Once you can convince yourself of that and bring yourself to accept that you need to expect hardships in pursuit of greatness, then you have taken your first step graciously. You wouldn’t worry about reaching for the fruits on the highest branches of a tree before planting the seed, would you?
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Beyond What Your Eyes See
Do you ever wonder what’s hidden in people’s hearts? About what makes them who they are? About their values and beliefs? About the battles they fought? The battles they won and lost? The ones they are still fighting? Do you ever wonder what’s behind every brave smile? Or do you just look at the outer appearance of a person and assume that you know what you need to know? The reality is that we often forget that each person has a history that made them who they are. We forget that the snapshot we’re getting of a person’s life is one that could not possibly be enough to represent that history or give them credit for it. Why do we do that? Is it because it’s just easier to judge a book by its cover? Is it more convenient? And, does that mean that we should look at ourselves that way too? Just worry about polishing up our outsides and not worry about bettering our inner selves? This is a serious problem that we face. We think that way because it’s easier to care for how people perceive us than to care about who we really are on the inside and how we perceive ourselves. We condense our whole being and our whole worth into how we look on the outside. Don’t ever think that a second you take to reflect and think about your own life is selfish. Make who you are into who you want to be. Don’t let who you are make you who you don’t want to be.
Page 109 of Mind Platter
Never Settle
If you choose an option because it’s the only one, then you haven’t chosen. You’ve settled.
Page 128 of Mind Platter
Seal My Lips
If you understand me, then you’ve enslaved part of me. So, if you don’t take care of my words, I will protect the pieces of my soul through the silence of my lips.
Page 129 of Mind Platter
Negative Intentions
If my strength intimidates you, I hope you realize that’s a weakness of yours. If my strength doesn’t impress you, I hope you never see my weaknesses because, if you can’t be happy to see me at my best, you most likely will be happy to see me at my worst.
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The Other Side
You may think that I share my strengths with you to put you down and to tell you that I’m better. But have you ever thought that I had to overcome the fear of you envying my happiness, hoping that you could be happy not for me but with me? You may think that I share my weaknesses only because I need you to help me cope with them, but have you ever thought that I had to overcome my safe silence to express my words to you? Have you ever thought that I’ve made the decision to allow you to understand me? You may think that I am nice to you because I need something from you, but have you ever thought that I had to silence every disappointment I’ve had in the past, and every unnoticed effort, to be nice to you? You may think that I care for the person that I want you to be, not who you really are, but have you ever thought that if I thought you were not worthy of my care that I would allow myself to care for you?
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Past What You See
If only we knew the tests that each of us has encountered, we would be much more compassionate toward one another. But no. We see beauty, and we wonder why we don’t have it. We see riches, and we wonder why we don’t have them. We see happiness, and we wonder why we don’t have it. We see contentment, commitment, and success, and we wonder why someone else has them. Little do you know that, while you’re envying a person’s beauty, money, or success, they may be battling to live. Those things that they have that you don’t have may be a way of helping them cope. Those things may be a way of proving to them that perfection does not exist. It cannot exist. Just because people don’t complain to you doesn’t mean that they don’t have problems. It means that they’ve learned to accept their problems and deal with them without wanting you to worry. They think of how to keep you happy while you wonder how they could be so happy. Don’t judge. Don’t give yourself the right to decide whether a person deserves what he or she has or doesn’t have. If you were able to see through people’s smiles and into their hearts, you would regret every judgment you wrongfully made. You would take back every wish you made, even between you and yourself, of harm happening to them. Worry about yourself. Appreciate what you have. Don’t look past what you can’t possible understand. Be careful what you wish for. Life may give you something that you want but take away something that you need.
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Choose Happiness
The happiness that your dreams promise you may be right around the corner, but you can reach them only if you’re willing to turn the corner. Walk away from your safe place of hopeless uncertainty. Unchain your heart from the uncertainty that’s been grounding it to misery. Choose happiness and walk away.
Page 148 of Mind Platter
Say Something
Wake a wise man up about his oppression, and he will thank you for it. Wake a fool up about his oppression, and he will blame you for it. Yes, we all want to live peacefully and make our living without thinking of the bigger issues of power because that is just too big of a headache. We don’t need to take responsibility for what we can’t do anything about. Those who speak up get burned, and those who keep quiet are preferred. It’s better to stay on the safe side, right? Wrong. You can always grow new skin when you burn, but you can’t erase the propagation of oppression after you’ve allowed it. We are all born with conscious minds, so being oblivious to even the slightest form of oppression is a choice, not a result of unawareness. Be wise and stay awake. Just because you’re breathing doesn’t mean you’re living. Do something. Say something. Risk something. At least, if you want to make a difference.
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Unconditional Love?
Unconditional love is not true love. It’s foolish love. True love has an unconditional willingness to listen and to understand. True love has an unconditional willingness to give, compromise, and sacrifice while working for one future, not two. It has conditions of respect. Don’t tell me disrespect can come out of love. Don’t tell me violence can come out of love. Don’t tell me manipulation can come out of love. True love is not blind. It has a vision. Though it may not make sense who you love, how you love them should.
Page 169 of Mind Platter
How Dare You
If you have a purpose in life, you will have enemies. If you care about the well-being of the people around you, even if you don’t know them, you will have enemies. The world will try to convince you that the best life that you can live is one in which you care about yourself only. Lose your heart. Don’t be compassionate unless you have time. As long as you earn enough money, shut your mouth. Who cares about everyone else? Never question authority because doing that is wrong. Who are you to know more than those who are in positions of power? How dare you? We seriously have forgotten what being human means. We’ve become machines. We’ve become experts at justifying our flaws, but we’re not even close to acknowledging that those flaws exist because of the lack of basic human interaction. How can a mother sacrifice years of her life, put her career aside, make her dreams wait, without waiting for a paycheck at the end of the month? Would a paycheck bring her the same kind of happiness anyway? Not. Even. Close. We don’t make ourselves compassionate; we are born compassionate. We selectively allow ourselves to be heartless because we are convinced that selfish people who put themselves first are the happiest. Yes, put yourself first, but not in a selfish way. Put yourself first by working on bettering yourself. Listen to your heart when it tells you to help. Listen to it when it aches. Use your mind. Listen to it when it wakes up your dignity. Listen to it when it tells you to say no to what is wrong.
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Your Inner Beauty
In an upside-down world like ours, it doesn’t matter who you are. Who you make yourself seem like does, though. The higher your expectations, the harder people will work to reach them. And with your prestige, they value you more. It’s true. But why do you look at materialistic people? Why do you look at those who make you feel like you have to be different to impress them? Stop and rewind. Go back to the caterpillar that you were before you got your beautiful wings. Who loved you then? Who respected you then? Who saw the beauty within you then? Those people right there are the ones who deserve to be impressed by you. Not the ones who make you feel small even though you’re way bigger. Not the ones who make you feel worthless even though you deserve to be sitting on a throne in a kingdom of your own.
Page 172 of Mind Platter
Heal
Don’t point out people’s mistakes unless you’re willing to tell them how to fix them. Criticism can break the strongest of souls, and advice can build the weakest of spirits. Your words can be healing, or they can be sickening. Let them heal. Let them inspire. Let them be the crying shoulder that your shoulder cannot be.
Page 173 of Mind Platter
Dusty Bookshelf
Some people are like good books. You would rather leave them on the shelf until you get the chance to give them your complete focus and undivided attention than read a page here and there. You want to understand every word, every line, and every message between the lines. The thing is, books can’t move, but people can. If you wait too long before you pick them up, the dust on their hearts will have exhausted them and pushed them to leave.
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The New Normal
We live in a world where you’re more likely to be questioned if you’re kind than you are if you’re rude. It’s as if rudeness has become something that we accept, or expect. But kindness makes us wonder what the person’s hidden intentions are. It’s deeply saddening and hypocritical that the one who chooses kindness has to question his or her intentions and wonder how others will perceive this kindness. What is even sadder is that the world has come to accept this norm. We raise our children to believe that goodness only exists in them, and the outer world is out to get them. We want to protect them, so we warn them. From our point of view, we are doing the right thing. In reality, we are setting them up to see the worst in people, and consequentially, we are scaring them away from taking risks. When we silence their vulnerability and ability to trust in others, we rob them of the beauty of connecting with other human beings.
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If I Get Under Your Skin
If I get under your skin, it’s probably because you hurt me. My words, you see, have no mercy on someone who causes injustice. My words have no mercy on someone who chose to hurt someone as deeply as you did. My words have no mercy on someone who had the chance to stop someone from hurting more people, and was silent about it. I have no mercy on someone who has no integrity. Someone who allows opportunity to dictate their loyalty. I am not bitter. I have just tasted the pain of being tormented by people like you who could have spoken up for me but chose to be silent. I may not be able to tell you things to your face because I am respectful, but don’t you dare dictate what I can or cannot write. If I get under your skin, it’s because your lack of dignity burned right through my skin and scarred my heart for eternity.
Page 183 of Mind Platter
A Castle of My Own
I crafted the doors to my castle with a chisel I sharpened with every arrow aimed at my heart. I closed these doors and hid the keys in the highest tower I built. On every step, I engraved respect. I shattered every glass window and replaced them with bars of steel. I broke down every wall tainted by the hands of those whose trustworthiness I believed in and was disappointed by. I ripped apart every paper I wrote to those who heard my words with their ears, not with their brains of hearts. I shielded my heart with a golden cage. I left the key in a dark place, and I sought the light. My soul sought peace. It sought purity from the dusty world surrounding it. It ached for the innocence within it to shine. It sought the lost key but soon realized that it did not need it, for I am already the owner of my heart.
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Age and Wisdom
Respect your elders, but don’t ever accept power used wrongly. Just because they’re older, it doesn’t mean they’re wiser. Just because they’re in power, it doesn’t mean they’re just. Just because they’re accountable for their actions, it doesn’t mean that they realize the importance of honesty. If you don’t stand your ground, they will walk all over you and even make lies up about you if they have to keep their statuses safe. Walk with your head up high and don’t look down except to remind yourself of where we all came from and where we all will end up.
Page 191 of Mind Platter
A Taste of Your Own Medicine
Don’t give them a taste of their own medicine. They already know what it tastes like. Give them a taste of your own medicine. If they lied, let your medicine be honesty. If they played with your emotions, let your medicine be maturity. If they broke you, let your medicine heal. If they made you cry, let your medicine make them smile. These remedies of yours may take years to work, but they work. And they last. So be patient. Stay true to yourself. And not for who you pretend to be. Who you are lasts a lifetime. Who you pretend to be changes like the change of seasons. Don’t be afraid to be yourself, even if it means removing yourself from lives that you want to be in. You are, no doubt, worthy of being valued for who you are. So be who you are.
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Understand Me
Would you ask the sun why it shines brighter on some days than others? Would you ask the moon why it breaks the darkness on some nights and not others? Such is the course of life. Some days, we give our best, but other days, we just exist. Some days, we are kings and queens of our minds and souls, and some days, we are slaves to our hearts. So much within us is easy to misjudge if it is not understood. And people are more likely to misjudge us than to try to understand us.
Page 195 of Mind Platter
A Sunset You Dread
The sun doesn’t always rise at the same time or set at the same time, but we are always certain that it will happen at the perfect time. Have faith that everything will work out the way it should at the right time. Don’t just think of yourself but think of the grand scheme of things. Think of those who waited for the sunrise for you, even if, by doing so, it means that you are expecting a sunset. Be thankful for patience, for persistence, and for good intentions.
Page 199 of Mind Platter
Let Go
They say that, at some point, you just learn to let go. I must disagree. If it just takes one moment to let go, then you never really held on tightly enough. To a dream. To a goal. To a place. To a person. To anything. I believe that you let go little by little. You let go a little, then hold back on, but with a little less force until you fully release yourself. And the tighter you hold on, the more force you let go with. The deeper you dive, the higher you’ll fly. The closer you get, the further you’ll pull away. The weaker you feel, the stronger you’ll become. So do not be ashamed of your weaknesses. We all have them. You must learn to be kind to yourself. You must learn to understand yourself. You must believe in yourself. Never think that you are a bad person. Differentiate between your self-worth and your actions. To say that you are bad is different than saying that you made a mistake. You can’t fix yourself, but you can fix a mistake. And remember, not one person on this earth is perfect. we all make mistakes. We all fall. We all have flaws. We just need to look within ourselves and treat ourselves as humans who are worthy of respect and hope. Do not give up on yourself. Get back up. Be brave. Be happy.
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