An Instant Click

This post is still related tothe previous writing about a city’s personality.

I made a video of my few hours in Salzburg and I remembered there are a lot more that I wanted to see.

My memory jumped on a video I watched. An interior designer discusses how entering certain rooms will create a lovely atmosphere. It works like that because the five senses are being stimulated by the atmosphere of the room. It’s sending the signal to all your senses, so you’re saying that “it’s lovely here” without realising it. It’s the experience that tells you that you belong here.

After watching the whole video, my thought came to a few places right away :
Our living room at home with the kitchen view,
The tawaf area on the first floor has a direct view of Kaaba,
A few cities in Europe.

Salzburg is one of them. It’s an inexplicable feeling of instant click like Paris. Not every city will give you such a feeling. The second time in Paris, I still couldn’t hide the excitement, and any offer to return is always welcomed.

Not every city will do.

London is not. I love it gradually, slowly, as I know him. But, few other places in the UK do give this feeling, like Lake District and Bath.

Tokyo is not; it’s kind and heart-warming, but it doesn’t give me the feeling of wanting to return.
Seoul? Far from kind, let alone heartwarming. A place that is good enough to know.

Amsterdam is too short to feel anything. Porto is dear to my heart, but it’s far too extrovert for me. Munich takes a while to warm up, not an instant click.

Not every city will be compatible with you. Just like people.

Then, I found another video of a French woman living in England. Said that once she heard a French friend kept saying an English word “people pleaser” with French accent. That was when she realized there was no word of “people pleaser” in French. It was so alien for the French to be people-pleasers until they had no words for it.

Voila. It makes sense then why I feel so compatible with anything French.

Wait, this is a writing that came from compilations of videos that I watched. I still have the last one.

After that French video, another one related to it came. It says :

“You see, Islam doesn’t want you to be nice, believe it or not. Islam wants you to be kind. And there is a difference between both. See nice is pleasing others. You become a people pleaser. When you become a people pleaser, expect to be hurt a lot and walk over all the time. Nice is giving someone what they demand, regardless of whether it’s good or not for them. Kind is performing acts of goodness to someone, regardless whether they view it as something that they need or not”.

It adds another after so many reasons why Islam as a way of life is also compatible with me.

It shows also to how I parent. Some says making a 9 soon to be 10 yo kid to do chores and training before 7.45 school is too hard. But, I rarely listens to noise or advice, unless it comes from someone whose life I want to pursue or am heading to.

For me, I don’t need to be a nice parent. Being disciplined and consistent is my way to be kind to my daughter and her future self.

A memorable line from Amy Chua’s book :

“I didn’t care. I wasn’t fragile, like some Western parents. As I often said to the girls, “My goal as a parent is to prepare you for the future—not to make you like me.”

Another line that makes me feel an instant click.