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About the Author:

Ambreen Ahmed, is an MBA alumna from the Class of 2008. Currently she is an Assistant Professor at SZABIST Karachi.

OUR HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

Author:Ambreen Ahmed

Parenting is the world’s toughest job, said no magazine cover, but it is by far the most challenging phase of adult life. You are nurturing your life’s biggest investment. There is little room for error or failure. And you must learn on the job with no real training. Only those who have been blessed with a bundle of joy can truly understand just how difficult it is to raise a helpless tiny human being from scratch and bring them to a level where they can face a harsh world independently.

I was recently blessed by the grace of God, and the new arrival has already given me plenty of food for thought during the unending sleepless nights. When the brain fog from sleep deprivation receded after the first few weeks of motherhood, I was startled and scared by a stark reality: Our abject inability to do anything at the start of our life. Our vision is blurry; the stomach cannot handle solids; there is no hand-eye coordination; and crying is the only means of self-expression. A helpless, vulnerable existence at the mercy of a few loving hands.

Yet, as soon as we grow up and get some feathers in our cap, an advanced degree, a high-paying job, a luxury car, or an elite lifestyle, how quickly we forget our humble beginnings. Achievements which should perhaps just allow us to hold our heads high, give us a swollen head and we jerk our nose up in the air, where it stays permanently. We quickly forget that a human is the most helpless baby born among all living beings. We forget that what never existed can one day can be swiftly taken away or may slowly melt away the second childhood returns with all its brutality. And this time we will fully understand and miss the abilities we once had. There will be no guarantee of being in loving hands either.

So, isn’t it better to practice humility throughout life? The things that we are so proud of don’t belong to us. They are just bestowed on us to complete a short, eventful test in a hostile world. The only One who can afford to be arrogant is certainly not one of us. All we must do is value His gifts and use them in ways that we will not be ashamed of admitting on a certain Day.

Ambreen Ahmed
MBA from IBA Karachi, Class of 2008
Assistant Professor, SZABIST Karachi.
Email: Ambreen_6@yahoo.com
Cell: 0300-3997016