Family ≠ Education: Split personality

     Assalamualaikum, readers (May the peace and mercy of Allah be upon you). This morning I talked to my friend about family, life and things other than education (since lately it has been all about education and school. I am starting to morph into the nerdiest college geek ever). To be honest, it is refreshing and entertaining to talk about something new and livelier than school. Arrgghh… I wish I can spend more time with my friends and family back home. I really miss the times when I didn’t have to worry about the future, especially my future. The times when I just needed to wake up in the morning, go to school, come back home, play with my friends in the afternoon, eat dinner with family and go to bed without any worry whatsoever. Yeah, those were the good times. As we grow older, more responsibilities are on our shoulders. Like it or not, we have to shoulder and make the best out of them.

     Frankly speaking, we spend countless hours working on worldly matters and sometimes we got too carried away with life. This kind of mirage often makes us forget and less sensitive about what the most important things are. As a Muslim, I believe I should put my religion, family and education first. I am probably doing OK at school which makes me truly preoccupied to a point I don’t balance my life the way it should be. No wonder most of the times I feel something is missing in me. I need to balance daily life.

     A couple of days ago, my roommate asked me, “When did you leave for school this morning?” and I simply answered him, “Probably at 8 this morning”. He stopped for awhile and I thought our conversation ended there. Then he asked again, “And you just got back now? At 10 pm?” and I answered without hesitation, “Yeah, what is the problem, dude?”Obviously, I was wrong. He stopped for awhile just now because he was astonished that I spent almost all my waking hours at school. He realized I had been spending all time I had at school doing research for the last several months. He didn’t say much after that but I knew he wanted to say more; but he couldn’t care more because it was my life he talked about. He might not realize how much the questions he asked affected me from the inside.

     On that night, it was hard for me to fall asleep compared to the other nights after crazy days. I usually fell asleep in less than 5 minutes after I climbed into my bed. A lot of thoughts came across my mind. Two major matters conquered me – family and how much longer it’s going to take for me to finish school. You probably don’t get why I had a hard time about this. Let me enlighten you about my education history. I started to go to boarding schools when I was 12 years. Since then I have been spending more than 80% of my life at school educating my mind and polishing my brain. It sometimes feels extremely personal when I think about this matter, especially when I think about how much love I miss at home.

     Some may consider me lucky to come this far. Some may consider me brilliant to further my studies to this level. Some may consider me strong to go to USA to pursue knowledge when I can just get it in Malaysia. Some may consider me brave to be outspoken when the stake is high. In reality inside of me, I feel sad instead of lucky, silly instead of brilliant, weak instead of strong and tired instead of brave. I am sad because I am far from home. I am silly because I cannot understand what I am feeling right now. I am weak because all I do is facing life not facing my family. I am tired because life is always crazy. Yes, I have a split personality in me. Oh God, save me from these feelings.

 

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Road Less Traveled…

    Assalamualaikum, readers (May the peace and mercy of Allah be with you). Alhamdulillah (All praises be to Allah). I just finished the second phase of my doctoral qualifying exam. Yet I still have another phase coming soon on Nov 22^nd and that will be the last one. Right now I am so jaded with struggles and sleep time rations that I put myself into for the last several months. While the exam seems to be a past thing to me, my life is not getting any easier. Believe me, it is not. Last week I went and met with my super-strict advisor. Guess what? He started doing something that he’s really good at. He lectured me for solid half an hour. He put me to shame when all the things he nagged are right about me. Yeah, life is hard. It never cuts you any slacks. It has no mercy on you. I wish I can bury my head in sand just get away from shame.

     Since I kind of have a lot on my plate, I have to start re-planning my next moves soon. I guess I have to make some minor and major changes to meet a better goal in this ever-changing world. I always believe that life is a moving target and we have to be sensitive with the upcoming changes and future demands to be top players, unless you just want to be a passenger in your own life that you deserve. My advice is, start living life worth living. Yes, life needs an active participation from you. Everyone knows, you get what you work for. Don’t be like fools who think that everything has been predestined and they just need to wait. When they realize it, it is too late for them to make their moves.

    If you learn about great people in history, you’ll realize all of them took active actions in conquering problems that life threw at them. They stood tall during good and bad times. They weathered freezing storms and scorching heat just because they saw a ray of hope and wanted to grab it. Challenges are not problems. Instead, they are stepping stones for them to reach a higher ground, a better success. Great people consider challenges as walls that separate between the ones who want to succeed and the ones who are just not brave enough to face life.

      In other words, success doesn’t come free. It comes with a price tag. It’s sometimes cheap and sometimes priceless. So it is us who put the price on it. It costs us time devotion, monied sacrifices and unbearable bitterness. How much of those does it cost for a great one? Nobody knows; but you can invest how much you are willing to risk. Many say weird stuff like these - “I see some people who don’t have to do much to become successful” or “I am not that lucky like those guys. They are blessed with generous fortune.” They sound familiar right. I know they do. Trust me, those successful guys secretly risk opportunities and work hard in a way we don't realize it. When a great story is being written, lazy guys just say “what a lucky guy” to the person who makes it happen. Is it fair? I do believe no such things as instant-noodle solutions in life. Every progress is a sum of decades of sweats.  

     When asked about a recipe of becoming successful, most of successful people tell their stories of hardship and failure. That’s normal. They don’t really tell us successes they earn over the years because they are just too obvious. When listening to the shameful failures and unbearable hardship, people who think that success comes in an easy way quickly change their mindsets and become, like they always are, lazy cowards. They don’t really have what it takes to become successful guys and work as hard. That’s why the road traveled by successful people is the road less traveled by many. It is thorny and it has never been easy. InsyaAllah, may Allah grant us strength and opportunities to become one of the successful guys.

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"The successful man will profit from his mistakes 

and try again in a different way." ~Dale Carnegie~

By Time: We Are In Loss…

     Assalamualaikum readers (May the peace and mercy of Allah be with you). Without us realizing, time has been passing us by fast. I feel like it was yesterday I stepped in the year of 2010 and today it is already in November. Yes time moves really fast without us realizing that it is leaving us. It is actually a sign of the end of time as being reported in these translated hadiths:

Narrated Abu Huraira (R.A) that The Prophet (P.B.U.H) said, “Time will pass rapidly, good deeds will decrease, miserliness will be thrown (in the hearts of the people) afflictions will appear and there will be much ‘Al-Harj.” They said, “O Allah’s Apostle! What is “Al-Harj?” He said, “Killing! Killing!” [Bukhari; Vol.8, Hadith 63]

Narrated Anas ibn Malik (R.A) Allah’s Messenger (P.B.U.H) said, “The last hour will not come before time contracts, a year being like a month, a month like a week, a week like a day, a day like an hour, and an hour like the kindling of a fire.” [Tirmidhi]

      As Muslims, we have to pay a particular attention on this specific matter because Allah swears about time in the Al-Quran in Surah Al-Asr (Passage of The Time) which can be translated as below:
 

“By Al-'Asr (the time). Verily! Man is in loss. Except those who believe and do righteous good deeds, and recommend one another to the truth and recommend one another to patience.”  ~ (Quran, 103, 1-3)

     Since time passes us by fast, we have to make it count. Yes, every second counts. Islam advises us to better ourselves. So to make time counts, we can earn some benefits from it by improving ourselves little by little. It doesn’t have to be much but make sure every day we make some simple, better changes in life. Insyaallah (Allah’s Will), we can make a difference in our own life and lives around us.

     I guess I have to start cracking my book and doing my work because, like I said, time passes us by fast.  Let's preach and do what we preach.Wassalam.

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A Characteristic Triad of Post-Syawal Symptoms: Fat, Burnt-out and Jaded

   Subahanallah (Glory be to Allah). We are now in the last 3 days of Syawal. That means the Eid Fitr mood is fading away as the time goes by. I hope that everyone has a chance to finish 6 fasting days after Ramadhan. It is highly endorsed by Rasullallah in his hadith as follows:

   "Ayyub (Allah be pleased with him) relates that the Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace be upon him, his family, and companions) said, “Whoever fasts Ramadan and follows it with six days from Shawwal it is as if they fasted the entire year.” "  ~[Muslim, Abu Dawud, Tirmidhi, and Ibn Majah]~

   After the hustle and bustle of feting the festival for the whole month, our body can just take so much. It will start becoming worn out.  So there will be a “consequence” we have to face right after that. As usual all the nice sugar, excess fat and extravagant food are not going anywhere. They tend to get accumulated in some notorious parts of our body. Here comes a big belly. That’s not a surprise. The surprise is, we question ourselves from where we get this ridiculous flap around our body. We pretend like we don’t know what we’ve done. Isn’t it great? (haha…)

   In the last several months I have been struggling with preparations for my doctoral qualifying examination. Like a normal college student I have to climb the mountain, go down the hill, turn right and left just to get a grip to my undergrad materials. Not to mention how regret I am about how much time I wasted when I did my bachelor degree. What a nice surprise!!! With all the ups and downs that I have been going through, it really makes me burnt out and mentally jaded. I wish I can have a super power like a superman. Sigh!!!

Research + Class + Eid Fitr = Recipe for No Fun

          Tonight, all Muslims in the US officially celebrate one of the major festivals in the Islamic calendar which happens to be Eid Fitri. I have no words to express how happy I am to join the Muslim community around the globe feting this huge event. Eid Fitr takes place in Syawal – the tenth month in the Islamic lunar calendar. Many Muslims are mistaken saying that Eid Fitri is just on the very first day of Syawal although the designated time for the festival in Islam is the whole month of Syawal. It doesn’t mean Muslims should keep celebrating the feast all month long without cautiously heeding on ridiculously over-the-limit expenses and extremely extravagant food. This kind of behaviors is not welcomed in Islamic ethics -akhlak- and defeating the purpose of Ramadhan trainings itself.

          Muslims should really keep everything moderate and be grateful for having the opportunity to taste last Ramadhan that left us just yesterday. That is the true meaning of Syawal, which is celebrating a new better life that every Muslim achieves after practicing month-long drills of self-reflection, self-betterment, self redemption and Allah-searching. Like everyone else, I pray to Allah to save me from the hellfire since that is the ultimate goal after leaving Ramadhan.

          Most of my Malaysian friends at Stevens are having a congregation to mark the month of Syawal some where on campus. Unfortunately in my case as a graduate student, I am currently swarmed by overflowing research journals and reading assignments on the very night of the first day of Syawal. Not to mention a class I have to attend at noon tomorrow. Believe me, it is no fun to dig in school work on the first day and night of Syawal. Yet, I will be optimistic about the situation. Like I said, the festival is a month long. So why I should go all out on the first night and day of the month when I still have the rest of month. Considering what is happen to me right now, I am not going to be that whiny and sad since a lot of my brothers and sisters in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and some other places who are not that lucky to even have a roof above their heads. Thanks to Allah for at least giving me this life and the comfort of my home.

          Talking about being a new person after Ramadhan, most Muslims including me forget what Ramadhan has thought. We tend to go astray, forgetting the real essence of lessons we learnt during Ramadhan. So I guess everyone should set the dates for the 6 fasting days in Syawal as a continuation of what we have done in Ramadan. Since Ramadhan has prepared us so much, I hope we celebrate Eid Fitr like newborns and continue our redemption to God. Don’t let all the hard work and sweats in Ramadhan go away just because Ramadhan is not here anymore. On the contrary we should think Ramadhan as a training school for us to reach a whole new level of Allah-worshipping, public charity and becoming better caliphs on earth. Let’s continue bettering ourselves.

         With the spirit of Syawal, I take this opportunity to apologize for all the wrong deeds I have done intentionally and unintentionally on any of you and please consider all the food and stuff I got from you with or without your knowledge as charity. May Allah bless us all. Happy Eid Fitr.