Choices

It's Friday.

In the city of Rabat, the mesmerizing call to prayer can be heard five times a day with a precision and regularity that only a Higher Being can orchestrate.

On this given Friday, my first one in the city, I found myself sitting at the steps of the Mohammed V Mosque in Rabat, deeply contemplating my life's future.

A week before this day, I had come to Morocco to study at the Mohammed V University and travelled two weeks before classes commenced, so that I could do what travelling students do best: Roam around the city with a travelbook, map and camera in my rugsack and a bottle of water in my right hand.

I had already visited most of the attractions the city offered, but was hoping to be able to attend a service and experience how people in that part of the world worshipped the same God I prayed to. After all, I knew nothing about this religion called Islam, so I was determined to learn as much about it as I could during my stay in Morocco.

As I approached the mosque, I slowly made my way to the steps and slowly made it to the front entrance. It looked closed, so I hoped I hadn't come all the way there just to find out I had come on the wrong day.

I started looking for a sign that would tell me whether my journey had been in vain, when I noticed there was a sign on the entrance door.

I quickly took some steps to get closer to the door and hoped it would tell me the exact opening times and days so that I could plan accordingly.

I looked up, ready to jot down the timings and quickly realized the message the note carried was not going to make a future visit possible.

Muslims only.

I was disappointed.

And slightly confused.

Every major city I had visited before allowed tourists to walk through the open doors of its churches and chapels. Why was this any different?

I sighed. I was already  exhausted and tired and certainly didn't look forward to the long walk back to the hostel. I wanted to complain and present my case to whomever had put the sign there.

But there was no one.

Reluctantly, I accepted that I'd not be entering the mosque during my stay here and instead walked around the mosque, took pictures, admired the architecture and took some more pictures. But my disappointment remained: I had come all this way, with the only result that I would not be allowed to enter the mosque.

I sat down on the edge of the lowest step on the stairs and took out my travelbook. I decided I was going to map out my activities for the next day and started flipping through the travel book and marking out the things I'd do. And as I was thinking about what I was going to do next, I got more and more enveloped by the inmense silence that surrounded the mosque.

My thoughts wandered.

From thinking about my itinerary for the next day, my mind brought me to a place I was visiting quite frequently at that age: Thinking about what I'd do with my life once I graduated. Once I returned back home from studying in Morocco, I'd be graduating within a matter of months and that meant closing an exciting phase in my life -The Glorious Student Years- and facing Adult Life.

So there I sat: Full of big dreams and full of doubt. Full of ambition and full of hesitation. Staring into the distance, as though the answer would travel towards me. Instead the same question kept appearing: What are you going to do with your life, Suzee Dee?

And at that young age, making a choice about what to do next seemed so overwhelming, so life altering! I had major decisions to make, I told myself: I had to decide which country to build my life in, whether to continue studying or enter the life of work, which career path to embark upon, which companies to apply to, which offers to accept and so many other things.

I felt overwhelmed by different choices and pressured to chose a path that would be lauded and applauded by family and loved ones. After all, achievement is important where I come from. It is not just expected, it is mandatory. And I felt nervous about making the wrong choice and ultimately disappointing myself.

I started contemplating the idea of taking one full year off to travel the globe and use that year to discover what I really wanted to do, when suddenly my deepest thoughts were interrupted by a soothing sound I had never heard before. Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar (God is Great).

I instinctively closed my eyes and remember thinking and feeling: Ah,  this is so soothing, so peaceful.

To this day, I still remember that exact moment when I heard 'Allahu Akbar' penetrate the labyrinth of my deep thoughts for the very first time. And I can still feel the ensuing feeling of complete stillness I felt at that given moment: I deeply felt the insignificance of my individual existence and totally submerged in a spiritual connectedness that felt overwhelming and all encompassing.

And when I slowly opened my eyes, I was surprised to see the sea of men, mostly dressed in white, walking towards the mosque. They came from all over the city, walking towards that one common goal: to collectively stop whatever they were doing and answer that call to acknowledge God. It seemed like the whole city was answering that call. It was literally a sea of people streaming towards the mosque.

I was mesmerized.

And totally in awe of the dedication and discipline I was witnessing.

I remember feeling, with every intensified call (to prayer), that whatever I was doing at that given moment was utterly insignificant. Though I couldn't understand the language being spoken, I felt it was reminding me that if I stopped doing what I was doing today, Life itself would still go on. I remember understanding that the relevance of what I was doing was limited to just the time within which it was done and that this very moment was just a moment, not my entire Life. I remember deeply understanding that there was more to Life than this moment alone.

Deeply.

Unambiguously.

And as the men drew closer, I remember understanding that they could have chosen to remain in their own moments of insignificance, instead of answering their call.

Five times a day. 

Everyday.

I remember understanding at that moment what I still call the biggest lessons of my life: There will always be choice. You don't have to do today what you did yesterday.

I felt peaceful.

And grateful for the lesson of that moment. That whatever decision I took today, it was just that: a moment. It didn't have to become my entire life. Whatever I did today, would soon be past. And it was up to me to continuously reinvent my own future. No matter if I made a bad choice today.

I understood that.

Deeply.

You can either be an echo of your past, or the glory of your future. You pick. You choose.

I gathered my belongings and took one last picture of the mosque: The Note. I shook my head and smiled: 'Oh, human beings! Don't they know that God speaks to everyone?'

Suzee Dee

My Story

I like to talk.

Correction: I love to talk.

Full disclosure: I love to talk to people.

Ermmm, actually, I love talking to people as much as I love travelling.

A lot! And that refers to both 'talking' and 'travelling'.

I thoroughly enjoy travelling, engaging people of different cultures and backgrounds, getting to know them and learning from them. In fact, I am so drawn to people that I can confidently say that when I no longer roam this earth, I will undoubtedly be remembered as a People's Person. For I think human beings are interesting. Especially when it comes to unraveling their own narratives.

I concluded long ago that each one of us is nothing more and nothing less than a story: We are either 'the story we tell ourselves about ourselves' or 'the story we were told about ourselves'. To state it more clearly: we are the sum of what we choose to believe about ourselves. As human beings, we are constantly thrown a set of assumptions about who we are and who we can allow ourselves to be, and as we go through life we transform those assumptions into beliefs.

And soon this set of beliefs becomes the premise upon which we navigate this life that we only get to live once.

So as I've gone through life travelling and meeting people from all walks of life, I've learned that the greatest gift you can truly give yourself is to carefully choose what you accept to believe about yourself. For in that alone will lie all your limitations and your possibilities.

I strongly believe this.

It therefore comes as no surprise to those that know me well that I live the type of life I live: A life that is based on the simple premise that I do not need anyone’s permission to live the life that is intended for me. Nor do I blindly accept the realities presented to me as numerous labels and expectations by the world I live in: My constraints are my own to impose or reject, my possibilities are boundless. I don’t just say this, I live it.

Every day.

And what I’ve learned from my travels and talking to people, and which has been so eloquently stated by Marianne Williamson, is that our deepest fear is indeed not that we are inadequate or insufficient. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. That it truly is our light, not our darkness that frightens us most. We ask ourselves: Who are we to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? The real question here is: Who are we not to be (brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous)?

Hence a blog that is simply about the way I see things or better said: the lessons I've learned as I travelled the globe and simply lived. A blog about Life. Through a set of different stories. All of which are true and told as accurately as possible.

So, how does one who likes to travel, talk to people and listen to their stories, go about telling her own story?

It's a simple one: 'My name is Suzee Dee. I believe that I am no different from you and that you are no different from me. I am simply no more, and no less than you. You are simply no more or less than me. And if we disagree on this, just know that your view is independent, not official.'

Suzee Dee