For our last episode of 2020 we decided to record a podcast answering a series of questions that were going to be podcast episodes however, did not have enough substance to make them so. We answer the following questions: Should we worry about the way we present ourselves to the public as it may influence views of our race? Is it okay to mention how well you are doing in your life when everyone may seem to be complaining about theirs? What is inner peace and how to get to it? How can we influence our relationships to be more like fusions? Why does it feel so nice to watch characters do normal things? Later we discuss how people are changing to wants things immediately and how this is problematic.

'La La La', is a song by Naughty Boy and Sam Smith. It has many interpretations since the lyrics are a bit indistinct. Ayesha shares how she feels that the song is about bullying and what the lyrics mean in relation to that. Later, in our 'Sharing something from the week' segment, Aasima shares her conflict with how she feels about her beauty and how society views it, yet learning to accept that. We felt that this episode was a very interesting and insightful

Inspired by the video by The School of Life called 'How to Test Your Emotional Maturity,' this week we discuss a question that can help us make this assessment and what the parameters of the question are. Then we dive into the immature and mature ways of dealing with these situations and evaluate where we stand on the spectrum. Later we discuss Aasima's confusion with her identity as she believes she does things that are not indicative of a nineteen year old yet she enjoys doing them. We discuss whether losing your childish self leads on to a life that is less colourful, and if one can still be silly and joyous without having a sense of childishness surrounding them.

We speak about whether moving away from our home countries is a good idea in light of the friends and family we leave behind. This conversation is inspired by the Korean TV show Reply 1988. Later, Ayesha dives into why she loves 'Rab Ne Banadi Jodi' which incites a conversation about toxic masculinity.

This week we talk about the ways in which Ayesha and I have gossiped in our lives and why we liked doing it. It was interesting to see that both perspectives were very different from one another when it came to this topic and helped us unravel our thoughts in many instances where we gossiped. Although we understood that gossiping is not a great thing to do, we came to a conclusion involving times where it may be okay to do and times where it should not be done. Later, we shared how we felt about Abbu (our father) travelling to Pakistan, and why Aasima has been so happy lately.

In this episode, we discuss themes like hard work and doing your best. We debate whether one should use the merit of doing their best as an indicator for whether they worked hard. At one point, Ayesha talks about a diagram she came across about facial acne and how to get rid of it. Whilst sharing something for the week, Ayesha shares her brilliant hack for making her daily oat breakfast taste better and Aasima delves into how strange insecurities are.

We have a return of our younger brother Abdullah! In this episode we dive into a topic that is heavy on Abdullah's mind where he believes children are not taken very seriously and why they should be. We come up with some strategies on how to be better receptive to children and then have some very silly sibling banter. When asked about the week, Abdullah shares the new anime he is watching, Aasima insights us into her primary emotion these days whilst Ayesha expresses an epiphany she had.

Morals are a set of rules of what is right and wrong. Different people have different morals based on their life experiences and belief systems. In this episode, we discuss examples where our morals help us live better lives, and examples where they don't with the hopes that we come to a conclusion that we can apply to our lives. Ayesha uses her hjiab as an example. Aasima defines what her best life would look like and whether her morals align with that. Many trains passed us during this episode. It seemed they wanted to share their side of the story too. So it seems trains define their best lives as being of most help to people, thus they uphold the moral of always trying their best to get humans where they need to be. And I think that is beautiful :D

Ayesha asked the question one day, 'why do people say that they have no friends so much?", and suddenly a new podcast episode idea formed. Aasima asked people on Instagram why they think people say that they don't have any friends and a range of responses came through (check it out in the social studies highlight on @aasima.aa). We delve deeper into some of the responses and address the main issues people face with their friendships. Through discussing these, we come up with three mechanisms that can significantly help people form better friendships and be more satisfied overall. We believe the three A's can be very helpful so check out the episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts to find out what they mean! In this week's, 'Sharing something from the week' segment, Aasima shares her frustration of the toxicity involved in pursuing a competitive venture and Ayesha talks about a fact she recently learnt and what effect this had on her.

This week we discuss a philosophical concept called, 'The Backwards Law', by Alan Watts using a passage Ayesha found on Pinterest. We had a little trouble figuring out the purpose of this theory and how it could help people in their self-improvement journeys and so we could not come to a reasonable conclusion about what we could learn from it. However, it fostered a good conversation where at one point Aasima questioned why Ayesha believes a person should not be striving to reach happiness in their life.