5 Lessons At 25

Happy birthday to me! Wow, 25 years? A quarter of a century? Ok I take that back, that sounds old.

Every year, on my birthday morning, I take some time out to reflect on my past year and the lessons I learnt. My birthday was actually nearly a month ago (2nd September), and I started writing this then. But there were so many lessons I wanted to write about, that it took me this long to figure out which lessons were my top 5.

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Lesson 1: Appreciate moments of hardship

One thing I so vividly learnt specifically this year was how to appreciate moments of difficulty a bit more. It really hit me how much easier it was to feel that closeness to Him during those times of difficulty and what a beautiful gift that is. The Quranic verses that tells us that Allah tests those He loves really holds a deeper meaning to me now.

In the moment of hardship, all you are searching for is a way out of the place you’re in. You’re awake in the middle of the night, you’re in constant Dhikr, you’re khushu in your salaah is at its highest level. You feel His presence so strongly around you.

But then the storm passes. And Allah blesses you with that thing you were so desperately wanting, or He removes the difficulty you were in. And suddenly, it’s difficult to feel His presence as strong anymore. You can keep up with the dhikr, the salaah, and even the night prayer, but the depth of connection to Him you felt during that moment of hardship is impossible to relive.

This is not me asking for hardships and trials, for sure not. But this is me learning to appreciate the silver lining in the moments of darkness. To learn not to despise or resent moments of difficulty but to see it as a time to regain my connection to Him.

Lesson 2: Don’t wait for your prayer mat to talk to Allah

Although it is easier to feel a special closeness to Him during times of difficulty, I learnt that one of the best ways to feel His presence otherwise was to always be in constant conversation with Him throughout the day.

I stopped waiting for the night prayer or the end of a fast to make dua to Him and instead called to Him throughout my day.

As I’m writing out my morning to do list, or pouring my tea or getting changed, I just whisper to Him throughout. I whisper to Allah, asking Him to grant me ease and barakah in my day. Whispering how my body is tired today so Allah please grant me more strength. Whispering to Him that I am so lost about life so Al Hadi (The One Who Guides), please guide me.

It makes the daily grind of life feel so much easier and lighter since you’re constantly reminding yourself of Allah. You’re constantly reminding yourself that you do not need to go through the trials of this life on your own as you have your Lord, The All Hearing, The All Seeing, The All Loving, right besides you.

Lesson 3: You will never ‘know yourself’ until marriage.

This is a funny one.

I was always a journaller and as a result, really interested in this whole concept of ‘knowing myself’. I would search around for journal prompts to understand myself better and pour out my heart, page after page to my journal. And even though my parents had begun the marriage hunt from when I was around 20, 3 years later there were still times I was glad I hadn’t found anyone yet since it meant I could ‘get to know myself better’.

By the time I was engaged, I thought I was so self-aware and someone who was in complete tune with themselves.

Which in retrosept is pretty funny because 8 months into marriage, I think I learnt more about myself in the past few months of marriage than I did in the past few years of trying to know myself.

Marriage can teach you more about yourself than any journal prompt ever could. Living with someone else and navigating the ups and downs of a relationship is what really reveals who you are, and from it there’s so much to learn and grow from together.

And although seeing new weaknesses and fears play out live isn’t pretty, subhanallah the growth that can happen together is beautiful.

So sis, stop trying to delay marriage just trying to know yourself.

Lesson 4: Don’t take advice from everyone

There’s two ends of the spectrum – take advice from anyone doing a bit better than you in life , or take advice from no one and ‘doing you’.

I went through both phases in my life to finally realise there’s a balance.

Taking advice from no one and just doing your own thing. – I quickly realised how inefficient I was being. It felt cool to say ‘I do me girl’, but I realised I was just reinventing the wheel for every decision I needed to make, instead of making use of the wisdom of people who had been through the same decisions.

On the other hand, taking advice from anyone who’s a few steps ahead you in life is a worse idea. We have a culture that tells us to take advice from anyone older than you because age, apparently, is enough of a marker for wisdom. I thought it made sense to because it meant I was consulting people before making a decision. But the more I did this, the more confused I became because everyone had a different opinion.

That’s when it hit me – there no point taking advice from anyone just because they’re a few years ahead of you in life.

There’s no point taking advice from the aunty who is always travelling for work, and so is hardly ever home, because she wants a bigger house for advice. She might be extremely successful, but that is not the type of life I want in my future.

I realised I need to narrow in on who I take advice from – to consult and take advice from people who hold the same values as I and live the type of life I want to live in my future. And then, block off the rest of the noise around.

Lesson 5: If you’re not moving forward, your moving back

I remember my Quran teacher telling me that Hifdh (Quran memorisation) is like walking up a down moving escalator. If you’re standing still, you’re actually going backwards. And I feel like this is the case with all learning in life, but especially studying the Deen.

We know ‘seeking knowledge is obligatory on us, like the Prophet (pbuh) has told us. But as we grow older and leave the education systems, graduate university, it’s very easy to stop pushing ourselves to grow and learn more. During these times, either our parents placed us into madrasah systems or we had the free time in our hands to learn and study ourselves.

But then, life and it’s responsibilities take over and our days are just spent working or fulfilling family responsibilities.

There’s nothing wrong with this because as Muslims, all these responsibilities are acts of worship if done for the sake of Allah.

But the danger is stagnation. Our knowledge stagnates if we dont put the time in to carry on learning more. And before you know it, you are close to retirement age with the same knowledge of Islam as when you were in madrasah.

I realised how easy it is to fall into this just by how quickly the few years after university has whizzed by. And there is no way to prevent this except by actively setting aside time, either every day or every week, to study and learn more of the religion of Allah. To make that as much of a priority in our days like work and family.

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If you reached till the end of this post, thank you my friend. I appreciate it!

I hope we get to meet each other in my next post too. Until then, I’d love to know, what is a lesson you learnt this year on your birthday? Let me know in the comments. I’d love to start a conversation!

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Until next time,

Thasneema 🌻