Happy birthday Thasni! Wow, you are 26 years old.

Who would’ve ever thought you’d reach this age. To 15 year old me, this age felt non-existent. An age I knew would come, but a number too big for me to imagine a reality.

When I look back at this year, I can’t help but be filled with gratitude to my Lord for helping me reach this mental space that I’ve been fighting for so much of my life. I went through so many mindset shifts this year and I want to write about all of them today. But I don’t want this to turn into an essay, so I’ll share with you the one mindset shift that really set this year apart for me.

Life as a race

For as long as I remember, life felt like a race against the clock.

Time always felt like it was running out and I was always trying to catch up to it.

Younger me had a plan of what she wanted life to look like, but she felt like she kept falling behind time. She felt constantly let down by herself, with a pit of anxiety ever-present.

For her, by 18, she wanted to have graduated college with the top grades (and perfect her hifdh).

By 21, she wanted to have graduated university with a graduate job lined up (and perfect her hifdh).

By 22, she wanted to be married with a flourishing career, travelling around the world for work and leisure (and perfect her hifdh).

And by 25, the big number, she wanted to have reached some sort of pinnacle with family and career (and perfect her hifdh).

She saw these timelines as a scale of her success in relation to what felt like the norm around her. Anything different felt like a failure.

But I’m 26 now — graduated a year late, married 2 years late with no stable flourishing career, and no kids. I’m meant to be engulfed in anxiety and self-loathing at this point. I’m meant to feel like a bad Muslim, like someone who wasn’t using her life as her Lord much as He wanted her to. I’m meant to feel like an absolute failure.

That is what younger me would feel.

But myself, this 26 year version of me, I dont feel any of it. That pit of anxiety has disappeared. Instead, it’s replaced with excitement and peace.

And that was all because of one mindset shift.

Reaching the pinnacle

It’s funny. Although 15 year old me knew exactly what life needed to look like till 25, if you asked her about life after it, she would have no idea what to tell you! It was all foggy after.

Maybe just a continuation to everything achieved at 25 — a continuation of a job and family (and perfect hifdh!). That’s what life seemed like based on the grown ups around, she’d say.

But as I reached this self-declared pinnacle of life, the age of 25, for the first time I was able to lift the fog of the years ahead. I was able to squint my eyes and look ahead on this path of life to see something so simple but to me, was profound.

I was able to see years upon years stretching out in front of me. I saw myself being 30, 40 and beyond. These ages no longer feel inconceivable, fantastical. Instead, they feel like the hard reality.

And although for many, the idea of growing older was a depressing thought, for me it gave me a profound sense of freedom.

Suddenly life no longer felt as restricted and limited as it felt at 15.

Suddenly time felt expansive. Never-ending.

I realised there was no need for me to be running because I was not racing against time. There was no race. Time was just taking its time.

And what a beautiful feeling it was knowing that.

Clearing the fog

Suddenly, I had decades stretched out in front of me to do all the things I wanted to. This feeling of scarcity I had towards time had disappeared.

I realised there were so many things I could try out, so many things I could achieve. And I didn’t have to rush to achieve it all in the next 2 or 3 years. Why would I when time stretches ahead? Why did I need to achieve everything by the time I was ‘x years old’?

Why do I need to subscribe to the timelines set by society?

It might take me 5 years, it might take me 10. It might take me even 20.

And some goals, I might never achieve them.

And that’s ok.

Yes, death could come anytime. And the older I grew, the closer I come to it.

But didn’t our Prophet (pbuh) tell us -

When my Lord tells me to focus on my intention, to focus on my journey over the destination, why do I pressure myself to keep reaching goals? Why do I keep forgetting to enjoy the journey — to enjoy the ups and down, to enjoy the growth in myself.

And most importantly, why do I keep forgetting that I’ll be rewarded for even the goals I never achieve if I keep the right intention?

Seeing success beyond this world

I knew what I wanted from life. I knew I wanted to write, to help people, to be healthy, to perfect my hifdh. I knew I wanted all sorts of things from life.

But it was this year, where I finally I took off the shackles of time and expectations from them.

I knew I would work towards these goals throughout the course of my life. I would wake up every day and try to become a better version of myself from yesterday, but I no longer felt the need to reach the final destination as soon as.

Because the journey is what was more fun than the destination anyway.

And because I realised, even if I die and I hadn’t actually achieved any of these goals, I would still get the reward. I would still be successful.

Because my success does not, and never did, depend on this world. It lay in the Next world. It lies on those scales of the Hereafter that will determine my ever-lasting home.

InshaAllah, God willing.