LIFE

I was born in Tehran, Iran also known as the ancient Persia the land of Cyrus and Darius the great. I was born on January 26, 1984 in a hospital called Mehr which is located near the state building in Tehran. Since I was over 11 pounds in weight and over 55 cm in length my grandfather called me Rostam which is an old Hero (like Hercules in Greek writings) in Persian writings by Ferdousi (an ancient writer who wrote the Shahnameh that resembled the true culture of Persians and their tales of bravery and loyalty toward the King).

I was raised in Northern Tehran an area that is called Tajrish and nowadays is considered uptown Tehran due to the great numbers of buildings and shopping malls that was build in a matter of a decade. For the first couple of years we lived with my grandmother who was a retired teacher (my father's Mother). Even though in Iran it's not costumed for the bride family to give wedding gifts like a house or car, my grandfather (mother's father) gave us a beautiful estate in central Tehran.

I was only 7 years old but the move was really hard on me because I had managed to have a group of friends in our neighborhood and we used to play in the evenings or try to read children's book despite to the fact that we couldn't even understand some of the words. I would consider my family a middle class family and very hard working.

My father's background came from a mixture of Arab, Turkish tribes and my mother's background came from Fars tribes which were located in Central Iran, an area that is called Yazd in contemporary Iran.

My father was raised in a military like family; my grandfather a former general of the Shah's army passed away when my father was very young and this fact was a turning point in his life since he had to work harder to manage school and work at the same time and provide for his family. This hardship actually was craved into him that later on in his life he was much like my grandfather. He was an authoritarian figure head in family that was either his way or no way.

My mother's family on the contrary came from an old merchant family in Iran. Due to this fact that they had businesses and worked with people for a long time they were more helpful and nurturing by habit, this of course led to the fact that my mother was more permissive in our family.

On my father's side almost all the secondary family consisting of aunts and uncles were Muslims. This perhaps gave them the perspective that women should be mostly home-makers and the females from my father's side were stayed at home moms and took care of household chores and responsibilities. On the contrary, my mother's side came from a Zoroastrian and Bahai background and since these religions value females as much as men, the females in my mother's family had all professional careers.

For instance, my mother was a physical therapist and my aunt studied to be psychologist. After marriage my mother had to give up her career and stay at home, even though that wasn't what she wanted but due to government restrictions for minorities in Iran (Bahai's, Jews, and Zoroastrians) to hold a professional job and the fact that my father didn't want her to work in her own private practice she forfeited her career forever.

My father used to work for the government as a translator, but due to his passion for teaching and some major disagreement that he had with the new established revolution in Iran, he decided to take a teaching position with the University of Tehran as a professor. I could say that this was a turning point for my childhood.

Since he became a professor at the university, his passions for teaching were over board and made him to look at us as his students at home. This was really hard for my mother who put aside everything for him and now she had to just follow his lead in every matter.

For instance, my mother emphasized the importance of playing sports and learning an instrument of music for her children but my father replaced her wish by taking us to university and leaves us for hours and hours in classes that we couldn't even understand the language. Unfortunately, there was a huge gap in gender roles in my family and this made it a more traditional family where the head of the household gives order and the rest have to just follow without questioning his authority and the purpose of these orders. Due to these factors, my mother always tried to give us more moral support to fulfill the love that I missed from my father.

On the contrary, my father saw us as obstacles in his life and never really gave us the love and care that a child should receive from his father. The only reason that he didn't revealed this form of behavior from the very beginning was due to the presence of my grand mother (my father's mother) in our house. Apparently after her death, my father believed that this was our fault and never could recover from this fact that death is inevitable and blamed us for this disaster.

Before my grandmother's death, my parents showed their love and affection toward one another. They sat next to each other at family gatherings, sat next to each other and saw their pictures of wedding, anniversaries and my birth for hours and hours. Unfortunately, the trend of this behavior lasted for only couple of years and my father changed to a total stranger after her death. I remember that these factors were really hard on me and for a while I was shy and distant from my family members and friends.

But as I grew up I learned that this was them and this fact can't affect my adolescent years of being outgoing and an affectionate person toward my friends and family. These up and downs in my family really made me think harder for my own future. Do I really want to resemble these types of characteristic and behaviors for my future family? And the answer to this question was obvious for myself, NO I don't allow these past bad experiences effect my life in the future with the special person that I'm going to marry.

I see that bringing children to this world is one task and making sure that they grew up in a warm and affectionate family is another important task of being a parent. For years I thought that I never could be a good parent but now I believe that these hardships made me a better person for myself and my future family. There is famous quote from a movie that I have seen once that reminds me constantly of how I should be there for betterment of myself and my family. The quote is "Don't let your past dictate of who you are, but let it be part of who you will become".

Since my family was really religious, we rarely talked about sex and relationships before marriage. In my family perspective, sex was only a tool to have children and was only to be performed after a marriage. The state TV's censored every aspect of relationships before marriage and constantly talked about forming families and having kids. Of course, this practice is not uncommon for most eastern cultures but it's also really closed for those that might have questions in regards to their sexual orientations.

For instance, the first question that I asked regarding this important factor in life was the famous question that most kids here in the state ask their parents at a very young age. Mom, where do babies come from? I clearly remember that my mother turned red for a second and then responded that son God gives babies to married couples. I didn't receive sex education classes until I was a senior in Oviedo high school.

Recently, I have heard that in Tehran the government has decided to offer sex education courses in high school and even middle school. Unfortunately, in the past couple of years the problem of teenage pregnancy and the spread of different types of STD's have forced the government to offer these course earlier in life for teenagers to eliminate this social problem from spreading among different classes of people in Iran. Back then teenage pregnancy and sexual diseases were not an issue and instead we had to learn religious prayers and etc.

I feel that sex plays an important part in a successful marriage but I don't feel that it's the only factor in having a good marriage. Since, most of my culture believes that boys and girls should keep themselves for the one special person that they are going to marry with them; I would like to see that my partner feels the same way toward sex and the important fact that it should be performed after marriage.

During the first years of my life, I would say that my parents' marriage was affectionate partly because the presence of my grandmother in our house kept everything together but overall after her death I could say that the marriage turned to be full of conflicts and disagreements. I could see it coming sooner or later and finally it came. The divorce was finalized in August of 2001 only one year after we came here.

Due to the hostile environment at our house my mother decided that this would have a huge impact on us seeing her and my father constantly arguing and fighting. In some instances my father was really aggressive and even used a belt to hit us and my mother. Unfortunately, due the language barrier problems my mother couldn't reserve her rights and she even couldn't file for child support for my brother and sister.

After the divorce we as a half family now went through a series of hardship that partially at the beginning tend to be really hard to endure. But as time went by I observed that it was I that was satisfied with a hard living in financial aspect and consequently later on I saw that my spiritual soul is up for to challenge the hardships and go through the cycle of life after the divorce.

My mother didn't remarry despite to the fact that when her divorce was finalized she was only 38 years old and she could have married and have us deal with the whole dilemma of having a step-father. Instead she chose to put her time for us in every aspect and take a positive role by being there for us in everything that we could think of.

I could say that the most significant family experience during my childhood was the death of my grandmother and the transition that took place in our household. During my adolescent and teenage years was our immigration to U.S and my parents divorce. And last but not least during my adulthood was the fact that I started dating in my early 20's, which was really a significant incident for my family and I since my mother didn't approve of my girlfriend and this fact by itself caused a little bit of estrangement between I and my mother.

Going back to the time that my father used his belt to have his absolute authority on all matters, I saw that my mother tended to be more quite in fights because she didn't want us to get involved in the discussion and by just keeping quite and doing what he wanted putting an end to the argument.

As I mentioned before it was either my father's way or highway and this really made me think that do I want to be like him later in life? NO, I tend to be a more democratic person in solving out conflicts between me and my future spouse. There wasn't any positive angle to my father's way except the fact that everyone in our household feared him and never really loved him.

The power of loving and caring for an individual is like a never ending magical spell which would be always there for you in times of hardship and family arguments. My mother always gave us an example that it's like a saving account that is always there for the times that couples need it. Due to the fact that conflicts and argument are inevitable in every household, the way we interact with one another to put these bad times behind us is extremely important.

I anticipate to have my spouse express her anger and feelings until she has every little piece of it out of her system, then I would sit down and talk to her about each and every aspect of her dissatisfaction of me or my behavior. I have this thought that if you are almost always friendly to your children and try to explain everything to them with logic and reasoning and from their perspective you could significantly lower the number of argument that you have with them.

Since, I was the oldest in our family I always tried my best to be a role model to my brother and sister. But like everything else in life this modeling task for younger siblings is not an easy at all. When we were younger we had more time to spend with one another and during that time they always looked up to me as a person that is trying to replace the father figure that they never had. This perhaps was really hard because other than their spiritual needs and wants, they looked up to my sometimes as a provider and if something was missing out in their lives they would see it as almost It was my fault.

I tried my best to work with my mother to provide all the necessities of life for them but due to the fact that our society is a materialistic society this task is sometimes even almost too hard to accomplish. Nowadays, due to our work and school schedule we try to enjoy the little times that we do have at our kitchen table and I would say the relationship is moving toward its right direction since they have a better understanding of standard of living and expenses.

My position as an older child definitely didn't played an important factor because I tended to always bring myself down to their age of speaking and thinking so they don't think of me as if I'm trying to control them just because that I'm the oldest. In fact, it's probably harder to be the oldest because the levels of expectations are really high and this fact by itself could be overwhelming from time to time.

During my childhood the only tradition that was always celebrated with joy and happiness was the Neu Rouz (Persian New Year). During this time which is from March 21st through March 30th everyone in family tries to put their differences and arguments behind and start the New Year with joyful thoughts and deeds. One of the traditions that have been around for thousands of years is to create a table with a colorful table cloth and based on costumes and tradition the table is filled with items that resemble life, satisfactions and good deed.

For instance, some of the items that are placed on the table are eggs, flowers, coins, sweets, a small mirror, candles, and vinegar. Each of these items has a meaning to itself, eggs resemble life and flowers and sweets resemble happiness and satisfaction that grows across the family members. On the very first day small children's receive gifts and incentives from the elders and then secondary family members and friends try their best to pay each other family visits that defines a new stage of glory and satisfaction for their members. The New Year ceremony by far was my favorite and I will try my best that this old tradition will be passed down in my future family.

After all the turbulence and hardship that I have gone through in my life, I consider myself a positive person that carries a lot of optimistic characteristic toward life and living in general. Even though you hear all kinds of news that deteriorates the signs of betterment of the world but I feel that each and everyone of us has a role in society and if we truly follow the our roles we will see that like a puzzle everything comes into its place and order. I consider myself a conformist in everything but when it comes to rules of the government and following them precisely I consider myself a rebel.

If governments truly knew what they were doing we wouldn't have had all these wars and at least mankind wouldn't have suffered so much. I'm a rebel because I believe government should be there just to complete our lives not to control our moves and thought process. In short to describe myself in three adjectives I can say that I'm satisfied, humble and happy with what God destined for me and I will try my best to make it better for my future family. I hope one day I will someone that has these main three adjectives because I believe that these are the foundations that everyone should have and follow.

For instance, if we as human beings were satisfied with what we have and god gave us we wouldn't have the sense of invasion and controlling other people's destiny and life. If we were humble, at the peak of our lives we would never forget that we all came from earth and we shall return one day to earth and our position and status wouldn't caused us selfishness and greed. And if we were happy in nature due to our faith in God, nothing comes between ourselves and our happiness. if someone shares the same vision I could say that we have at least 50% in common and my grandfather said that as long as you found someone that you share the same goals and have the some in common marry them because unfortunately we'll see that there are less and less commonality within couples.

I think that at this stage of my life I have came a far way and have a very well self-understanding of myself. The main goals in my life are to get married some day and raise two kids that could contribute and give back to the society. In addition to starting a family I want to get a job with UN one day to spread peace and prosperity around the globe. I want to be 100% independent from employer and have my own business.

I want to finish my Ph. D in counseling so I could be more useful to those that went through the same hardship and I want to contribute as much as I can to different IGOs and NGOs because I believe that these organization actually perform their agenda's and tasks that they have been given to. I value greatly family, faith, future, friends and family again.

I think having a strong faith would help to build a strong family and form there you have your friends around you and your future could be a road to success. The one thing that I fear the most is death and the fact that we all have came from earth and one day we have return to earth. The other thing that I fear the most is to be alone for the rest of my life, since I'm a family oriented person it's really hard to even think that I'm going to be living by myself for the rest of my life. And the third object that I'm afraid is to have not enough me to survive and make a living.

I never wanted to be a millionaire but the thought that I'm not going to have bread on my table one day due to some incident or accident really freaks me out and I hope that I never see that day. My goals, values and fears all comes from my family background and the way of my upbringing by my parents. I could almost say this that If I was born into a different family, with a different ethnic background I would probably not have half of the goals, values and fears.

In conclusion, I'm an optimistic person toward life in general; I will try my best to accomplish my hopes and dreams. If I could change one thing is my life is probably the wish to have a better father figure. I believe that If I had a better father figure in my life I could have accomplished half of my goals by this age but this was not destined for me and I will try my best for my children to have everything that I ever wanted.

Last but not least I wouldn't want to change anything about myself, except one day I want to change my last name to my mother's maiden name because I believe if I become a successful person in future, my mom is the one that should get all the credit and not someone who just his last name is my last name.