Lead, Dream and Be Happy :-)

I've had a long and a heavy day, just like many other working days except the breadth and depth of conversations over lunch and dinner today. Interestingly, lunch and dinner were at the same restaurant - Garuda Padang Cuisine at Bideford Road, but with different set of guests.

Over lemak nangka (I hope the spelling is correct), sambal telor, ikan kering and ais cendol, we attempted to rescue a school that is currently overwhelmed by expectations from patrons and parties. The lady who found and currently runs the school are struggling with external demands and organisational challenges. At the end of a lengthy update, we concluded the best advice to offer are a) that the interest of the students must be first and foremost over any other considerations, and b) a management team of competent professionals must be formed to help run the school. The discussion then moved to other local issues, including the leadership deficit that exists in organisations which we are familiar with. I am not sure whether we are short of leaders, but certainly leadership for da'wah requires serious attention.

Alhamdulillah, despite the concerns over leaders and leadership, we have among the younger colleagues and tertiary students, good and high potential leaders for the future. Being young however, some require interpersonal skills and tact, to win the hearts of their peers and seniors (too). Admittedly it is not easy to please everyone - but everyone love someone who is gentle, gracious and good-natured. It may also be difficult to transfer such admirable skills and attributes other than by role modelling and perhaps, reflective self-critique.

Leaders and leadership will remain to be critical success factors for da'wah, organisations and human activity systems.

Dinner was longer and varied - both the food and the company. Seated around the table in an enclosed area are trainers of the Awqaf workshop, who have travelled from different countries to lead the various sessions. We had an Iranian, an American of Arab descent, a Kuwaiti and a Pakistani as our guests.

The conversation spanned over many issues and many cities - from food, state of the Muslim world, price of oil, Tehran, Cairo, Dubai, religions - in between good humour and laughter.

There were several interesting points exchanged during the conversations. I thought the following were worthy of reflection and deliberation:

The approach to view Islam as an expansion of other monothesistic religions, namely Judaism and Christianity. This approach implies recognition and acceptance of Judaism and Christianity, instead of nullification and rejection. I particularly like this approach and will give it more thought over time.

That many Muslim families are not happy, and at the same time pretend to be happy (and loving couples) when they are in public or among friends and relatives. This borders on hypocrisy, and is detrimental for the children, who knew that their parents are driving each other mad at home. Unhappy parents and families will raise unhappy children, and the vicious cycle goes on. This may be one of the causes of the difficult state that we are experiencing. Let's start a happy family movement :-)

And we have stopped dreaming .. We don't dream big things anymore. Perhaps because we are fire-fighting everyday, and caught up with the inside and now instead of the outside and future. Examples of dreamers who combined perspiration and aspiration to make their own unique contribution include Leonardo Da Vinci, who vowed "I shall become of the greatest artists the world has ever known and one day I shall live kings and walk with princes" at the age of 12, Napolean who spent long hours conquering Europe in his mind, dreaming of how he would lead his troops, and the Wright brothers who turned their dreams into aeroplanes.

Everything starts with a dream. Dreams are seedlings of realities. If you never have a dream. you'll never have a dream come true.

Lead, dream and be happy (family)!