gulf elite issue 8

Gulf El ite

Issue 8

LIVE, BREATHE, THINKENTREPRENEURSHIP

KANYE WESTNOT A DOUCHE AFTER ALL

CHRISTOPHE GUILLARMESOPHISTICATED SIMPLICITY IN FASHION

STUDINOV MARKETING STRATEGIESDESIGN, CONSULTANCY AND MARKETING SERVICESEMAIL US AT: [email protected]

simply the best

EDITOR’S LETTER

As we fight through our ventures, going through sleepless nights, long hours and constant pressure to finish what we start-ed, we keep a relentless hidden question

swirling through our minds, a question that manag-es to pop up constantly. A question that we, deep down in our guts, know we have figured out, but yet keep the reasonable rational thought that, “you just never know what might happen.” It’s the tricky ques-tion we don’t want to think about, but yet can’t help to reflect upon while laying in our bed, wide awake, thinking; Am I going to succeed? Is all of this hard work going to pay off, ever? What if I don’t make it and become one of those average Joes you see on the streets wearing their 100 dollars suits, heading towards their 9 to 5 jobs? What if I fail? As crazy as this may sound, that is exactly how you’re supposed to think, that’s the exact mentality every successful entrepreneur has, and I’ll explain why.

It´s those self-critical questions that keep us on our toes. It’s that “what if” mentality that makes us fight even harder, with the hope of achieving whatever we want to achieve. It’s the fear of failure that unleashes the beast inside every one of us. The beast that has the capability to work through those long nights and stressful hours in order to achieve what your fears made you doubt you could. Whatever you think you can’t do, whenever you doubt your own capability of getting the job done – reverse that negative psy-chological “block” into a motivational booster, into a stimulus to prove to yourself and to everyone else, that you will, in fact, make it – not matter what!

And lastly, remember that you are the one who creates your opportunities; you are the only one who estab-lishes your own success. With that being said, don’t ever let dumb bullshit excuses or thoughts stand in the way of what you’re capable of, just because it’s a comfortable situation to be. Because as much as it may seem comfortable in the time being, it’ll come back around and bite you in the ass, reminding you of what you could have done and changed to reach that ultimate destination to the top.

Ibrahim Naji - Co-founder/Editor

A P R I L I S S U E - 8G U L F E L I T E 1

G U L F E L I T E 2

Weird?No, just an entrepreneurIndex

Pissing Them OffYou’re doing it right then!

Social MediaBridging the gaps

EntrepreneurshipLive, dream and breathe it

Christophe G.A fashion trendsetter

Jenny AleksiaFeline Beauty

Noor WazwazNothing can stop her

Kanye WestNot a douche after all

Summer FashionThe Do’s and Don’t’s

In Love or ObsessedIt’s a tricky situation

Pursuit of HappinessKnow where to look

1 Month OfflineAnd still alive

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www.kairossociety.org

WEIRD?NO, JUST AN ENTREPRENEUR

A P R I L I S S U EG U L F E L I T E 4

Sitting in a room with all my friends, I realized that I am so much different than they are, my own friends, the people I chose

to hang around with. How is it that their views on life and business can be so dif-ferent than my own? None of them can see an opportunity when it hits them in the face, not one of them would “throw away that much money” to hire a coach and none of them are willing to take a small risk in stocks to make a great gain, let alone risk everything you have to start a business. It is absolutely pointless for me to even discuss or argue with them about busi-ness or any other entrepreneurial relat-ed topic because they have been taught and raised with the simple collective idea that you go to school, achieve de-cent grades, get an education and final-ly get a good job behind a desk some-where. Absolutely nothing I say now can change their minds, no matter how hard I try to tell them that they could actually gain financial freedom, help their family with what ever they wanted, fulfill their dreams and live life on their own terms instead of having to listen to some stuck up boss that tells you what to do for the rest of your life. Every time I try to explain my concept to these individuals, in the hope of may-be changing their minds or at least give

them another perspective to perceive business or entrepreneurship from, they get this crazy idea that I’m trying to set myself above them or that I’m saying that they won’t be successful otherwise in their desired field, which I’m obvious-ly not. Frankly I hate it, so I have com-pletely stopped myself from even com-ing close to talking about these topics, about how they could live life on their own terms, and will let my “craziness” speak for itself. Without saying, there are big risks you have to take in order to achieve the “financial freedom” I mentioned earlier, but the reward is well worth it. And of course every now and then you have a setback or two, but as long as you stay focused and determined and make the best moves you can, you’ll bounce back two-fold! There are so many different ways to be successful in life, but for me, being successful means that I accomplished the one task that I set out to do, every-thing else I get or do that comes along with the success is a bonus. So what is that one goal that I have? A while back, about three years ago, my brother and I were talking about business (away from my friends) and how we both want-ed to establish our own ventures and business so that we could do what we desired, without putting any limitation

to our imagination and truly live without having to worry about anything. In short, we both basically wanted to become millionaires, and I mean who doesn’t? But that’s not really the point.

The point was our elaborations as to why we wanted to be entrepreneurs and run our own empires. A motivation that many young individuals have which real-ly boosts them towards achieving their goals. You see, our parents and grand-parents worked extremely hard their entire life in order to sustain our family to the comfortable point we have today. They did absolutely everything in their power to give us what they didn’t have during their childhood and upbring-ing. Because lets face it, most of us are spoiled brats compared to our parents’ upbringing, something I realized later on in life, as I started appreciating and no-ticing the little things. So I vowed to myself that I would get my family to that “next level”, and agreed that I would do whatever it takes, no matter what, so that they no longer had to worry about the financial expenses we all worry about and enjoy the rest of their lives. And keep in mind, no matter what, I would never give up! My goal was to hit the million dollar mark by the time I turned 30, if not sooner. Not because I felt like that was enough money to set my family up for life, but just because it was a benchmark that would tell me if I was reaching my goal or if I needed to re-think things. Now of course there were other things I want to do - cancer research- since it has had such an impact on my family, skydiving and other crazy stuff I had

written down on my bucket-list! These are all attainable goals though, and I felt like I definitely could make a huge difference if I just had the guts to put my mind to it. But, surprisingly enough, I was told by a friend that this goal was “pretty illogical” and that I should just focus on getting my degree and getting a good, high-paying job that would provide for my family, because that is what’s more “realistic”. She then proceeded to tell me that it couldn’t happen anyway because my heart was in it for the wrong reasons. Not realis-tic? Wrong reasons? It was crazy, she was telling me this as if it was unachiev-able, when in fact, it wasn’t!

It’s like I said earlier, my friends don’t have the same mentality as you and I,so when they state illogical dumb state-ments like that, we may ending up hav-ing a little heated argument (especially with the “illogical” comment). As far as what the “right” reasons were con-cerned, she couldn’t tell me, but if this isn’t a reason to accomplish any goals, then this isn’t the world I want to live in! Let me tell you something; there are almost no wrong reasons to pursue your dreams, no matter how wild, unrealis-tic and difficult they may be. Don’t be afraid to have those “unrealistic” goals, because the only people who do think they´re unrealistic are the individuals who are afraid of stepping out of their comfort zone to see how great they can actually be.

Take those risks, and make that leap of faith.

B R A N D O N J O L I C O E U R

PISSING THEM OFF?GOOD!

Are you losing weight? “You should be happy with your own body!” Saving children in Africa? “You should save

your own country!” Curing cancer? “What took you so long?” Whatever you do, you’re going to annoy some-one, and annoying someone can be a good thing. Let me show you the vir-tue of being an occasional asshole.

Rule 1: There are more important things than other people’s feelings

One of the reasons successful people can sometimes come over like ass-holes is because they’ve learned that there are far more important things in this world than what other people feel. It’s an uncomfortable truth. We’re raised to be nice, and for good rea-sons. Niceness is safe. It’s excellent at maintaining the status quo. Nice people are conscious of what might upset others, and avoid such things, which is deadly if you want to accom-plish anything of significance. If your mission is to lead, create, or better the world, surrendering to the emo-tional concerns of others will paralyze and kill you. Leaders that can’t make tough decisions can’t lead. Artists that can never offend anyone can never delight anyone either.

This is not to say that being an ass-hole will make you successful. But an unwillingness to occasionally be one is an almost certain road to failure.

Rule 2: Hate is a side effect of im-pact

As your actions impact more people, the less those people will understand you:

Imagine a face-to-face conversa-tion, with motives and nuance: “As it spreads, the simple message is inter-preted.” And outright distorted. This happens even when people read the exact same words on a screen. We just do it in our heads.The only thing this process needs is enough people. If you’re impacting enough people in any way, you’re go-ing to be tragically misrepresented in the time it takes a teenager to poop out a tweet.You can avoid all of this by not doing anything important. If your biggest decision in life is what you change your desktop wallpaper to, no prob-lem. But if you want to write a best-seller or end poverty or change the world in any way whatsoever you’re gonna have to cope with pissing off people entirely by accident.

G U L F E L I T E 7

Rule 3: Just because someone is of-fended, doesn’t mean they’re right

Think back to a time when you were angry – say you were cut off in traffic. How intelligent were you when you were pissed off? Anger is an emotional re-sponse, and a spectacularly stupid one. It’s almost never in proportion, nor is it necessarily even just. It’s a fleeting im-pulse, like thinking a stranger is cute or preferring one color over another.

And like any such impulse, the usual provocation for anger is association. Some people might hate Apple, oth-ers hate Google. Some people are right wing, others left. Say something nice about one group, and you’ll ignite the primal rage in the others before they can stop to think. Pretty much everyone thinks like this, sadly, unless they’re try-ing really hard.Which leads to a crucial conclusion: conforming to other people’s anger is caving to the most stupid part of their nature. Be an asshole and ignore those, um, assholes. The only way to avoid pissing people off is to do nothing im-portant. Which leaves you with a choice, whether you like it or not: where will you settle on this scale? Most of us fear up-setting the emotions of others. When we upset people, we’re compelled to justify ourselves. We yearn to win over our de-tractors. We seek everyone’s approval. And just one criticism among a hundred compliments burns into our brain like a cigarette.

That’s actually a good sign. It means you’re not really an asshole. Just don’t be afraid to act like one where it mat-ters.

O L I V E R E M B E R T O N

Coming Soon

The voice of generation Y

www.elitedaily.com

SOCIAL MEDIAB R I D G I N G T H E G A P S

What do you want to achieve with your social media pro-files? Are you seeing the re-turn on all your efforts? Are

you keeping up just because you are sup-posed to, or do you have an actual plan?

1. Where is the Social Media gap?

First thing you should do is to take a look at your current situation. Select a few in-dicators you want to use as a measuring tool. For example, these indicators can be the number of followers on your profiles, percentage of engaged followers, a total reach, amount of newsletter subscribers, number of clicks, or even number of gener-ated sales calls.

Then, list your objectives for those indica-tors (if you currently have 1100 subscribers but you want to have 4,000; or if you cur-rently have 500 people following you on Twitter but you want to have 12,000 follow-ers)…

Specific action plan

Now write down specific action and steps you need to take to bridge that gap. For in-stance – create topical calendar by a specif-ic date; compose all the updates and queue them; add a time in your calendar to write newsletters; write newsletters; reach out to existing LinkedIn connections, etc. Whatev-er the needed action may be, write it down with its deadline next to it.

If you have any additional goals besides the ones mentioned above, feel free to write those down, too.

2. What’s your Strategic Plan?

You are not investing all this time, effort and resources just for the sake of doing it, right? No, you want to achieve tangible re-sults and what better than actual increased revenues?The easiest way to do so is to use what you already have and optimize that. So, think about the following:

• Whatcanyoudotomakemorefromyour existing customers? (For example, can you upsell them a service or product? Do you have an opportunity to cross-sell or bundle your offerings?)• What can you do to generate morenew customers? (For example, can you get an exposure that you can leverage on? Can you appear in front of a group of your ideal clients?)• Howcanyourevitalizelapsedandlostcustomers? (Be sure to understand why they left and determine how you can ap-proach them – with new offers, different terms?)Now further develop each one onto an ac-tionable plan.

3. What Will Your Initiatives Be?

You know what they say: “A Goal is Simply a Dream With a Deadline”

G U L F E L I T E 1 0


For the next six months, lay out the ma-jor goals you want to achieve (that align with the plans, goals and strategies you just worked on), and determine their deadline.

To assure you can commit to reaching those goals, consider setting one per month, if you know your time restrictions may prevent you from achieving more. On the other hand, you need to get out of your comfort zone and break old habits in order to achieve new results. But that’s a different conversation.

4. Who is your target audience and where can you find it?

This part of the plan should be self-ex-planatory: before you can do anything, you need to be clear on who you are tar-geting, and where your audience is. Only then can you develop a messaging that will resonate with your market as well as build presence where you know you can reach them.

5. Are Key Words Really That Import-ant and Everything You Need?

It can be difficult to keep adjusting to ever-changing techniques that various search engines are using to find you. But once you are clear on which key-words your audience is using when they are searching for you, it makes it all much easier. Without going into too much details on Search Engine Optimization, Google algorithms, Facebook newsfeed algo-

rithms, and so on, do at least the follow-ing:

• Make a list of particular keywordsyour target audience is using• Makesurethesekeywordsappearinthe content of your website, blog, social media updates, newsletter, etc.• Makesureyouexpandonthesekeywords and form actual meaningful sen-tences or questions – imagine what your audience would search for, or ask. 6. Just Do It

Now here comes the hardest part of them all: actually sticking to the plan, imple-menting it and checking back on regular basis to measure the progress and results.If you are like many other business own-ers, then you simply don’t have the time to do all of the above consistently. Utilizing tools such as HootSuite, marketing calen-dar, good-old checklists and consciously setting aside a few hours per week to do all the writing and posting the updates will save you the time and headache. As an alternative, you may want to consider outsourcing this part to a virtual assistant or marketing agency.

In return, your consistent presence will result in increased interest from your audience and eventually you will see in-creased number of inquiries.

S A R A O . S P E I C H E R

The Night Clubs Road is an opportunity for companies to create links, contacts with other SMEs and large companies in diverse and varied elds and different locations.This event takes place for 11 days, and is the rst Transcontinental Rally to link Europe, Afric and Gulf Countries. ANWAR WARDI, the Rally Organiser arranges overnight 5-star accommodation for Participant. MMoreover, unlike fairs, congresses and seminars, The Night Clubs Road, escorted by a magni cent procession moves to discover his prowess to the public. It is a mobile and festive fair that brings together different entities (companies, journalists, personalities ) with common interests .With limited number of spaces available, organisers are inviting participants from across the UAE and Middle East to sign up for the high pro le extravaganza.Potential Participants can nd out more at www.nightclubsroad.com

EntEntry Fee : 50,000 € ( All Charges are included in Entry Fee )

#NIGHTCLUBSROAD Start 15 August Till 26 August 2014

ENTREPRENEURSHIPLIVE, DREAM AND BREATHE IT

Entrepreneurship is cool, fun, and makes you tons of money. That’s the conclusion we hear across social media, from the latest billion dol-

lar deals Zuckerberg is locking to new hot startups landing millions of dollars in seed funding rounds. Yet, it’s not all that easy, you can’t just wake up one morning and decide that from now on you are an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is not a badge you buy at a grocery store or a title you bargain for. Entrepreneurship takes time, becoming an entrepreneur is a process. You are an en-trepreneur only when you see, smell, live, sleep, breathe and eat Entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is a philosophy, a way of living, a mindset that few have the guts to adopt in life. Entrepreneurship is not about coding or knowing how to mount a product. If it was all about coding, then we wouldn’t have successful enterprises such as Starbucks, Uber or the 700 million USD Yogurt giant Chobani. Entrepreneurship is idea-centric: creativity is the fuel of enter-prises, not C++ or Java.

Entrepreneurship is not exclusive to one sector or one type of people: it’s accessible to everyone. It is the ability to not rely on others to provide you with the things you need, but instead, going out and creating them yourself.

Now let’s start by understanding a key fea-

ture of what makes Entrepreneurs relevant at all times and in all fields: They don’t al-ways follow the conventional economic theorem of supply and demand.

Need - Product

Entrepreneurship is not about finding a solution for a problem only; it’s also about creating a product and finding a use for it. Nobody needed an iPhone until they saw one. No one thought they couldn’t live with-out Facebook until Facebook was created. Entrepreneurship allows you to be innova-tive by creating new things for new usag-es. You create your market instead of run-ning after one. Don’t wait for the demand to drive your supply chain, create that de-mand in the first place. Drive people crazy, make them hungry and curious about your product, show them that you are the new cool, you are the next big thing, and see them line up in front of the store or rush into your site although they have no idea why they are hooked.

Evidence

Entrepreneurship is the future of the econ-omy, or rather, it’s the present already.But one question that is important at this stage is: regardless of all the hype and the entire buzz around entrepreneurship, do numbers actually add up? In a paper ti-


tled Who Creates Jobs? Small vs. Large vs. Young, they came to the conclusion that:“Young firms have been shown to be a more important source of net job creation than incumbent firms.”Enterprises are leading the way for a new economy where you don’t make mon-ey out of thin air, but create a product, a technology or a service that brings about a positive impact on society. This is the knowledge-based economy of today, and it’s not only happening in the US. It’s hap-pening everywhere, and the sooner you realize it and get on board, the better off you will be!

Some would ask: Why Entrepreneurship in Business? Why not just the good old cor-porate track?

1. Technology is making more and more jobs obsolete, and unless you’re constantly challenging yourself to dive in new fields, join new ventures and launch new prod-ucts, you’ll fall far behind. Sitting at the same office desk for the next 20 years is a professional suicide!

2. A lot of young people are discontent with the corporate world because of their profit based business ethic, and the only way to force a change is by leading and establishing ventures that don’t put profit only in the center, but also care about cus-tomers, the environment and the quality of the product.

3. Startups are Independent, Innovative and Flexible. Large corporations take time to adapt to the Market, to identify venues for growth, but if you’re a 5 members team living in a garage or operating from your dorm, you can easily pivot and change to fit the market, making money along the way.

Do not settle for average

Our days are numbered. We will not live forever; we will all die at some point. If you are going to spend the next 40 years do-ing the same thing, living the same routine: eating, sleeping, working in an office and then die, then what made your life worth it when there are 6.5 Billion other people doing the same thing?


M O H A M E D A M I N E B E L A R B I

You are young, full of energy and pas-sionate: go explore the world, create new things, do crazy stuff, be adven-turous, make everyday worth it and do things that matter. Ask yourselves: What will I do if I was not afraid?Once you start thinking like this, you are on your way to becoming a kick-ass entrepreneur. The world will open up for you, possibilities will become endless. Entrepreneurship will become your new religion.

Conclusion

Entrepreneurship is pushing the lim-its of what is possible everyday. From Space exploration to 3D printing, noth-ing is immune from Entrepreneurs. Creative and innovative ideas will al-ways be welcomed in any field, the question is, are you brave enough to take the risk to explore new opportu-nities for growth?You are the future, and as such, you have a responsibility to make this world a better place to live in for you and for the next generation. Entrepreneurship is the key for you to drive the econ-omy forward in a meaningful manner. You make jobs, once again, something that people enjoy rather than some-thing people have to do. You can bring ideas back into the spotlight instead of letting profit dictate how a company is run. Entrepreneurship is the solution to make businesses socially relevant, solving problems that matter and help-ing create a positive change. You have the skills, the passion, now just decide whether you want to let the entre-preneur within you make great things happen. You’re the future, so act like it!

‘’ PRINCESS’’ Collection Spring Summer 2014 by DURÉ COUTURE.

Starring: Laura Gadea Model & Host. Location: Sabatini Gardens of the Royal Palace.

Credits:

Fashion Film & Shooting:Terry EsparzaAssistant Fashion Films & Shooting: Raúl Adell

Creative Director: Javier DuréGeneral Production: Norma Friedmann

Make-Up: Eva SanvivasHairdresser: Vicente Ropero

Styling and Costume: Patricia MorenoJewelry for the head: ‘DURÉ COUTURE’ Métaux

Special Thanks: Amytouchaccessories (Flower Headband & crochet bracelets)

Christophe GuillarmeE L I T E P R O F I L E

In our tradition to feature designers from around the world who are making waves and reimagining how trends are set, we went on conducting an inter-

view with Christophe Guillarmé, a French designer whose collections and genius have traveled the world back and forth, leaving a powerful print on the world of fashion and design. Our first encounter with Christophe was when our brand am-bassadors in France attended the launch of Christophe’s latest collection, Miss Pol-ly. Now why Miss Polly you may ask?

“I was obsessed with the late 60’s movie “Who are you Polly Maggoo” realized by photographer William Klein. It’s a sto-ry about a love affair involving a model. Like William, who has no trouble un-leashing his creative genius,I just wanted to create some unbridled girly silhouettes made for a contem-porary Barbarella. For this collection, apart from the girl in the movie, I was also thinking of the famous and fabulous model Twiggy, her great style and unique baby face with that catchy cat eye make-up.” Being a designer is no easy task. Staying on top of the latest trends, being aware of the most miniscule details and turning an imaginary ideals into a piece of fab-ric that communicates all those feelings you want to channel, well, that requires a lot of work, and Christophe Guillarmé is sparing no effort in that regard!

In fashion, what matters most is timing according to Christophe. Every minute, every second counts. And what usual-ly end up happening is that you get in-spired not every Monday or every first of the month, but it comes at random times, and if you don’t act quick enough to transform that inspiration into a palpa-ble collection, you might miss on the op-portunity since new seasons, new fashion trends and new styles take place and may turn your inspiration into an obso-lete concept. It’s a whole new framework that you have to learn to work within.

“6 months is not enough to turn all my ideas into collections and stunning dress-es. Sometimes I have to give up on a certain concept; sometimes I have to postpone it to the next season. But the secret is to always be positive and never get frustrated with these hurdles.”

Christophe Guillarmé works hard, but the cliché schedule of successful people doesn’t hold when it comes to Christo-phe. This is something we need to under-stand and apply in our lives, otherwise blindly following what we read and hear about successful people’s work ethic and patterns may not always hold true for us.

You don’t have to wake up at 6 am in order to be successful, but you have to have a work pattern that makes you most productive, and for Christophe, it’s waking up late and staying up past bed time.


“My day never starts really early as I’m more of an evening person. I ‘m in my workspace until 9 or 10 pm every day. Before 6pm I’m taking care of the busi-ness and marketing side of my brand, which takes most of the hustle, but af-terwards I let my imagination run wild since the office is quieter and my phone rings less than 2000 times an hour! This is my creative period of the day. This is when magic happens.”

Yes, magic, and not the kind of complex magic that many designers want you to believe is behind their stunning fashion collections. For Christophe Guillarmé, less is more, following on the footsteps of Da Vinci: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”.

“I’m trying to say more in using less ar-tifice, to create a silhouette that looks simply beyond.” Simplicity also defines Christophe’s future plans for his brand. “I will first expand my Women’s line to more casual daily looks and accesso-ries.”

But if you’re doing well already, you may just as well take your work to the next level and dive into new fields. Diver-sification is key in any enterprise, and Christophe understands this well.

“I’m dreaming of designing shoes! May-be in the near future as my successful luggage line has been making waves for the past 2 years, so it’s just a matter of time before proposals start flowing in. But one thing is for sure, I’m not ready yet to enter menswear. Frankly, design-ing for women is way more fun, more creative and edgy.”

Christophe Guillarmé is a visionary, someone whose young age didn’t pose a problem and never was an obstacle in his quest for success. Why? Because when you love what you do, when you are passionate about your work, nothing can stop you.

“I am a workaholic. I love what I do! I don’t like fashion because of what peo-ple think it is: It’s not all red carpets, openings, flashy guests and flowing champagne. Fashion is a tough job, and if you are not motivated to wake up every morning and work hard to make things happen, then you’re not cut out for this. But as much stress as this job has, I steam off by having a great time with friends as well; I love laughing and spending quality time with people around me. In general, I’m someone who doesn’t take thinks too seriously, I just love living and creating beautiful things along the way.Whether it is my personal or profession-al life, I really don’t think too much, I do my best, I try to express myself via my creations. If it works, I continue, If not, then I still don’t give up.”

Looking back at Christophe’s path, we understand that circumstances some-times play a role in determining where you will get in life. That random encoun-ter, that unforeseen opportunity, that miraculous event, the list goes on, but in the case of Christophe, it was all about regulation and the state of the market.

“I started my work independently at the beginning of the year 2000, when the fashion world was not as regulated as today. At that time we could make some

mistakes, there was a kind of tolerance and craziness in creation. Today with the crisis hitting all sectors hard, it is be-coming competitive and ruthless! What I mean is, I was lucky to start at a young age because I had plenty of time to ex-perience, learn, fail and experiment. To-day, the fashion world is not as forgiving, and the slightest mistake can get you in trouble.”

To conclude, it would be insane to miss on the chance to ask Christophe about his insights on the Middle Eastern fash-ion market, and whether he has some secret plans to set foot in the nearby malls in Dubai or Doha.

“I think that despite the globalization, the middle-eastern fashion is keeping its identity well. I mean those vivid colors and intricate embroideries, the magical mix between traditional and contem-porary designs; this is what makes this part of the world so charming, so exotic and so rich in fashion concepts. It is also worth noting that Middle Eastern cus-tomers are aware of the latest trends in the market. I remark that my costumers in Doha and Dubai for example are super

edgy and ask for the latest trends! They have a wonderful grasp of the market and know well what is hot in China or what’s popular in Europe. My fascination with Middle Eastern fashion is the rea-son why my designs are mixing orien-tal touches with occidental shapes. But beyond fabrics and embroideries, my creations, wherever they are worn or dis-played, have a message behind them:Tolerance, glamour and fun. This is fash-ion for me.”


JENNY ALEKSIAFELINE BEAUTY

I B R A H I M N A J I

From the beautiful alleys of Sao Paulo to the dreamlike heavens of Mo-naco lies the gorgeous Jenny Aleksia, who embodies the combination of elegance and sophistication, giving her that unique edge of unbrit-tled beauty, a wild feline allure that you can’t miss on.

Jenny started working on her modeling career a couple of years back as she simultaneously took on high school and other commitments. Modeling was a venue to relax, explore her body further and spend quality time in front of the camera lenses. So unlike other girls, she wasn’t in it for the fame, for the money or any other superficial reason, but simply because she enjoyed it. She enjoyed the fulfilling sensation of just being herself in front of the camera, showcasing her most unique facial features with passion, love and devotion, taking modeling to a whole new level.

Stépane Rodriguez Delavega

Bruno French Riviera

Stépane Rodriguez Delavega

NOOR WAZWAZShe Would Stop At Nothing

It’s already hard to make it in life with all the obstacles and hardships paving the way to success, but these hardships become even more relevant when you happen to be a

woman, Muslim, covered and living in the USA. It’s as if you hit the jackpot in the “How can my life get any harder” drama show! Well, meet the lucky winner: Noor Wazwaz!

Want to spice up the story? Noor’s dream, and she’s well on her way to achieve it, is to be-come a news anchor in a US TV channel. FULL-HOUSE!

Noor’s journey towards journalism started a while back, actually a long while back when she was still a kid staring at the Oprah Win-frey’s show, and smiling at the prospects that she could, and would, be the next big star of American TV.

Fast forward a few years and Noor graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in May 2013 from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She was also a member of UIC’s Honors College. Noor had a hard time staying away from her passion, as going for journalism wasn’t making her fami-ly and relatives jump with enthusiasm. If you want to be a good daughter or son in an Arab context, go for engineering or medicine. Well Noor went for the latter, but things never felt right.

“I always had a passion for journalism since high school and even before that. I was a part of the newspaper club in high school. I was so excited and eager to start college that I gradu-ated a year early in order to get to experience college life. Going into college, I knew I wanted to go into journalism but I was strongly dis-couraged because Muslims were not favored

in Western Media. So I decided to pursue a career in the medical field since that was what my family and surrounding thought most ap-propriate for me.

I took all the chemistry, biology, psychology and science classes I could. I started doing my observation hours at clinics, hospitals, and nursing homes. I even got an interview at one of the top Occupational therapy doctoral pro-grams in the nation, but I declined because that was not where my heart was. I dreaded going to hospitals and it honestly really affect-ed me because I was doing something I wasn’t passionate about. I simply was unhappy, so I decided to do something about it.

I ended up applying for an internship with one of the top radio stations here in Chica-go- B96. I loved every second of it. I loved the fast paced environment, the media, and the chaos. I felt that this is where I belonged and from then on I decided I was going to pursue a career in journalism. It was too late for me to change my major because it was my last se-mester in college- so I decided I was going to do my Masters in Journalism.

I took a year off school for personal reasons and I am currently teaching first grade at an Islamic school. This however did not stop me from getting involved in journalism one way or another. I created and established a broadcast-ing club at the school I was teaching at. Many of the kids have parents that care mainly about the sciences and math, when really, reading, languages, arts and literature are also very important. I wanted the students to know that there are other career paths they can choose to follow rather than the pre-determined ca-reers that are chosen for them by their parents.

I also wanted the children to be educated not only by reading books but by exploring the world around them and to discover what is taking place in countries around the globe. It has been a great success so far.

I am also working on an independent docu-mentary that highlights my journey into be-coming a news anchor/ TV talk show host. I have had many great opportunities, including conducting interviews with Mohammad Assaf, Yahya Hawa, Dr. Tariq Ramadan and Maher Zain. I was even invited to interview Tyrese Gibson.”

For a covered Muslim Arab female living in the USA, making your way to the top is almost mission impossible, but with perseverance and persistence, anything is possible. The secret for Noor is to not focus on your disadvantag-es, don’t claim that you can’t make it because of this or that, instead hustle, work hard and improve along the way. Never put the focus on your gender or background, but on your tal-ents and skills. These will always pay off at the end!

This philosophy and outlook on life is pushing many out there to start looking up to Noor, following on her path and facing life’s hurdles with temerity and strength.

“I have received tons of messages and emails from many people who look up to me and this truly is humbling. I am not perfect and I do not have all the answers. I, myself, am still learning and still have so much to learn. But it makes me incredibly happy that I am able to reach out and share my experiences with others. And I hope I am inspiring others to do what they love because a person doing something they don’t like is one too many.”

Noor Wazwaz understands that success can-not be accomplished without scars and pains. She also understands that trying to do every-thing on your own is simply not possible. There is no such thing in life as being captain Ameri-ca, you have to rely on others, ask for help and reach out to people around you. Here comes the power of networking!

“Without networking I would not have accom-

plished anything. Networking is what it’s all about! Take advantage of every single person you meet. For those that are still in college, your professors are the best people to build a relation-ship with and to keep in contact with. I was one of those students who would stay after class or visit professors during their office hours just to talk. It plays a huge role in the long run, and if not, you have nothing to lose!”

After hearing the story of Noor, we couldn’t help but ask her what advices would she give to females who want to be as successful, and here is the recipe that Noor prepared for us:

1. Set your goals and WORK towards them. Focus on your goals and don’t let any noise distract you.2. People will hate whether you succeed or fail, so it is up to YOU and only YOU to decide whether or not you want to succeed.3. Network, network, network!4. Realize that there is always room to grow. You are always learning so be open-minded!5. Be a well-rounded individual. Read and educate yourself.

If there is anything you should take from Noor Wazwaz’s path to success, it’s that our most valu-able assets are our dreams, and if we don’t stick to them, if we don’t hold them tight and if we don’t achieve them or die trying, then we have nothing left to live for.

“Many people have discouraged me from pursuing my dream. Even the people closest to me thought I would not succeed in this career. Why? Because I am Muslim, and because I am an Arab. I will not allow myself to be silenced in fear of what people think of me, nor will I ever al-low anyone to draw the line of what I can and cannot accomplish.

I will pursue my dreams with or without anyone’s acceptance, and I will be a news anchor on American television.”

Noor will be starting her masters in journalism at Northwestern’s school of journalism, Medill, this summer.


KANYE WESTNOT A DOUCHE AFTER ALL

I know it sounds crazy, I mean after all the shit we´ve seen him doing, glorifying him-self, humiliating Taylor Swift at the VMA awards, pooping crazy tweets and snapping

on several radio stations, it´ll be difficult to see Kanye from ANY perspective, other than from the “him being an asshole” perspective. With that being said, I took the time to watch and analyze his “speeches” in various occasions as well as evaluate them from an entrepreneurial perspective, giving his personality and charac-ter a twist, highlighting his great, yet unique, entrepreneurial traits. Lets get to it.

In 2007 Kanye attended the Wendy Williams Show, where he took the liberty to say “ I am the number one human being in music. That means any person that’s living or breathing is number two.” Obviously this made the public go crazy, giving him a bunch of “constructive” criticism towards his explicit state of mind and his misuse of his first amendment. Now yes, when throwing a statement like that (which is above the usual to say the least), you have to, not only have the guts, but the equipment to back that statement up with, and with 2 AMA awards, 21 Grammy Awards, 4 Billboard Mu-sic Awards and 197 other honors, he definitely stands tall amongst the paramount figures within the music industry. Now you can keep on asking yourself the same questions: if he´s sane, normal or if he´s got any type of filter between his brain and his mouth – or you can applaud his entrepreneurial and outgoing traits that makes or breaks an individuals’ path to success.

It’s his outgoing confident self-assured men-tality that has led him to attain the essential mindset one has to have in order to make it within the music industry or any other in-dustry for that matter. It’s that attitude that

makes him stand out amongst the crowd; it’s that boldness that has made him whom he is today, rejecting the societal norms, doing the unexpected, performing the extraordinary and stating the craziest declarations that make him come across as crazy, outrageous or even disrespectful. It’s his entrepreneurial mentality that has made him walk against the stream, achieving the unachievable. It´s Kanye’s risk-taking innovative approach to his charac-ter that has made him and his name the global brand it is today. Now yes, some people (a lot of people) might argue that you don’t have to be so “full of yourself” in order to achieve the level of success that he has. I mean look at the other pioneers within his industry; Be-yoncé, Jay-Z, Eminem, Snoop Dog (now called Snoopzilla), they never had to cross the line Kanye crossed in order to attain the success they have today.

But you’re wrong, they all believe that they are, in fact, the best and their track records speak for themselves. They all believed in themselves, they all value their individualities to the extent where they understand that they can do any-thing. They all attained that entrepreneurial at-tribute that made them walk the grounds they march down today, only difference is, Kanye West is outspoken about it.

But Kanye doesn’t only work magic in the studio, but in the fashion industry as well. In 2009 West collaborated with the giant sports figure Nike to release his new shoe collection Air Yeezys. During the same year he designed his first shoe line for the world’s leading inter-national fashion line, Louis Vuitton, during his Paris Fashion Week. Now these are just two of his major collaborations with the great-est and most exclusive fashion brands in the world.

And of course, with him being Kanye West, he got some harsh critical commentaries from the world’s largest publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and a bunch of other influential publications. Now put yourself in his shoes, do you understand how many individuals would have broken down, mentally, extinguishing their innovational spark they have going on, if major publications like The Wall Street Journal dumped, criticized, and hated on every single product you showcased in Paris? Investing millions of dollars into what you believed in, spending thousands of hours working on it, just to see it crumble to the floor.

Yet it’s his resilient mentality and personality that makes him un-breakable, that makes him endure all the corporate and commercial bat-tles he´s been facing. With that being said, these may seem like everyday struggles for the rich and famous, a battle that is obvious in the eyes of the beholder, assuming that they´re able to fight through it, because well, there are worse problems “normal” people face, like fi-nancial burdens or family related complications, reflecting the “celebrity issues” as “luxury com-plications” that really lead to more publicity, enhancing their glorified figure. Justin Bieber, Paris Hilton and even the king of pop, Mikael Jackson, have been tarred down and publicly exposed, crashing their careers, personal life and fame into the ground potentially. These are a few of the so called superstars who couldn’t handle the heat, who couldn’t take the public pressure that lead to legal prosecutions, finan-cial setbacks and even personal family split-ups. Now yes, West has been exposed several times to the public eye, revealing family relat-ed frictions, health problems and even gone through stimulated made-up stories, but never has that affected his peak performance, as he continues to produce great beats, unbelievable statements and “foster” surreal names, because I know I wasn’t the only one who thought the name “North”, the name he gave his baby girl, was absolutely epic! It’s this essential entrepre-neurial trait that keeps him steady and resilient. It’s his strong mental state of mind that keeps him going, that keeps him fighting through and doing anything to reach his desired goal – ded-icated, devoted and faithful to what he is creat-ing.

Now before I let you go, lets leave on a more “world loving” note because, yes, Kanye West

has given and devoted a lot of his time, efforts and financial resources to those in need – he´s a philanthropist. That’s right, put away his mi-crophone, the trash-talk and his bling bling outfits, and you’ll find a man who’s fighting the war against poverty, hunger and uplifting deprived people. He´s supported over 20 dif-ferent charities and foundations, including; The Common Ground Foundation, Doctors Without Borders, The Human Rights Watch and the list just keeps on going. Through his personal foun-dation, the Dr. Donda West Foundation, which was named after his deceased mother, is the one closest to the heart. A foundation with the mission to battle dropout and illiteracy rates, while partnering with community organizations to provide underprivileged kids access to music education. How is this seen as an entrepreneur-ial trait you may ask? All successful entrepre-neurs, all self-made individuals who have made it to the top, earning between seven to eight digits, who are financially stable and are living the good life should give back to the public and to the world (count it as CSR if you may). Giving the next generation a shot at becoming the next big thing, giving them an opportunity that they can thrive from and flourish by. In-spiring and encouraging the boy who wasn’t that good at math, the girl who was seen as hyperactive and the kid who had lost all hope because his or her parents couldn’t afford to pay for high school. Spreading the word that you don’t have to be an A+ student in order to live your dreams, teaching them that you don’t have to enroll in an IVY-league in order to make it. Teaching them that, they can and will do anything they want, as long as they set their minds to it.

Kanye West may act like a douche, sound like a douche and look like a douche, but really, he isn’t a douche. Because no matter how you twist and turn his vocalizations, manipulate his actions and absorb the commercial gossip that is unloaded against him, you´ll never be able to deny the fact that he is an influential char-acter who has modernized the music industry, had the guts to pick on fights with one of the world’s leading corporations and do what he does best, telling the world, literally, that there is only one Kanye West. And yes, he has done some inappropriate stuff, who hasn’t!?

1 MONTH OFFLINEAnd Still Alive!

Social media has become a part of our lives and daily schedules, equally as essen-tial as eating or sleeping. Social media is at the forefront of the ongoing digital rev-olution and we have come to accept Face-book and other social media platforms as a social standard.

A month ago, I made the decision to give up social media for 21 days. To put things in context, let me tell you about my social media addiction and how bad it had be-come by the time I made the decision to abstain from it for a period of three weeks. In a 3-day experiment that I carried out on myself previously, I discovered that I check

my Facebook, Instagram, Vine, Twitter and Snapchat accounts 62 times per day. I used three different devices to check these so-cial media sites and spent anything be-tween 40 seconds to 15 minutes per log in. On an average night, I would wake up at least three times to check my newsfeed on Facebook and to respond to messages. This is mainly due to the time difference between British Columbia (where I cur-rently live) and Egypt (my home country). It should come as no surprise that my col-lege professors constantly commented on how I was always distracted by social me-dia in class. My friends made fun of how I Snapchat and Instagram everything that

happens around me, eventually coming up with the popular statement: “It didn’t happen if it is not on Snapchat” (or on Instagram). I don’t recall giving up social media for more than 48 hours in the past three years and I knew that a 21-day chal-lenge would be incredibly hard.

Well, here I am, reporting that I’m still alive and that the experience I had over the past 21 days has been absolutely eye-opening and life changing.

By giving up social media, I had hoped to create more value in my life, to quit hoarding information that was irrelevant, to appreciate the time that I spent with friends, and to make sure I made the most out of every moment before I even thought of sharing it with others.

The first couple of days of my challenge were full of withdrawal symptoms – I would open a new tab in my browser and start typing ‘facebook.com’ without even thinking about it. I missed my constant entertainment from Snapchat and Vine. However, things improved dramatically after the first week. I forgot all about Twit-ter, Vine, Instagram and Snapchat within days. I still missed Facebook, mostly be-cause it came up in conversation all of the time.“Hey, did you see the picture Kjell tagged you in.. oh, nevermind.”

I felt like I was unable to engage in con-versations that I would usually be the one initiating because I had not seen the lat-est trending video or read the article that everyone was talking about.

It was only towards the second week of my challenge when I started realiz-ing how the great value of connectivity that social media provides is superficial.

There is a shift in the dynamics of how information flows through social media platforms. Though invisible, neglecting this shift could prove to be problematic. Facebook tracks our preferences and re-defines visible content using invisible al-gorithms to edit our newsfeed. It creates filter bubbles of our personal unique uni-verse of information purely based on pre-vious cyber interactions. I feel that I am unable to decide what enters this bub-ble and what my newsfeed abandons. It shows us what it thinks we want to see but not necessarily what we need to see. And that, in my opinion, is not a true rep-resentation of connectivity. My time off of social media made me think of the people I had not heard from in a while, making me realize how my newsfeed has been reinforcing my connection with a specific group of people based on some-thing like my geo-location or my history of interaction with them. I currently live in British Columbia, Canada but I lived in Egypt, Johannesburg and San Francis-co at different times in my life resulting in the accumulation of 1,863 friends on Facebook, each of whom I know person-ally. However, my newsfeed has been only showing me a select few of them. While Facebook has enabled me to build my own social network, navigating this net-work in a meaningful and fulfilling way is increasingly difficult.

Ok! The 21 days are over.

What’s my plan now? Well, I’m back on social media. It’s nice to finally see “that picture that Kjell tagged me in”. But I don’t want to go back to my old routines. I am now able to enjoy spending time on my own without feeling the urge to run to my security blanket and aimlessly scroll up and down the newsfeed of my vari-

ous social media accounts. I realized that the constant connection I believed social media provides does not neces-sarily keep me away from feeling lone-ly. The opposite is true. Being unable to appreciate being alone has resulted in making me more vulnerable to be-ing lonely once my phone dies or when I am unable to pick up the free Wi-Fi around.

Social media feeds us the same con-tent, over and over again. Rather than suggesting resources that we may not initially come across, we are provided with material that we are already fa-miliar with, and our comfort zones are reinforced. We are unable to meet new people, learn about new trends, and gain access to information we know nothing about. Hence, rather than so-cial media allowing us to connect with the world in its entirety, it rather works on emphasizing our own smaller per-sonal worlds.

A M M A R K A N D I L

Every season I wait excitedly for all the trends that appear on the streets, on the mannequins, and on the pages of my (multiple) prized fashion magazines. And

every season I find a trend that changes my life, either for the better, or by blinding me forever.

There comes a certain amount of frustration with new trends, either because they aren’t realistic outside of the runway, or as our fashion-savvy friends would call them, they are too “couture”, because they look amazing, only (emphasis on only) when worn by airbrushed-looking mod-els, because they are so beautiful we could CRY, or simply because we want to scream out at the horrendous crime against our eyes that the trendsetters just committed. Paraphrasing from Monica Geller, “The person who set this trend HATES EYES and wants to see them DIE.”

Now, to each his or her own, but seeing as the frustration is killing me, I mean shops don’t al-low me to kiss (or hug for that matter) whatev-er I find beautiful and people don’t appreciate me screaming, “My eyes! My eyes!” (Pheobe style) whenever I see something I do not like, it is healthy to find an outlet for your frustrations. And so I will.

HUGS AND KISSES:

Espadrilles -- I love these. I mean I am truly, head over heels in love with them. Why? Because they are perfect. They are the perfect combination between airy for my feet, and actually enable walking. I have nothing against sandals; I actually love them, but try walking for a couple of hours in sandals and tell me what they do to your feet (if they do nothing, please send me the brand name, because that would be just heaven). Es-padrilles however, in addition to their beautiful name, which makes my tongue ecstatic, are not

only cute and easy to wear – they are also easy to take off and walk barefoot in the sand, and they live through water-attacks. Perfection, I tell you.

MY EYES!

Bermuda Shorts – for women. What? Why so unflattering? Even the most gorgeous model (whom I will envy forever) did not look at all enviable in them. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for dressing for comfort if that is what you want, and I am also all for appropriating men’s dress into women’s – but this is not pretty. If it is com-fort that these shorts seek, then okay, but no need to treat them as a fashion staple. And if it is to add a masculine touch to a female then I ask, what happened to a baseball cap or oversized shirt? No. Just really – No.

HUGS AND KISSES (AGAIN):

Turbans – now that is a trend I can get on board with. Ever since Blair Waldorf brought them back, headbands have been popping in and out of the trend scene. And while I love a cute headband, I believe, they don’t exactly go with everything. Turbans however, are the headbands’ younger sister – chic-er, edgier, and more ver-satile. You can wear a turban to the beach, with your sundress and flipflops, then throw it off right before you get into the water (or don’t). You can wear an embellished turban with a cocktail dress (cue: lace turbans). And you can definitely wear one with a biker jacket. Dyed hair? Well, ba-bam, Ms. Turban can hide your roots until you retouch them. Bad hair week? The turban is here to minimize the damage. And so on. I swear by them – I hope I never have to see the turban leave the scene.

SUMMERFASHIONSUMMERFASHION

Disclaimer: Do not blind everyone in a five-mile radius by clashing too many patterns – pat-terned turban, solid clothes.

MY EYES! MY EYES!

Sock-Sandal Combination- Disclaimer: Are you Rihanna (preferably in Paris)?

If your answer is no, then please do not wear socks with sandals. Please. I understand that the socks are really pretty, or that you are self-conscious about your feet, or that you just want to wear socks with sandals. But in truth, I don’t get it. The whole point of sandals is that your feet can breath, your toes can wig-gle, and we can SEE skin. Now, if you want to cover your feet put on a pair of flats, pumps, sneakers, anything - but not sandals. There is not much I can write (screaming is the most effective expression) about socks and sandals, it’s like having to write about why we should use punctuation (and please, do not even try to argue that you could read my whole article without stopping for a breather).

However, if your answer is yes, as in, yes you are Rihanna (maybe even in Paris) then: I do not know how you pulled it off but hats off to you.

WARMER, WARMER!

Socks and Closed-toe-dainty-heels Combina-tion – Now, I’m not very sure about this. I kind of love it, but I slightly hate it. I think I prefer it when the colors are dark and mostly the same,

it just looks really cheeky and gives and edge to a dainty heel. But the red heels and phos-phoric green socks – definitely a horrifying moment.

Reminder: No one’s opinion matters, mine included, if you are comfortable and happy wearing what you are wearing and buying what you are buying. And to the espadrilles/tur-ban-wearing people out there, woohoo us!

M A R I A M E L Z O G H B Y

IN LOVE OR OBSESSED?

I B R A H I M N A H I

We´ve all fallen in love at one point in time, but rarely been in love. We´ve all had the mental and

emotional capability of sharing our passionate love with someone else, but rarely does it last. When it comes to relationships, things just don’t add up the way we expect them to because there will always be a coexisting love/hate relationship when it comes to at-taching yourself to someone else; with the possibilities of ending up with a broken heart, yet loving that emotion-al and physical friction you’re attain-ing, ending up thinking that it’s worth it. It can feel like the most amazing, most intoxicating, most horrible and excruciating feeling in the world. But even though you spend your mornings thinking about what he did last night, your afternoons worrying about why she did what she did and your eve-nings crying yourself to sleep because you´ve go the illusion that you love them more than they love you, you still can’t seem to let go.

So if the relationship you’re currently in doesn’t make you happy nor satisfies your emotional and physical needs, why is it so damn hard to let go, and move on, with the hope of finding an-other man or woman, who are, in fact, worthy of your love? Is it that you just love them too much? Do you feel like you’ve spent too much time with them to the point where you can forgive the unforgivable or is that you’re ob-sessed? Obsessed? Yes, obsessed with the idea that you can’t leave him or her, not because you don’t know how, but simply because you can’t. Now there is a lot of depth into that state-ment so let me break it down to you.

A lot of us confuse the feeling of be-ing in love with the feeling of being obsessed, because well, they are so emotionally similar. Both carry the characteristics of being attached to something. Both carry the routinely habit of being with someone, thinking about someone, wanting someone –

no matter what. Here is where the ob-sessive characteristics differ; It equips you with this emotional certainty that you can’t, in fact, live without an indi-vidual. It carries that obsessive desire to “possess” due to the unbelievably strong attraction you´re feeling, it empowers the emotional liability that you are un-able to see nor accept failure or rejec-tion, even though it’s starring you right in the face.

The “problem” doesn’t really lie within our hearts, but is deeply rooted in our heads, with the constant rationalization that “It has to be love if I can’t think of anyone else”, well I hate to break it down to you, but that’s not really how it works. You see, “love based” relationships are established on a foundation of lust, wanting an individual driven by the fad-ing impulse of desiring an intimate rela-tionship. Now whether that fading lust can turn into love by getting to know the individual’s personal characteristics and individualities is another story, the main motivation is; what foundational layer of attraction did you arrange in order for you to be in your current state of mind? Are you in Love or are you Obsessed?

While I believe that love-based relation-ships are structured on the “ground-work” of lust, I also believe that ob-sessive relationships are based on the preoccupied fixated mentality of posses-sion, almost like a materialistic posses-sive drug that, in fact, is present in the majority of our generation in some way or form. It’s based on the mental fear of dis-attachment from someone due to your fanatic self-protective mechanism that tells you “you can’t leave the individual you’re currently with”, because if you do, you´ll break down. I know this all might sound

a little too pushed since, well, I’m not a shrink, but there is no better educator than experience in itself. You see, as love is founded on lust while obsession origi-nates from the desire of possession, they still have a lot of in common. Both have the misleading power to emotionally drag you into intimate situations. Both have the misleading power to psycho-logically enhance an emotion to strato-spheric horizons. But in contrast to lust, which usually fades away with time, ob-session gets worse with time, as more time and effort is invested into an un-healthy obsessive relationship.

Now the trick is to be able to realize whether you’re in love or obsessed, the key is to confront your action and habits in order to assess your current state of mind – which really is easier said than done, but lets get to it. If all of your time and efforts are going into satisfying someone else’s needs and desires or in chasing another individual then you’re at your own risk of becoming obsessed. If one partner is always to please the other or if there are no considerations or compromises then it’s most proba-bly based on obsessive feelings rather than love. You see, actual love, real love is nurturing, real love helps individuals grow and flourish into a “better” version of themselves. In contrast, obsession is weakening and affects the psyche of the partner, leading him or her into dark and blind paths, making him or her extend their actions to desperate measures.

Now with that being said, what triggers this obsessive mentality, what sparks this crazy condition? Is it a “disorder” that wears off amongst people or is it something we inherit? Honestly, I’m not completely sure, since it is such a com-plex mentality that is constructed in a

bunch of different ways based on each partner’s personal experience. But what I know for sure is that, we all take the same track to that obsessive state of mind, we all follow the same founda-tional road to obsession, it’s only when you cross that point of no return when each individualistic obsession flourishes out its own path. Objectively speaking, putting all obsessions on the same level of “craziness”, the mother of all relation-ship-based obsession comes from the desire of wanting what you cannot have. That’s what makes you cheat on your (ex) girlfriend, that’s what makes you feel that “I don’t know why I’m so into him/her” feeling and that is what makes you so obsessed over having something you simply do not have, be it physical intimacy or be it emotional affection.

Now obviously not all relationships out there have that obsessive characteristic, there are a bunch of healthy relation-ships where both partners are equally engaged in their various roles, which is the key to a non-obsessive relation-ship; Balance. You see; balance is what keeps the equilibrium of the relation-ship steady. Balance is what evens out the emotional and physical circulation between the two partners, giving them a stable “give and take” relationship, which eliminates that obsessive state of mind.

So if you feel like you have lost yourself, like you’re a weakened version of your true self, leave. If you’re always attempt-ing to please your partner without them doing the same to you, break it up. If all of your life-decisions are based on the feelings and needs of your partner, sep-arate yourself from them, because if that is the case, you truly are obsessed.

PURSUIT OF HAPPINESSKNOW WHERE TO LOOK

I A G O R E Y

What is happiness? A very abstract concept, of course, but still a concept that so many philosophers

have theorized about and sought to syn-thesize along the centuries in a concrete definition, a kind of formula that allows us to finally achieve it. But the truth is, happiness is still, and will always be, a great mystery.

They say that the concept of “happi-ness” varies depending on who’s feel-ing or experiencing it - but is it really though? Some people would even go as far as saying that happiness is just a myth, a concept created in the collective minds of humanity that has ingrained itself into our nervous system.

I have absolutely no idea what the exact concept of happiness is, but I definitely know what makes me happy, what sat-isfies me and brings that emotional joy that puts a smile on my face and makes me feel that much more alive. It is the sensation of waking up in the morning with one goal in mind, with a mission to conquer, something that brings a pur-pose to my life, something that makes me jump out of bed, ready to defeat what ever stands in my way to success. But don’t take my word for it, it’s even

scientifically proven!

Research conducted by psychologist Viktor Frankl, at a nazi concentration camp, reflected in the book “Man’s Search for Meaning”, suggested that we are alive because we have a purpose to fulfil. Dr. Frankl found that those who had no family, who had no one to look after, had lost the will to live... and invari-ably died within two weeks. In contrast, there were other people who endured years of suffering and horror caring for a child in the camp, because other people depended on them, because there was someone out there who was waiting for him or her, because they had a mission to accomplish, and therefore they did-n´t die simply because they couldn´t. Happiness has to do with the concept of duty, with the “survival of the fittest” mentality, that makes you push that much harder to reach the goal you want to reach, and therefore feel that fulfil-ment that makes you happy.

Sometimes life takes you down paths you don’t want to go down. There are paths that make you feel blue and des-perate, that do not stimulate your pas-sion in the short run, but that unleashes the definition of happiness in the long rung. You see, the key word here is “pas-

sion”. Go with what you love, go with that “gut feeling” you always feel, not matter how bad or difficult it may seem. Don’t let anything or anyone take control of your life, your future, your job or even the car you drive. Don’t let anyone define your lifestyle. Be the painter of your masterpiece. If your passion is to sing, then sing! If you´re into art, then that’s what you’re supposed to do! Make your passion your livelihood because when you “choose a job you love, you´ll never have to work a day in your life”.

Today, we live in a multidimensional world that changes constantly - a world that offers so many possibilities and opportunities. It’s a complex and demanding world in which we have to learn to adapt and morph. Even the law of natural selection tells us that, not the strongest animal survives, but the one that is able to adapt to its surrounding, embracing and learning from its past, in order to excel in the pres-ent. And lets face it, happiness is truly just a choice, something we choose to feel, no matter what the scenario you’re facing. Happiness is available to anyone with the courage to live their dreams, without doubting or fearing their potential – no matter what anyone thinks or says!

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