Much of how we behave is obviously influenced by what we think of ourselves.  Not so much in terms of our skills, likes or dislikes, but more like how we see ourselves.  As our own most critical judge, we label and categorize ourselves even as we proclaim how wrong it is to stereotype people.
“I’m not really an exercise person”, we might say, or “I have two left feet”, or in my case, “I kill all plants I come into contact with”.  Once we have labelled ourselves, it is becomes extremely …

I watched my son at a few of his football training sessions.  I watched as the coach took them through the skills, of moving the ball smoothly down the field in a carefully timed sequences.  I watched week after week as this group of kids went from a mob chasing a ball, blindly running to converge on whoever happened to have the ball, to a team where each player kept and played his position, ball possession no longer the overriding objective.
As the kids got better and started to truly play …

For those of you who may not be familiar with it, Safa Park is located just off Sheikh Zayed Road at Interchange 2.  Amongst other things that make it a great park is the running track all around it – a good 3.4 km.
The track starts to see some action as early at 4:45 am for those who go power-walking right after morning prayers.  The boot camp gang usually shows up around 6.  There are groups of young men in football training gear running in formation around 7.  And in …