What If The World Became One Country?

March 05, 2019
By Yostina Wasef
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"We're all capable of the most violent acts but we must fight that" - Picasso
Image by MK817 on Pixabay

I don’t like to talk about politics, and I know this is crazy daydreaming but bear with me; wouldn’t the world be calmer and more peaceful if it was one country?

For one, there will be no wars because there will be no countries to fight and conflict with each other and therefore there will be no need to make nuclear or any other strong weapons.
All countries of the earth will be under the ruling of one president who will be freely elected by the people of the earth. He then will assign a government that will take care of all things in all Earth just like normal governments in any country.
Current countries will turn into states that will have their own sub government and they can rule their countries as they like as long as they follow a specific set of laws set by the Earth’s president and his government like human rights, environmental policies…etc.
There will be one currency that is used across earth and people of the earth will be one people. That doesn’t delete cultural differences or heritages but rather, unifies them by letting each culture keep its customs and heritage while in the same time, interacts with other cultures as ONE BIG culture. This already happens to some degree between some countries, but I hope we expand it to include the entire world.
There will be no poor and rich countries as all resources will be distributed equally across all of them, because the world will be one country. Also, there will be no starvation in any areas like Africa and all people everywhere will get equal levels of education, work, and living conditions.

That would be world peace; wouldn’t that be awesome? Can we push for this to happen? I know this sounds unrealistic but I believe in the power of intention. Even though, we might not have instant action steps to make that happen but holding that intention can be very powerful as well.

Finally, I wanna end with something I heard in a show on National Geographic called ‘One Strange Rock’ that talked about how Earth was made and how everything on it works. It tells the story from the point of view of the astronauts who went to space and came back with a change in mindset about our planet, it was a very amazing program by the way. In its last episode, Peggy Whitson, the oldest female astronaut, said that growing up she always thought that her home was the state of Iowa. Then, as she started working as an astronaut at NASA, her home became the United States. Finally, when she went to space, home became – the entire earth. The focus of the last episode in that show was to get us to realize that we’re indeed one people living on one Earth. Shouldn’t that make us ditch our differences aside and become one BIG and DIVERSE society?

Personal opinion

Why can’t we just let people be who they are?

June 16, 2018
By Yostina Wasef
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Personal opinion

4 Misunderstood Characteristics of Introverts

April 11, 2018
By Yostina Wasef
1 Comments

Photo by Alexandru Zdrobău on Unsplash

People have always mistaken me as either a shy and afraid person who didn’t know how to be social or someone who didn’t like to socialize and hates people. Neither of these two is true, I’m just introverted, it took me a long time to understand this and before I did, I always thought there was something wrong with me. I never enjoyed being around a lot of people and always preferred to be alone so I’m writing this article now because I’m tired of being told something like “be more social” or “go out more” etc.

Who are introverts?

Simply we are normal people who like to be alone most of the time not because we’re afraid of people or because we hate them but because we just get so overwhelmed when in crowds and we reenergize and recharge ourselves by being alone reading a book, journaling, thinking, binge watching a favorite TV show…etc. And when I say ‘alone’ I really mean alone somewhere closed where I can’t see or hear anyone else, pets are welcome though 😄

4 Misunderstood Characteristics of Introverts:

1- First of which is needing lots of alone time which is why we are called introverts. For me personally I find that I need quite a lot of alone time especially that I am also an empath, someone who feels other peoples’ feelings without knowing sometimes, and I live in a noisy environment and so I’m always overstimulated. Most introverts are also empaths or at least highly sensitive which explains why we need a lot of time in solitude.

2- We don’t talk much, or at all because there is a tornado of ideas inside our brains and it just feels so hard to verbalize it sometimes. We also tend and sometimes prefer to keep our thoughts, opinions, and feelings to ourselves for fear that we hurt someone’s feelings if we say them; we really hold back a lot. But sometimes that is just us being selfish about our rich inner world that we just don’t want to share with you Haha.

3- We’re independent thinkers and somewhat rebelious and I know that just might annoy some people but we can’t help it, we just take decisions on our own without consulting with anyone and we don’t like when anyone tries to impose their ideal and what they think is best on us. Now, I know that sounds arrogant but because we spend so much time in our own brain, we know what we need and want and even if we make mistakes, everybody does mistakes; we like to see for ourselves rather than being told.

4- We don’t like to answer the phone, we just prefer written communication it gives us the time to choose our words and make sure we are not misunderstood if we respond without much thinking, and yes we neeeeeed to think before we respond. We also prefer to see the words rather than hear them because when we hear, some things tend to drop; written words allow us to reread and reread if we need to 😄

Are there any other characteristics that people misunderstand about you as an introvert that I missed? Let me know in the comments 😊

Korea

Why I fell in Love with Korea [Korea.net Article]

March 05, 2018
By Yostina Wasef
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Expressing my love for Korea using the Korean flag

This article was originally published on Koreanet blog here on Dec 5th 2017.

Family and friends ask me why I fell in love with South Korea. What is so special about Korea that I fell in love with it a long time ago? I haven't been able to answer that question, as I haven't been able to put my thoughts into words. Simply, it’s about connection, connection at the level of the soul, that just can’t be easily explained. Let me try to explain by stating here the things that I personally love about Korea.

TV and music industry

I love many forms of art, and Korean TV shows and Korean music are some of these forms. I love watching TV soap operas and living through the on-screen events through my heroes’ lives.

I really like the fact that Korean soap operas -- most of them, at least -- are character focused and not plot focused. What I mean is that often the story’s purpose and focus is to show the emotional and psychological development of the characters, specifically the hero or co-heroes, and how they handle what life throws at them, rather than focusing on some event or ending that the character must reach. Another thing I like is the love stories. They show how each party is doing everything in their power to take care of the other party and make them happy. It’s just so heartwarming to watch.

The other thing that really attracted my attention is that Korean TV shows can have many seemingly opposing genres in one show without any disharmony. Some very well-known recent soap operas like "Guardian: The Lonely and Great God" (쓸쓸하고 찬란하神 – 도깨비) (2016) and "Strong Woman Do Bong-soon" (힘쎈여자 도봉순) (2017) seem to have opposing genres, like comedy and tragedy or comedy and action. There's a strange ability to include multiple genres in one show. "Guardian," for example, has many genres. It's has fantasy, history, action, tragedy, comedy and romance, all in one, without any disharmony at all. Amazing, isn’t it? I think this ability to include multiple genres is fantastic and unique. It makes the show able to connect more deeply with its viewers because, in our lives, we have some happy moments, some sad moments, some angry moments, some fearful moments and some other tribulations, so it becomes more like the drama of real life.

This brings me to the screenplay writers. As you know, the script writers are the backbone of any TV series or program because they have the plan that everyone will follow to produce the show. It’s no secret that Korean screenplay writers are very skilled at writing and know very well how to evoke emotions from the audience. Song writers, too, are so expressive, especially if they write for a TV show. Actually, I don’t want to leave out anyone who's responsible for getting a show or a song out to the world, so I’m including the directors, the cinematographers, the sound professionals, the composers, the makeup artists, the people responsible for setting up the studios, and everyone working on TV shows and music that I might know nothing about. I want to say thank you to all of you for bringing such beautiful works of art to the world.

All artists, whether they are actors or singers, are very passionate, talented and really invest their true self and emotions into what they do. They really evoke the intended emotions of the writers in the show or in the song they perform and leave their imprint on the artwork that no other artist can mimic. Each of them is unique.

Another thing that I really like about Korean artists is unrelated to their work. They are so humble and modest, and don’t really have any star complex. They act like normal people wherever they are and fans can approach them very easily and talk with them like normal people, which I really love. They also contribute to charity a lot and oftentimes in secret.

With all that said, I believe that the Korean TV and music industry can become well known globally and can even become a new Hollywood. With all that passion, talent and effort, I truly believe it can become a new Hollywood.

Society

One of the most fascinating things about Korean society for me is that it’s a society of respect. Everywhere you go, you speak formally and you especially have to pay extra attention to anyone older than you and to your boss and to those in authority positions. The language has several levels of respect, and you must use the proper one, depending on who you're talking to.

Another thing that I like about Korean society is the use of close, sibling-like names for people older than you who are close to you, though this is more used by young people. If you're a woman, you can call your older brother, your male friend or your older boyfriend oppa (오빠) and your older sister or older female friend eonni (언니). If you're a man, you can call your older brother or older male friend hyeong (형) and your older sister or older female friend nuna (누나). Anyone who's older than you, in any social gathering, always cares for the younger person, even if they're younger by just one month or even by just one day. The older person has to buy the drinks, snacks or simple things, and provide loving brotherly or sisterly care and advice.

Young women are thereby required to sometimes act cute to their older male acquaintances, especially to their boyfriends, to get them to buy something for them. I find that so adorably cute.

One personality trait I've seen in Korea is that what some people misunderstand as rudeness is actually assertiveness. Everyone knows their boundaries and they don't cross them. Sometimes a non-Korean may not understand these boundaries, like, for example, on the subway. There are seats that are only for the elderly or for pregnant women. People don’t go anywhere near those seats, even if they're empty and there are no other available seats around. They know that once they start to be OK with it, everyone will be using them and the elderly and the pregnant people won’t be able to use them. So they might ask an unknowing non-Korean to move. This might sound rude, but psychologists say that communicating boundaries and what you’re OK and not OK with is actually healthy. Not doing so can lead to resentment and can manifest physically as chronic pain or even as diseases. I think that this assertiveness is what helped the Korean people keep and not change their social structure.

Traditional Korean architecture and clothes

Traditional Korean houses are called Hanok. They almost always have a courtyard and all the rooms have a view of the courtyard, which I really like. The courtyard can be planted with plants, set with a pool or a pond, and be the place on the property where one connects with nature. It can also be a multi-purpose space to do whatever you like. A Hanok home is traditionally heated from beneath the floors with a heating system called an ondol system, which uses the fire in the kitchen as the main heat control. If you look inside a Hanok room, you will feel so relaxed and clear-minded. I hope one day to live in an eco-friendly modern Hanok.

Traditional Hanok houses show how people lived in the past. (Korea.net DB)

Traditional Korean attire is called Hanbok. There are two versions of it. The female version consists of two main parts, the lower chima skirt and the strapless upper jeogori dress that's like a long-sleeved jacket and that stops at the bust line. I really like the style of female Hanbok. It looks so elegant, classy and feminine.

Hanbok is one of the representative Korean heritage items. (Lalien guillen Park)

Language

When I first heard the Korean language, it was through music on soap opera soundtracks. It sounded to me that the language was so musical. The sounds made while speaking, or singing, in this case, flow very nicely with musical notes.

I also like the way that Korean people speak. You know each society has its own way of speaking. There are special sounds and expressions in each society and language. I like the way that Korean people speak because it feels like you can really express yourself thoroughly. There are many ways to say something in Korean, depending on the level of formality and on the degree of how strong or how weak your emotions are. I specifically like the fact that when you talk cutely, like young women to their older male friends or boyfriends, it’s just so adorable.

Makeup and fashion

Cosmetics made by Korean companies are known to be of high quality and can be bought at an affordable price, too. I really like everything from modern fashion to makeup and cosmetics, and the styles of makeup and hair styles and hair care are all great. I have a list of beauty products that I buy when I visit Korea. I keep adding stuff to the list, too. It's getting really long. I also hope to get a Korean hairstyle and makeup when I’m there.

Falling in love with Korea made me open minded

Ever since I discovered Korea and really strived to learn more about this country and its society, I realized how narrow minded I was and how I was missing out on so many interesting perspectives and points of view. I became more open minded toward other societies. Also, by following my favorite Korean pop stars very closely, I realized how hard they worked to achieve their dreams and I was inspired to achieve mine, too, and to come out of my shy self a little bit. I owe all of this to Korea for making me open minded. Thank you so much South Korea, I love you~

Personal opinion

My Vision for 2018

December 31, 2017
By Yostina Wasef
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Quote: "Be the change you wish to see in the world" - Mahatma Gandhi

As the year ends, we wish each other happy New Year and hope that the new year would be better for the entire world and so I thought I would share with you my vision for 2018, these are the things I hope will be achieved this year.

I vision terrorism completely gone as if it never was; I see it completely wiped out from existence.

I vision wars ending and countries that have tension between them like Palestine and Israel, Saudi Arabia and Iran, South and North Korea, United States and Russia to be best friends.

I vision all the help given to poor countries in Africa and the world be helping them make a real economic rise and not just providing for the urgent current food and shelter needs.

I vision everyone more loving and tolerant and accepting to one another even their enemy. I’m sorry did I say “enemy”? I meant fellow human.

I vision everyone at least living comfortably and not struggling to provide for themselves and their families.

I’m sure we all want those things I just mentioned above and I believe it’s possible, we just have to start with ourselves like Gandhi said: “Be the change you wish to see in the world” so if we want love and acceptance, we must be loving and accepting to one another first even if the other is doing something our religion or culture or political view does not agree with. If we want compassion, we must be compassionate first. If we want respect, we must be respectful of other people and their beliefs first. If we want kindness, we must be kind first…etc. I believe these are the building blocks of world peace, we cannot expect peace if we do not BE these things first and not just by words but also by thought and feeling; we must think of each other lovingly.

There are two world events happening this year: The FIFA World Cup in Russia, and The PyeongChang Winter Olympic and Paralympic games in South Korea. Both of these two events, despite being sports events, they are mainly promotions of peace and many countries participate in them including countries that are at war or have tension between them. We will start with PyeongChang Winter Olympic and Paralympic games on February 9^th which made Peace its theme and I’m excited to see the opening ceremony to see how they would express peace in their performances. I really hope these two events encourage us to start a peace wave that will reach the entire world.

In the end, I will leave you with this beautiful video about PyeongChang Olympics that literally made me shed tears. It’s a must watch J

Personal opinion

Watch out for this manipulative selling technique

November 29, 2017
By Yostina Wasef
0 Comments

Image by Yomare on Pixabay

I’m sure you’ve seen in one place or another someone offering a free guide to finding clients or a free video to know how to do this or that or whatever. I have fallen prey for these for far too many times before I realized that I was being manipulated and tricked. I would always feel disappointed at the end of that free stuff, whatever it was, because they would ask you to buy something that has the information you TOUGHT you would get in that free stuff and while the price was reasonable in many cases, I didn’t have a way to pay online for anything, so I never followed through on any of these and through repetition of these incidents, I realized that the technique is all the same and I was being manipulated.

First, they throw the bait by telling you something like “get my free guide on marketing ‘Top marketing tips from the top marketing experts’ ” or “watch my free video to know how to increase traffic to your blog” …etc. They make you think that you will find what you came for in that free stuff they’re offering.

Then, they will hook you emotionally by telling a story because stories are known throughout the ages to connect emotionally with people and keep them hooked, a good story that is, and it’s usually their own story to how they arrived at the place they are right now.

They keep babbling on an on until at the end of that free stuff they offered, they will ask you to buy their product or service so that you could “complete” moving towards what you want. By buying from them, you obtain that missing piece that they left out from the free stuff which you came for at the first place and thought you would get by reading or watching it.

They lied to you by telling you will get something for free but you discover that it was a dirty marketing technique that manipulated you into getting their marketing material, the free stuff, and used it to sell you their product that has the information you TOUGHT you will get in the free stuff, because it was titled in a way that would make you think so. That is downright manipulative because it’s falsely promising people of something only to find that they need to buy something else to get it and the free stuff was just a marketing technique, only an introduction. This technique is called cross selling, watch out for it.

It feels fishy that they resort to something like this to sell you their product. It makes me feel like they are desperate and that they are not doing very well and that’s why they resorted to such a manipulative technique. I would rather be sold something clearly without tricking and manipulating. Or at least they should tell people that it’s an introduction not the whole thing they want.

I wrote this post because I don’t like being manipulated and I’m sure nobody does so I wanted everyone to be aware of it if they are not already.

Personal opinion

What if everything was free?

November 25, 2017
By Yostina Wasef
0 Comments

Photo by Les Anderson on Unsplash

Imagine if there was no money and everything was free, how would life be like?

No one would be hungry because everyone can get food for free and so, there would be no children dying from hunger in Africa and all around the world.

There would be no poor people because wealth will not be measured based on money anymore. Everyone will be able to get what they need and want without any problem.

There will be far less anxiety and stress about income and whether we will be able to provide for our families or not. There would be far less diseases too because of less stress. It is known that the increase of number of diseases in our time is due to our increased stress.

Since no one will be worried about where their income is coming from, everyone will be doing what they truly love and in the process they may help, benefit, and entertain other people and so, no one will be worried about getting a wrong job that’s not suitable for them just for the good pay which leads to decreased competitiveness and more compassion towards each other.

There will be no one who feels the need to lie to you and brain wash you with fancy words to buy their product because they need to make the sale otherwise, they may not get their paycheck.

Clean green energy will be available for everyone and so there will be no more pollution, global warming, and catastrophic climate change.

However, bad things might also happen such as:

People might get greedy and whoever comes first takes more than what they need and leave nothing to other people leading to another kind of poverty.

Guns and weapons may be obtained and manufactured freely without limits BUT, maybe we should limit it to military and police personnel only. However, free exchange of guns and weapons and the exchange of the material to manufacture them among countries may make one country attack another just because it has the weapons and the power to.

Some of the less desired but necessary work might not get done like washing the dishes in a restaurant, collecting garbage…etc. But then I think there might be people who will actually like these kind of jobs or maybe we will do it ourselves and be responsible for it.

People may become more lazy and less productive and so we may not advance as rapid as we are doing today BUT still, I believe that everyone is created with a certain passion or many passions to go after in which they will serve the world with, so even if we become lazy, it won’t last much because the freedom and the relaxed mind we obtained will allow us to be creative like never before.

In the end, everything may be used in a good way that benefits all and in bad way that destroys all. I wonder if we truly cancel money and make everything free, will we be wise enough to use it in a good way or will we abuse it and find ways in which we use it to make things worse?

What else do you think will happen if we do this? Whether it’s a bad thing or a good thing?

Personal opinion

On the love of animals for better humanity

October 13, 2017
By Yostina Wasef
0 Comments

I wish we all treat our pets like family members. Photo by Lydia Torrey on Unsplash

I love animals and will always keep the cause of animal welfare in my heart and so I have few things I want to say about having pets and helping animals.

I do have some strong opinions here so please keep in mind that they are just MY opinions, I’m not lecturing anyone.

Pets are family members:

I view pets as family members that should be treated the way we treat infants and toddlers, you never abandon your infant or toddler and move away do you? Unfortunately, a lot of people treat their pets as an extra that can be discarded anytime; just because pets don’t talk and express their feelings with words doesn’t mean that they don’t really love us and consider us as their parents, they express their feelings with their cute and lovely actions and those who are experienced pet owners will know exactly what I’m talking about.

Pets to me are at the same priority as kids. I am saddened that whenever a natural disaster like a hurricane happens, the evacuations do not include pets. Why? They are also family members.

I also don’t like when dogs are hired in dangerous jobs. I know they have a better capability at detecting if something is wrong but it’s not their job to protect humans from what another human is doing using some human’s invention. I’m talking about guns, bombs…etc. All these were man made, why do we endanger another species to protect us rather than stop making these things at the first place? Or at least restrict ownership of it to the military and police?

I DO NOT like Euthanasia:

I do not support Euthanasia except for two cases: in case of rabies or some other dangerous infectious disease or if it’s going to be for food, otherwise we do not have the right to take a soul without that soul’s consent, it’s the same as murder to me. When an animal is living with a painful condition, it’s tempting to think that you are doing mercy to it by euthanizing it BUT as long as that animal did not leave the planet, it has decided to stay and to adapt to the situation so if we euthanize, we are going against its will.

Dilemma of Egypt’s stray dogs and cats:

Egypt has a lot of stray dogs and cats and a lot of Egyptians have this belief that as long as there are still people in need, we should not yet pay attention to animals and help them, instead, we should use the money spent on helping them to help people first.

I of course disagree with that belief and I believe there will always be people in need because humans create their own reality, so as long as there are people who think their well-being is dependent on something outside of them, there will always be people in need. Then should we not ever help animals? Of course not.

This leaves the stray dogs and cats of Egypt in trouble because no one wants to help them or donate to the shelters that help them. And on the other hand, the animals sometimes cause noise in the streets and people complain about it but how does the government handle the situation? The veterinarians of the ministry of agriculture go out to either shoot them or poison them.

The shelters of Egypt then race against the clock to try to save these poor souls. Some are saved and some receive help too late. This poison, I don’t know its name, affects anyone through breathing it and some people who were trying to save the animals got affected by it and died.

In my opinion: humans, by religions, are given higher value because we were given the responsibility to take care of nature, not to be the number one priority; it DOES NOT mean that humans are more important than animals. We are like parents to nature and all other creatures; we were given the privilege to take care of it and to seek the good of ourselves as well as all the other creatures on the planet. Will you make yourself the number one priority before your children? I don’t think so. That’s why I think we should strongly help animals before humans because humans are built to help themselves, they can pull themselves out of any situation especially that when animals need help, they often need help staying alive, that’s all they ask.

ESMA:

ESMA, Egyptian Society for Mercy to Animals, is the largest animal shelter in Egypt. They have a dog shelter and a cat shelter. They are in constant need of donations because as I said before not many Egyptians donate to animal shelters. They accept donations and adoption requests from all over the world; they pay for the expenses of that. They have a Facebook page here if you would like to help and support them.

They also go by a no euthanasia policy and a good example of following that policy is the story of Pinky who was found nearly dead and was paralyzed but managed to make it with the help of ESMA. Read her touching story here.

In conclusion I think that helping animals will help us become more humane because animals can’t tell us what’s wrong with them if they’re sick, but if we try our best we will practice our empathy skills to try to figure out what’s wrong with them and therefore we will become better empathic humans.

Pages

What If The World Became One Country?

Why can’t we just let people be who they are?

4 Misunderstood Characteristics of Introverts

Who are introverts?

4 Misunderstood Characteristics of Introverts:

Why I fell in Love with Korea [Korea.net Article]

My Vision for 2018

Watch out for this manipulative selling technique

What if everything was free?

On the love of animals for better humanity

Pets are family members:

I DO NOT like Euthanasia:

Dilemma of Egypt’s stray dogs and cats:

ESMA:

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Why I fell in Love with Korea [Korea.net Article]

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