Discipline? Yeah, I might have to.
As the alarm goes off and I’m lying in bed after a half day at work I think, maybe I should do iftaar at home today. There’s a programme on at the mosque with English lectures every evening after prayers and iftaar and the mosque is a stones throw from where I work.
Then I’m reminded of two things.
Yesterdays talk focussed heavily on discipline.
Something I’ve learnt at an intellectual level at least is, the times when you least want to are the times when you most have to.
When you least want to do something you know will be beneficial, but then you go anyway, those are often the times when you most benefit from it.
You enjoy yourself more, you learn more and you feel happier for having done it.
So, I got up did wudu and left for the mosque. On the way my brain started arguing with me, “why are we going back to work!? Weve already finished our shift today!!”
“We’re not going to work we’re going to the mosque calm down.” I replied with a laugh. Sitting in the mosque waiting for prayers to start, I wrote the beginning of this post.
I don’t want to be disciplined but I might not have a choice. It seems like the mythical hang time in basketball, finding a balance and walking the middle path between the extremes of phsycopathic discipline and mind numbing indolence might (MIGHT!) be an illusion.
Perhaps we really are, only ever becoming better or becoming worse. Some of the most valuable things to me in life are peace, quiet and freedom. Peace and quiet, solitutde, when you get a fast for them are way more important than anything (other than Islam) that places like Dubai have to offer. Picture a log cabin in the Alaskan wilderness, a river 50 feet away mountains in the distance. Not a human soul for a hundred miles in any direction.
For a number of years this had and sometimes still is my dream home. Very close to my idea of paradise.
But that’s not something I can make a reality without forgoing my responsibilities to my family. Thankfully I am not willing to let go of my family to live that dream. However I’m still very much not living up to the responsibilities that fall upon me.
It is the God given duty upon every man to take care of his family. Usually this means His wife and children first but it includes the wider family. Parents, siblings, siblings of parents. I have the responsibility to be there for the people who are there for me when no one else is.
So, I don’t have a choice. Discipline will have to be the way but there will have to be some control of it. Some balance. If discipline becomes the most important thing it will cause me to sacrifice moments with family which obviously defeats the purpose.
The solution? I need to go on another discipline journey but this time it needs to be done in a way that improves and enhances my ability to be there WITH my family as well as being there for them.
I’m hating this right now. I want life to be easy. I just want to go to work come back home and sleep.
That’s not ok. That is not ok.
“Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.” - Jerzy Gregorek
I’ll let you know what happens.
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