Character is not only
how we treat people
when they are before us.
It is how safely
we hold their names
when they are gone.
And sometimes,
the mirror must turn
towards ourselves.
Was I fair?
Did I know enough?
Did I repeat
what I should have questioned?
Did I reduce an entire life
to one mistake,
one rumour,
one disagreement,
one difficult season?
A human life
is always larger
than the sentence
we heard about it.
There is intelligence
in questioning our certainty.
There is strength
in admitting we were wrong.
There is humanity
in correcting
what our words may have harmed.
Whatever we believe,
wherever we come from,
we all hope
for something similar:
to be understood
before being judged,
to have our whole story matter,
to have our mistakes
seen beside our goodness,
and to have our names
held gently
when we are not there.
So give others
what you hope
the world will give you.
Enjoy your season.
Learn from your struggle.
Stay humble in success.
Keep rising.
Keep shining.
And when someone
leaves the room,
remember,
their name
is partly in your hands.
Hold it gently.
Because one day,
we will leave a room,
the chair will be empty,
the door will close,
and our names
will remain behind.
What others say then
will belong to them.
What we said
when others were absent
will belong to us.
– Dr Haroon Rashid
Life is beautiful.
Life is difficult.
Life is easy.
Someone is succeeding.
Someone is struggling.
Someone is accepted.
Someone is rejected.
Someone arrives early.
Someone takes the longer road.
Do not compare the clocks.
Every life
has its own timeline.
Some flowers bloom early.
Some survive
a longer winter.
Neither is late.
A different season
is not a lesser life.
Perhaps struggle teaches
what comfort never could.
Perhaps the road
is preparing us
for something
we cannot yet see.
We never completely know
what another person
had to survive
before the moment
in which we judged them.
So live.
Learn.
Rise.
Begin again.
And remember,
one day,
we will leave a room,
but our names
will remain behind.
Someone will speak kindly.
Someone will not.
Someone will know our story.
Someone will know a fragment
and call it the whole.
Sometimes,
a story repeated often enough
begins to sound like truth.
So before carrying
another person’s story,
ask:
Was I there?
Do I know?
Is this truth,
hurt,
assumption,
judgment,
or simply the version
that reached me first?
Being educated
does not make us always right.
Being modern
does not make us always fair.
Being a friend
does not make every story true.
Being family
does not make every judgment just.
Being certain
does not make us correct.
Sometimes wisdom begins with:
I may be wrong.
People carry their own mirrors.
Sometimes
we hold them towards others
and mistake our reflection
for their face.
Our love can blind us.
Our anger can speak for us.
Our loyalties can mislead us.
Our wounds can judge
someone else’s wounds.
What people say about us
in our absence
does not always reveal us.
Often,
it reveals them.
The one who speaks kindly
when there is nothing to gain
reveals character.
The one who makes another smaller
because they are not there
to answer
reveals character too.
But the listener
also has a choice.
Do I stop it?
Do I question it?
Or do I become
another voice in the story?
Today,
someone may bring us
another person’s secrets.
Tomorrow,
they may carry ours.
Today,
we may join the laughter.
Tomorrow,
we may leave the room,
and the laughter
may continue.
Do not make someone’s absence
an invitation
to make them smaller.
Not every truth
needs to become a wound.
Not every mistake
needs another witness.
And not everything
we hear
is true.
