Friday, July 10, 2015

The inevitable change...

We are all familiar with the saying that Change is the constant thing in the world.. Everything around us is changing whether we feel it or not.
The earth changes its position, the plants go from one transformation to another depending on the season, even our mood changes from one moment to another.
However, when you feel too many changes in short time frame, you feel like going crazy!
Is it good or bad? what will happen? how it will impact everything? too many questions relative to the degree of uncertainty.

Recently I'm facing lot of changes, both external and internal. I can't describe what i feel, for some I feel annoyed, for others i feel excitement and for the rest, i can't tell my feelings.
The logic way to go face these changes is to embrace them and to think positively how to cope. But this is easy thing to say than do. Many of the changes, that we know about them ahead, are like a cloud you see from distance but you don't know its effect until you are underneath it and it showers you or give you a shade or make you feel gloomy.

The most difficult change to face is the one inside you. You can feel it growing, this sense of feeling something different that is not the normal you. Maybe feelings you forgot them, ideas that were once inside your head but disappeared in the busy world or even long forgotten dreams.
You can't control them and you remember how it was like. you wonder, will it go away like the previous times or it will evolve. You might be even excited but then you may think to resist the change inside you because it will change everything around you.

Looking back in the past 5 to 10 years, i can see how I really changed till reaching this moment. It is a journey through time with lots of ups and downs. For sure this is life and you need to evolve from one stage to another but sometimes i don't recognize myself.
I believe that the most important thing i learned is to live the moment. The past is over, the future is unknown and unpredictable. The present is what we can feel and see but if we miss it, we miss living for the present won't come  back again.

I don't know what will happen tomorrow, next month or next year. I don't know what if the past didn't happen, where i would be know. The only thing I know is that it's enough thinking too much about all that and to enjoy the present as much as possible for you might plan everything and then one unforeseen detail happens that changes everything and throw your plans away.
You can't control or predict the future but you can control your current moment by choosing what to do or not to do.
Yes change is inevitable and to go through it you have to liberate yourself from everything then you can live the transformation with all your heart and mind.
Listen to yourself, to your feelings and recognize all the signs of change for then you can deal with it. Otherwise, it will surprise you when you are least ready.

Friday, January 16, 2015

ALU got Talent,,,

Yes, indeed, Alcatel-Lucent got many talents everywhere... and talent doesn't need to be unique or brilliant in something, talent could be doing a creative piece of art with a team.
This what I've experienced in the past few weeks. We received an announcement that ALU Egypt is organizing an ALU got Talent competition and asking everyone to participate. One of our colleagues plays guitar and we were encouraging him to participate but then it ended up to be all involved and compose a song with video clip!!

It was so much fun working on the song and also it took lot of efforts.. starting from thinking of what we wanted to say in the song. we wanted to draw the attentions to some situations that we are facing during our day to day work, in a sarcastic way. For each part of the song, a scene was played and filmed and the recording of the voice was done separately on a weekend at a colleague's home.

The beauty of this piece of art is that it is the result of team work even if we are no longer all together in the same teams due to the change of organizations. Each one contributed in one way or another even to the smallest details. This shows that the real talent is not being a unique or do something extraordinary but rather to build on each other.
I personally don't have a beautiful voice for singing, although i studied piano and music for years since my childhood. However, it didn't really matter because it is all the efforts brought together that made it really a success. I still don't have a great voice but now i know that i actually can sing and record a song and not just singing in my car when there is a traffic jam and i want to have fun while driving.
So, talking about the professional life, we can say the same. You don't have to come up with all the solution alone, we can all do it together if each one contributed with a part of the solution. If we apply it to the broader level, we can achieve greater things if we just believe and support each other.

Finally, our main message at the end of the song is: "Let's forget our problems, our gathering is the great asset. What we have in ALU, we will not find it outside. Our unity is what matters the most."
This is so true, because it is the spirit within the team and the company at a whole that makes us survive.. and this is the thing i like the most at ALU!!!

I would like to thank everybody who participated in the video.. Maybe at the beginning i was not that enthusiastic, but at the end i'm glad that i helped in it.
I'm really proud of all of us!!! Well done team.