Yesterday for the umpteenth time, I wrote down the list of things that are priorities for me in the next few months to one year. I have always believed that we can’t entirely predict the future, but knowing what we want in the short term to medium term can help us navigate the world. It fuels our purpose and direction of activities.
As Muslim, the spiritual component of our life is to trust in God while putting in our best efforts. It can be demoralising to not exactly know what we want and how the end goal looks like. This is why I always journal what milestones look like for me. As human wants are insatiable, this provides the basis of contentment and gratitude. It’s not uncommon to achieve what we have always prayed for and forget what used to be, just to start chasing the next thing.
In the same vein, prayers can become monotonous when we don’t feel connected to what we are praying about/for. This is why moments of clarity and seeking reminders greatly help. It’s particularly exciting and beautiful finding the right words and feeling the right emotions when praying. A lot of us today are basically just exercising and fulfilling rights. If you are feeling spiritually disconnected, you just may want to slow down and seek communities that would help your journey.
Doing the work…
A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece on boring doings. It stems from a growing phenomenon that I am seeing, especially within young folks like me, everyone is chasing to become a thought leader and influencer. Our follower counts, mentions, and other vanity metrics are becoming the basis of our self-worth and values without really putting in the real hard work of working. Half the time, nothing exactly is going on, just the performative action on the internet. Like the Yorubas would say; “Ti won ba n tan e, ma tan ara e” loosely translated as don’t deceive yourself if you are being deceived.
In a distracting world where everything pulls you from different sides, the single most important act of courage is to say No to several other things that look fantastic and cool while staying true to what feeds your growth. It could be someone hailing you and talking about how fantastic you are, or sometimes feeling you are too big to take a role. Be wary of egos that make you despise honest living and learning experiences simply because of perception. Yesterday, Adenike of Future Africa wrote about how many people actually don’t want to work again, but posturing online as a guru in the name of personal branding (see tweet).
Another important element of our growth system is to be unapologetic in seeking help where we feel stuck. This is a hard truth that no one is speaking about. Like I typically tell my friends, everyone’s journey is personal, but while doing whatever fuels you now, don’t discount your future by playing a status game.
Till next week, thank you for reading and sharing 💚💚💚.
Thank you for writing this. One thing that I seem to observe is, when one is doing the work, it's not fancy and all. The work is usually boring and the results come much later.