Back to Work

By: Ali Anwar

Like many of you, I just returned to school after a week of rest and relaxation only to be thrown into the stress that accompanies midterm exams. I had an extremely unproductive first day back because my mind was still lost somewhere in the sand dunes of Qatar, where I went for Spring Break to visit my father. Through various conversations over lunch and quick exchanges of words in the hallways I learned that many of my peers were having just as much difficulty regaining a healthy rhythm of productivity as I was. With midterm exams right around the corner, all of this was happening at the least favorable of times.

No doubt, many of you are in the same situation. So how can we motivate ourselves to shift out of Spring Break mode and switch gears into our usual taking-care-of-business mentality?

The answer is in one word: inspiration. If you can take a single experience from your week off and manipulate it so that it inspires you to work with efficiency, you will be back on track.

Here’s an example of what worked for me:

This was the second time I visited Qatar – the first time I visited was ten years ago. Having spent the first twelve years of my life in the neighboring country of Saudi Arabia, I thought I knew exactly what to expect. However, as soon as I stepped out of the plane, I felt as if I was in an entirely new world. I spent the week exploring and sampling the local lifestyle, and I was positively astonished with what I saw.

The first thing that caught my attention was how beautifully diverse the population was. My father’s neighbor to the left was American, his neighbor to the right was French, and his neighbor across the street was Italian. I also found that I could hold a decent conversation with anyone in any of the three languages I speak (English, Urdu, and Arabic). This amazed me because it meant that nearly the entire population was bilingual.

Another thing that caught my attention was the gorgeous infrastructure prevalent in the city of Doha. Every building in the downtown skyline was a towering work of architecture that I would have otherwise thought would be impossible to engineer. Each road was surrounded by flowers and there was not a single piece of garbage to found anywhere.

Qatar is also the home to branches of some of America’s most prestigious universities such as Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, and Georgetown. The Qatar Foundation also provides interest-free loans to anyone who chooses to study at one of these colleges.

All of these things inspired me to conduct some research and learn more about Qatar. I found that it has the highest per capita GDP and the third-lowest unemployment rate in the world. This was an enormous transformation from the Qatar I saw ten years ago, and the first thought that came to mind was this: who was behind all this? In order for any group of people to be successful in the tasks they set out to complete, there must be the presence of strong leadership. The leaders in Qatar were brilliant in their ideas for the advancement of their nation. They invested in infrastructure, more profitable economic policies, and most importantly, in education.

After thinking about the fact that a handful of leaders were able to implement a system that would transform an entire nation into a place with one of the highest standards of living in the world over the course of ten years, regaining my work ethic seemed like a simple task. The idea is simple: watching people move mountains makes one’s own work seem like tossing a pebble.

As leaders, it is our responsibility to use our vision to transform something ordinary into something truly inspirational. Next time you turn on the TV, flip to a news station and watch the incredible stories of people saving the lives of the Japanese earthquake victims. When you turn on your computer, resist the urge to type www.facebook.com into your address bar and spend some time reading an article about a CNN Hero instead. Inspiration is everywhere. You just have to look for it.

I wish you all good luck on your midterms and a healthy return to the busy routine of college life.