#15 Reflections: What I Want For Myself in 2022

For these winter holidays, I challenged myself to journal more. Every day (or every other day), I picked up a prompt from a ‘self-discovery’ journal prompt page and then, just wrote away. It’s been awesome. Im entering areas in my mind that I haven’t visited in a long time. It’s made me realise a lot about myself. It’s made me realise that a few things need to change.

As 2022 arrives, I thought — what are the things that I want for myself this year?

These are the 3 that came to mind:

• To slow down

• To take life less seriously

• To know myself

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To Slow Down

I am notorious for picking up more things than I can chew. A few years ago I made the concious decision to use my time more wisely — to spend less time binge watching and lazing around. To spend more time doing.

But now, I think we need to reverse a bit because I’ve forgotten how to laze around. My days are packed out and I commit to one too many things, all while working a full time job. I even struggle with off-days because there is a constant nagging from my mind, about all the possible things that I could be doing.

I’m aware I’m starting to build this sort of toxic relationship with time and I need to put the brakes down before it gets worse

How do I plan on doing this?

• Stop saying yes to everything — decide if it’s something that will add value to your life or is it something you can recommend someone else for instead

• Plan your off days — planning holidays does not sound cool but it’s easier to feeel more restless on days where there is no plan. Plan the pancakes, the movie, the candles!

• Pick up a hobby/sport that has nothing to do with your life plan — just go do something every week that you don’t need to be awesome at.

A reason why this hustle culture type of mentality exists in the Muslim communnity is because we know that we are going to be held acccountable for every seccond of this life. Therefore, we feel the need to try exert ourselves in doing good in every moment possible.

However, constantly running in life, from one project to the next, one event to the next is not the answer to this. Being grateful for the small blessings, spending time with your parents, helping someone cross the street, are all acts of goodness too.

It is possible to slow down and still be constantly doing good. Slow down and you may start to see more in each moment.

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To Take Life Less Seriously

Being at a sort of crossroads of life, sometimes the decisions I have to make seem so big and daunting. I start go down the path of over-thinking the consequences of every possible choice.

It’s exhausting and to be frank, downright stupid.

Because honestly mate, it’s not that big of a deal.

Whatever decision you make, you are not going to get a perfect outcome. Because perfect does not exist. And whatever decision you make, its not irreversible. There is always a way out.

So stop making life so serious.

Just do it. Take the leap.

Actually let me rephrase — just do istikharah and take the leap.

Because c’mon mate, if you have got Him by your side when you decide something, then what can go wrong?

How do I plan on doing this?

• Make more ucomfortable decisions — not uncomfortable as in it feels ‘off’, but uncomfortable as in decisions that are outside your comfort zone. To get more comfortable doing the less-normal stuff in life.

• Get in sync with your gut more — your gut usually has the answer but it’s usually clouded with all the noise from outside. How to do this? Know yourself (aka point 3).

• Make istikharah a regular habit — something you incorporate at least in your weekly routine. Rely on Him more than your own decision-making abilities.

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To Know Myself

This has been a resolution that’s been floating around me for a while, but I havent really done much about it. This year, I want it as a priority. I feel like this haze around what I want, what I value, where I want to be will contiinue being a haze around me until I take active stepps to find out the answers.

So much value comes about knowing yourself and knowing what skill you have to be in service to the world. We are all placed on this Earth as Khalifa (stewards) — to leave this world a better place. And each of us have a unique set of skills and experienes gifted to us to take on our roles as Khalifa.

I want to understand what my role is.

The thing is, I know exactly the way to do this too — journal, journal, journal.

The few days of the prompts I’ve been doing itself has shown me so much. Imagine what I’d learn about myself by the end of the year?