Martian

As I was on the treadmill this past week, I rewatched the Martian.  It's a fun watch.  The basic idea is that the main character gets stranded for about 2 years on Mars.  For that time, he is the only person on the planet.  Everything he does in service of surviving.  In other words, he does only what's important. He has no distractions and he does nothing other than what is totally necessary.  There's no phone, no tv, no nothing.  He eventually makes it back to Earth.

There is a really cool scene at the end.  He is just sitting on a bench and enjoying some coffee and not doing anything else.  It seems clear that he is engrossed in his drink and what he can see.  He notices a small plant growing out of the ground.  He is even contrasted with people running past.  He has this learned stillness.  The actor does a great job of getting this across.

It's a stillness a person just learns if they've been alone for 2 years.  Does it take 2 years?  Does it take 6 months?  Does it take an hour?  It's something we can learn I think.  Being still is active.  It just takes practice.  We don't have to go so fast.  In fact, slow is almost always better.

The practice part is the hard part.  That's the cold water wuzu at fajr.  The more I practice the more it is apparent that it is written.  Just trust.  What's coming will come.  There are very few things in life that require immediateness.

Taher, be still.  It can probably wait.

Acceptance

I have written about acceptance before. I didn’t really get it then. I do now. Very likely in some years I’ll wonder why I thought that 😅 It was pre COVID and the world hadn’t changed yet.  An injury then made what I’m dealing with more real and that forced me to think. 

The family had gone to Karbala when the world was just opening up in 2021. It was a big lift financially, with the kids at that age, time off from work, and all the usual excuses. Plus COVID! I did it despite and that gave me a new perspective. 

It has been several years and I feel like just now I am seeing a layer of clarity that was never there before. It’s difficult to see the long-term. Our brains don’t think that way. 

I think the path started long ago. However, I can now point to one thing that seemed to be a point of acceleration for the family and me. Rationally, I knew that trip would be good for the family. I didn’t and probably don’t understand how great it would be. 

Things since then have been fantastic on so many fronts. I’ve come to accept things so much more and I’m quite sure it’s made the whole family happier. I’m certain it’s made me happier.  I can trace back so much to that trip. The asar (impression) is massive. 

This is very specific to this trip, but I think the message is much broader and clear. 

Taher, do the hard and good thing. The rewards may not be apparent for years. 

Slack

This year in Ramadan I want to focus on two things.   

The other day I overslept for fajr. It’s the first time in many years I missed doing fajr on time. There are few things that can ruin my day like missing namaz as is probably right.

Fortunately, I got to see and hear Zahra a short time later and my day wasn’t ruined. If I’m honest, missing fajr would have probably ruined my week if not for Zahra.

I have thought about this for a a few days. Once, I learned in sabaq that we can be forgiven for the SAME mistake 1,000 times a day. All we have to do is ask for forgiveness. Astagfirullah. That’s it. We can mess up 1,000 times a day.  Khuda knew we’d mess up all the time every day. Part of his perfect plan is that we would mess up. 

We are supposed to ask. 

Taher, don’t beat yourself up for making mistakes. You were made to mess up. It’s fundamental. 

Care

Every year in Ramadan I like to focus on something.  It's a great opportunity to think clearly about something every single day for a month.  I love this month.  Not taking advantage of this opportunity is a waste.

This year I want to think about caring every day.  Recently, I stopped caring about work.  It's not that I stopped doing work, just my attitude shifted.  I guess I've put more faith into things happening the way they should and probably worrying less about the details.  It has made work so much better.  I'm happier. I work less and produce higher quality work.  I'm less busy though.

I've put my energy into caring more about the things I rationally know to be worth caring about.  This reallocation of my energy has been amazing.  I want to think about this every day in Ramadan and solidify this thinking.

Taher, everything will happen as it should.  Accept the things you cannot change and change the things you can.  Try to have the wisdom to know the difference.  There's not much you can change.

Socks

I have this picture from early 2021 as my screensaver.  I don't think I'm ever going to change it.  Mom is in it🩷  It's a great picture and a professional portrait.  I love this picture.  Everyone is smiling and looking at the camera. I remember being very happy this February night.  It was frigid outside and we were nice and warm and together inside.

Everyone is matching in blue thanks to Zahra.  Even the buttons Yusuf and I are wearing coordinate.  All Zahra 👍💓  Every detail was considered.

Seeing Mom and Dad make me happy every time.  They are smiling genuine smiles.  Dad wore what he was told down to the coordinating mahki on his kurta saya.  His socks don't match though.  In his defense, no one told him to have matching socks😁.

This reminds me to focus on what's important.  He is genuinely happy to be there.  It shows and his socks don't matter.

I see this picture almost every day.  I can't not see the socks and I have to think about what's important.

Kintsugi

This is beautiful and deep. When something isn’t right we often have the instinct to excise or eliminate or do away with the broken and bad. Kintsugi is the art of repairing broken pottery. Art is very deliberately used it seems. 

The broken and the bad is what makes it beautiful. This is what makes it deep. The pottery gets more valuable. It’s like wisdom. It’s earned. 

It’s part of a larger and really cool philosophy.  I’m just scratching the surface. It’s called wabi sabi. It’s about finding beauty in the impermanent and the imperfect. So simple, yet so difficult and wise. 

There’s so much here to think about and take away.  The bad stuff leads to good stuff eventually. The difficult and beautiful part is accepting it. 

Taher, bad shit is going to happen. Not only bad stuff, but also not ideal stuff. Think astagfirullah and think of Kintsugi. Bad stuff will eventually lead to good stuff. 

Compound

This scene is amazing. It’s about building a bridge. I have a thing for bridges. I think this scene is a metaphor though. The bridge thing is a bit on the nose. 

https://youtu.be/m8Mc-38C88g?si=loZqCP-eFi-KAEJk

The scene is about all the benefit this one little bridge has been to so many people. There’s some cool math that’s a part of the reasoning. 

As the scene ends, the character summarizes the benefit, 1,531 years. He says it again 1,531 years saved. The impact was huge. I think that’s the deeper meaning. 

Taher, the act can be small, but the impact compounds and can be huge. 

Fewer Questions

Lyrics have inspired so many of my thoughts and blogs. The authors take my mind to new places. It’s like reading is for so many, it takes me away. 

Usually, I find the lyrics to be wise. Usually, they are a reminder of this or that each time I listen to the song. The songs are more meaningful. Usually, the singers are alluding to something that inspires me or singing about something I want to emulate. 

Two songs are stuck in my head. They’re not usual though. In fact, they just seem to have gotten it wrong. The songs are good, but listening to them from now on will be a reminder of what not to do. 

“ You, you're walking away

I've been there now, I know what to say
I'm the king of yesterday

A silly little love song for myself
It's all I ever do, you know, I shine the shell
A pretty little picture, the face of you“

And

“ And there were so many fewer questions

When stars were still just the holes to heaven“

These songs are about the past and how good it was and they didn’t realize it then. They’re stuck in the past. They’re so wrong. Whether it’s meant to be the lesson or not, the takeaway is it is so good NOW and you don’t realize it. 

Taher, don’t ever wish for things to be simpler and have “fewer questions “.

Months and Years

It seems the clock influences our thinking.  It counts in minutes and hours.  The clock conditions us to think small I think because of this. 

Moula tells us that timeliness is important. He has talked about the importance of the awal waqt. We should leave a margin and prioritize what’s important. 

Moula doesn’t, however, tell us to think small. In fact, my tasawur is that he’s implicitly telling us not to. Our minds can best and perhaps only comprehend the short-term.

Professionally, I’ve learned not to plan further out. Things change. Opportunities change. Personnel changes. There’s change that I can’t see coming. It’s futile to plan too far. The future is written after all. It’s going to happen whatever my plans are. 

When Moula shares his wisdom to do this or that or not do this or that it’s never about the short-term. It may be something that we can only understand in the short-term and it may benefit us in the short-term. It’s long-term though. The short-term is often transformative and the way to get there. 

Taher, think long-term. Think in months and years. 

Himat

Today, I got to spend some time with Zahra’s dadima. It’s a treat. I see her a couple times a year. For the past couple years she hasn’t known who I am. 

This visit she did. She is old and is easily in her 90s. She quite clearly remembered me this time. She even remembered me multiple times. She’s old, but she’s experienced a whole lot. 

Just like she remembered my name multiple times, she shared some of the wisdom she earned multiple times. In our larger group, “himat hase tho karow” she said. 

Later I sat with her just the two of us.  She called me by name to sit and she said, “paysa hase tho farak nay pare”. She gestured and added, “ Himat hoi tho karow”. 

She’s old, but so wise.  Wise words. 

Taher, money won’t matter. Do it now!

Patience

I'm like everyone else. Patient sometimes and with some people and less so sometimes and with others.  I try to be more patient all the time.  Like everyone else I imagine.

Today I had the good fortune to help my parents with some tech stuff.  They are older now.  It was probably confusing for them.  It was easy for me, but I went slow and answered questions multiple times.  I hope I was patient.  I'm old enough to have been the person on the other side getting tech help from a much younger person too.

The thing is that I'm sure they were patient with me when I was a kid.   Just like me they had little, and then slightly less little kids.  Yusuf and Nooriya require me to be patient.  Just like I'm sure I needed from my parents.

The future is written.   In a sense, it's already happened and I just don't comprehend.

On the drive home, I realized something.  The patience that I'll get someday is directly related to the patience that I give.  However much patience or not it is, it will come back to me.

Taher, be patient.  You reap what you sow.

Giving

Being kind changes the world. Everyday has this potential. It doesn’t have to be a big thing either. It’s easy to say stuff like, “if I had a billion dollars, I would do all the good things”. 

That’s the thing when it’s big it’s almost easier. Our brains can draw a line from the good thing through to the result. We can see the impact potentially. Nothing wrong with that. Doing big acts of kindness is amazing. 

Giving grows though. Doing some small kindness is almost invisible. It takes faith to know that it’ll grow and move through the world. Trust that it will. 

It’s easier to understand how someone will pay it forward. If person a does something kind for person b, b will do something for c and so on. What’s harder to understand and perhaps more satisfying is when many people independently do a small thing and collectively change someone’s day, week, month, or even life. 

It happens. It’s invisible. Our brains can’t comprehend. 

Taher, do the small kindness every time. It will grow. It is an opportunity. 

Bridges

Another post inspired by song lyrics.  The lyrics are better than I can write.

 

"And what about those shoes you're in today?

They'll do no good on the bridges you burnt along the way”

 

The lyrics are pretty good and this same or similar words show up lots of places.  I think because they’re pretty wise.  I think it’s pretty plain too.

Be nice now, be authentic now, do whatever is good and do it now.  It applies to so much in life.  It’s saying don’t wait.  Don’t think short-term.  It doesn’t matter if you can’t see the long-term benefit.  Have faith that it’ll be there.

Taher, you never know.

Wish

Last night Zahra and I did some adulting.  On the surface, it was a rather boring errand.  We needed to buy a new washing machine.  No doing a bunch of research and no finding the best deal on the internet from our phones.  Just old school going to the store and figuring out what we want and buying it.

I usually refer to these errands as dates.  It's grocery or Costco or something else mundane, but we get to be together.  I find this fun.  This is dating now and I love it.

As I think about it, on most of our errands someone usually has to do stuff.  It's almost always Zahra with a list and getting the stuff our family needs.  Usually, I'm just following and not helping all that much.  Sometimes going slower on purpose so I can make it a few minutes longer:)

This was different though.  There wasn't much to do here.  We saw the few options and walked maybe 100 feet total.  The salesperson was doing his salesperson thing and we were just hanging out.  It was wonderful.  In the middle, the salesperson asked how long we'd been together and commented he was a few years behind and hoped it would be as fun for him.  

As we left, we each said thank you and good night and he said, "Thank you for entertaining me."

He recognized something in the just one hour or so.  I'm sure in his job he sees lots of couples doing the boring thing we were doing.  He saw that we made it fun.  I even talked with Zahra about how nice that was on the way home.

I wish that for Yusuf and Nooriya.  I want them to find a partner they can have fun with years later.  I have the ability to help them find that person and help in other ways too.

Also, I have a lesser influence but a similar ability with so many young people while doing this TNC khidmat.  It's taken years to figure out how to give back, but it's finally clear.  Do this khidmat.  It's frustrating at times, but it has the potential to grant someone their wish.

Taher, spend the time.  You have the ability.

Smile

Smiling is on my mind again.  I wrote about it before.  Yusuf and Nooriya have got me saying, "it's not that deep".  They might even say it about smiling.  But it is that deep.

Almost 30 years ago, I learned the hadees, "Hasto chero mohabat nu jaal che".  It has a lot of layers.  For a long time, I took this very superficially.  Just smile.  That's it.  Not that deep.

It is much deeper.  Having a smiling face among many positive things changes my perspective.  There's not much in my life that I can do so regularly and so easily that alters perspective.  

This has a bunch of layers.  Very likely much more than I understand.  Samjo tho samjo, na samjo tho na samjo.  I'm ok with not understanding.  I know in my bones there's more.

Besides, I want people to think of me and remember me as that smiley guy.  "Oh him?  The guy who smiles all the time, right?"  If anyone thought that, it would make me so happy.

Taher, I've reminded you before, smile more.  In case you need any help here are two things that will always make you smile.

Legacy

I’m thinking about parents and all the things they’re leaving behind. I have some of the most generous parents.  My dad went above and beyond in ways that I still don’t understand. That’s how people remember him. 

My other mom and dad are two of the most generous people I’ve ever met. They also gained skills professionally that could help people. My mom is a doctor and my dad is an accountant. On top of being extremely generous, they acquired skills that basically every person needs assistance with. 

My biggest regret was that I didn’t do something professionally that could help people. I can occasionally and I jump at the chance. It doesn’t happen often though. No one needs an actuary. 

I love TNC khidmat.  It’s really rewarding and importantly I devote the time. I didn’t realize it until just recently. I do a TNC khidmat that pretty much everyone needs and it can change their life. It’s potentially the kind of impact my parents have. And I’m good at this khidmat. I only can devote so much time to it because my job allows. I just never saw it for so many years. 

It’s so satisfying and fun, but also helps people hopefully be happy for their whole life.

Taher, keep putting in the time. This is legacy stuff. 

Easy

Zahra and I had the chance to go be counselors at the taaruf this weekend.  It was wonderful.  The moalim there was the EMCEE for one of the games.  He was very charismatic and cool.  He connected with the kids in a way that made Zahra and I both notice.  We talked about how we both noticed.  Yusuf and Nooriya had wonderful moalims who loved the kids and connected with the kids in different ways.  This moalim was once a kid just like them and was able to really lean into that.

Later, we found him and told him how impressed we were.

In that conversation, Zahra very sweetly complimented me and said about some deen stuff, "...he makes it look easy."  I wasn't trying to be modest or anything like that.  My reaction was to say something like no I don't.  The moalim said to us both, "someone has to make it look easy, it's a good thing."

This interaction stuck with me.  Why did it though?  I thought about my reaction more later.  I wasn't saying I don't, because it doesn't feel easy.  It isn't.  Whatever it is -rozu, namaz, doing what Moula says sometimes without understanding.  It's not easy.  

Other people see.   Yusuf and Nooriya see.  It gives others the strength/courage/permission/whatever to do it too.  This guy at Dunkin made it look easy.

Taher, make it look easy.

Coach

I was watching a part of a movie with Yusuf.  It was about a coach and his team of underdogs.  It was very cliche and predictable.  There was a scene where the team was at a cross roads and a student gets up and recites a poem.  It is supposed to be inspirational.  It made sense, but it was very cheesy.  It was kind of lazy by the screenwriter actually.

The poem was really good though.  I even asked Yusuf to rewind so I could listen again.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.

....

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other

people won’t feel insecure around you.

....

It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,

we unconsciously give other people

permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear,

Our presence automatically liberates others.”

The coach didn't say anything.  He JUST listened.  I thought about it more after.  This was a pretty awesome response.  

When we share our thoughts or opinions or comments we make an assumption.  We assume that whoever else wants to hear that.  I'm not saying that's good or bad.  It's more clear when the opinion is advice.  Unless asked, the assumption is that they want advice.  That can be unwelcome.

The just listening response is often the best response.

Taher, be the coach and just listen more.

Bears Game

Today I had the chance to take Yusuf to his first game. It was wonderful and also the game was great. The Bears won👍

I think it may be the beginning of a new tradition. That’s not what I want to write about though. We will both remember this game day just fine. 

I did namaz at soldier field. There were a ton of people. I found a place with relatively fewer people. I’ve learned not to care much. Still lots of people, but no big deal. I’ve done this now many times before. 

Most of them had pregamed a fair amount. It felt safe, but a bit different than the other times. 

As I was doing Asar, a guy yelled at me. He yelled a second time. He was feet away and probably had a beer in his hand. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t even see him. 

I felt proud all day. This A hole didn’t stop me. He hardly affected me. I didn’t let him deter me from doing the right thing. I didn’t even see him. 

But I heard him. I thought all day about him. Tonight, I realized that I shouldn’t feel proud. I feel silly in fact. I heard him clearly and he did distract me even if I didn’t look. 

I can see myself reading this later and thinking, “this is pretty good”.  So?

Taher, pretty good can be better. 

Next

It is early November and it was time for me to clean out the garden and get it ready for the spring. I pulled out the growth and mowed it up. It was sad. I knew I was doing the right thing, but I also felt like I was destroying this thing that I had nurtured for so much time over months. I’ve come to love gardening. 

I’m excited for next year and what’s to come. I learned so much this year and am excited to do a better job next time. I'm excited to share more next time.

There’s so much more and better to do and to come. 

I love gardening. It teaches me so much. 

Taher, there’s more to come. There will be a next.