format_quote Originally Posted by
MuslimInshallah
Assalaamu alaikum,
I mulled over your question yesterday. I wondered if you were the kind of person who need a certain amount of excitement and challenges in his life. And I wondered if you might enjoy working in a field where there are is a lot of variety and need for quick thinking and actions. A first responder, for instance, such as a paramedic. Or perhaps a firefighter. Or a tour guide into exotic locations. These require an attention to detail in unpredicatable circumstances.
But I also started to have some philosophical thoughts… To make a strong society, we need people with different kinds of skills and temperaments. Some people are very focussed, and can specialize in something, but others have more scattered interests, and can see things in a more holistic way. Our industrial society tends to reward the former over the latter. But really, we need both these character traits in our society. Part of the imbalance in our modern world is due, I think, to this tendency towards specialization.
Perhaps you could be a unifying factor in our society? One of those jack-of-all-trades who can cross-pollinate between different fields? Who can see a bigger picture? Who can integrate different areas of knowledge?
I also starting thinking about how we try to make ourselves fit into the shapes that are required in our industrial system. We try to make our square pegs round. And then I thought of a homeschooling family I knew many years ago. The mother stayed home and raised the children, and the father worked part-time at various different jobs. And they did rather well. They had a nice house and a good home life. How did they do this? Well, the father was rather handy. That is, he had a variety of skills he could apply both to what needed to be done at home, as well as what he could do as work. The family was also rather thrifty. Not poor. Careful with their money. And they seemed a relaxed and content family.
I moved away from that city, but I heard a little about the family over the years. Their children grew up… and I know one daughter started her own company with her young husband. Again, they don't work too, too much. They did at first to set the company up, but it is seasonal work, and they now employ other people. So they are able to work as much as they need, and live life the rest of the time. (smile) It's not a very glamourous kind of work, but it's suffices to their needs. And they, too, are content.
It seems to me that rather than make your peg round, perhaps you could look into how you can make yourself a square hole?
It is well-known in homeschooler circles that when you take children out of the school system, they often have little motivation to learn, and just want to do nothing much. And that the best thing to do, is to step back, and let them find their feet. If your child has been in the system for a considerable amount of time, they may need a year to clear their minds and find some interest in life again. This is what veteran homeschoolers who took their children out of school and went on to homeschool successfully say: give your children time and space to find themselves. And they will rediscover the joy of learning. Of living.
Perhaps, rather than just taking a week or two off, perhaps you need to take more time off? Instead of perpertually running after one job or course after another… maybe you need to stop? To get off the treadmill that you are running on, but that is taking you nowhere...To take time to think. To dream. To have the time to research something in depth. To relax. To pray. You say you have savings… why not take a sabbatical?
You wouldn't be "dropping out" of your life. You'd be "rising out" of it. You would be looking for a state of mind that could let you look at your life, your self, and contemplate what is important and meaningful to you, and to give you time to plan how you might get there.
Allah Created us all unique. We all have a particular role in this life. A vocation. But we get so caught up in the ceaseless clamour of the modern corporate-industrial system, that our inner voice is hard to hear. Our inner compass is confused by the fluctuating enticements and demands that this magnetic world throws at us.
A conscious choice to stop and contemplate is not a sign of weakness and failure… quite the contrary, it is a hard and difficult journey upstream to find The Source. (smile) This is why I say it is "rising out" of you present life. You wouldn't be "dropping out" through burnout or addiction or futile rebellion. You would be rising to the challenge of discovering what you could do that is most Pleasing to Him.
(smile) And it may be that you discover that your role is a humble and simple one, and it may be that the generality of society may not see you as a great success. But if you are doing what you feel to be in harmony with His Will… (smile) then might this not be the greatest success of all?
May Allah, the Timeless, Help us to sense His Will for us… and strengthen our commitment to Him.
Bookmarks