Life is too short, so?

The most common conclusion, as you may know, goes like: so we have to live it to the fullest! But I believe it's smarter to come to a more meaningful conclusion and truth, like: which means that, in the blink of an eye, we will be dead!

That doesn't mean pessimism, in any way. It just means realism and focusing on what really matters, and especially doing the right thing. It means letting go of our selfishness, because no matter how much pleasure or how much pain we had in this short life, they will have vanished once the soul leaves the body!

And why even think of death. Think of right now, right this moment, then think of all the pleasures and pains that you had in the past. Where are they? Completely gone! Of course anything that we're experiencing in the present seems too powerful for us to think that it will one day vanish, but it's the truth, and we know it for sure, from experience.

According to Aisha, wife of Prophet Muhammad, one day he came back home during the Eid Al-Adha celebration, the time of the year when Muslims sacrifice animals and have to give one share to the poor, one share to their relatives and neighbors, and keep the third to themselves. Muhammad asked his wife: "What remains of the goat?" She replied: "only one leg remains, we have given away the rest". There the Prophet corrected her: "All the goat remains, except the leg!"

It's not uncommon to hear someone talking about the joy of giving. Each one might have experienced it for her or himself. It's a universal human experience. And many times it's way greater that the joy of simply taking.

If life is this short, then we should just remember the fact, and work and live accordingly. We can live it to the fullest, but only as long as we're not harming or hurting. We should work for something bigger than our mere selves, and contribute to life and others as much as we possibly can. Because it will all vanish. And only our righteous deeds will remain forever for our joy and peace!

Whether we live within and for ourselves is not only about what truly remains. It affects our experience of life in the very present. It makes the difference between living in abundance or living in scarcity, from within. Selfishness is poor, giving and caring for others is rich and wealthy!

Insulting Muhammad in downtown Chicago!

It was a Friday. I was walking to the downtown mosque for the weekly collective prayer. As I was waiting for the light to cross the street, the man standing beside me started talking, or preaching. He was nicely dressed and looked decent, I looked at him and smiled, may be one of those smiles that try to say, thank you, I respect what you have to say, but I am not interested! Then I thought hearing him say: “Muhammad is down”. Then it was clear, he came closer and enthusiastically acted as if he was crushing something under his shoe, repeating: “Muhammad is down, Allah is going down”. It was a little surprise. I came across many well-meaning preachers before who stand in the streets and talk about Jesus, but I knew that none of them would publicly insult another religion; even if they believed that Allah and Muhammad are going down, they still wouldn’t say it out loud in the street.

For a while I thought the man wasn’t in his right mind. And for some other reason I didn’t feel at all offended, even though I believe in Allah/God and believe that Muhammad is a messenger, and a role model for all humans. I even thought it was funny! And to make it even funnier, I turned to him as he was insulting Muhammad and said: “Well, I am Muhammad” Then I looked at him again, smiled and repeated louder: “My name is Muhammad!” As I was now crossing the street and leaving him behind I looked at his face, trying to see the effect of my words. I thought, the guy is either not very normal, or he judged by my look that I was Muslim, and he was deliberately saying those words to me.

I have no intention whatsoever to use this little incident to play victim and give a proof that Muslims are not well liked in America. Even though they are, by some people. It’s just a human nature. I know it. I don’t think it’s right, but it’s a fact of life. The same stupidity can also be found in some of my people (Arabs, Muslims, Egyptians). People are all the same, everywhere. They have the same choices to make, no matter what color they wear or what country and culture they grew in. For an Arab, the choice can be whether or not to hate all Americans, because they hate Bush and the American foreign policy. For an American of today, the choice can be whether or not to think that all Muslims are violent, beat their wives and hate Americans for no reason. Well, a few decades ago a white American had a different choice: whether or not to go with the flow and disrespect a black human being because of the color of his or her skin! People are really the same, and the choices are the same, just with different circumstances and different names.

The Quran says that God made people different, and had He wanted to make them all into one nation, He could, but He is testing them with one another. I strongly believe in this concept. I don’t hold a grudge against this guy for insulting Allah and Muhammad, gosh I believe he deserves pity. I also believe that there is a lot of good in this country and its people, and I am confident that more and more of them will respect my religion if they just got a chance to “know better”. Knowledge. It’s a true savior! However some people will remain ignorant, no matter how much information they accumulate. Knowledge is a quality of the heart and the mind, hand in hand. I remember how the prophet Muhammad used to pray God to protect him from knowledge that would remain useless and from which he wouldn’t benefit. People need education. But nowadays we tend to forget that there is education of the mind, and yet there is one education that is the real base; it’s the one that makes education of the mind ever useful and good. We need education of the heart. It’s why God sent all those Messengers and revealed His Books.

Like learning a language, or studying for a degree, we don’t expect it to happen overnight, nor do we think that we will learn Spanish the moment we are told the rules of grammar and meaning of words. It will take time, and it will take practice. The same applies to educating our hearts and building our character. It starts with a conviction that, for example, being mean to others is no good, that we really should treat others the way we like to be treated. Once we know that, we will start a journey of falling and getting up, practicing, making a mistake then realizing that we made a mistake and committing not to make it again, etc. It’s the best education we will give ourselves, and it will get us the highest “degree” of closeness to Truth and Good/God!

Build, Before You Spend!

That’s the golden, yet simple rule for financial freedom. It’s a principle that this great country lives by its exact opposite. We spend what we don’t have. We borrow money from others (banks) to buy stuff for ourselves. Just for a moment, think of this scenario as if the bank was your friend. You like a new shirt, or desire a yummy steak at your favorite restaurant, so you go “borrow” money from your friend to buy it. Can we see ourselves do that? I guess not, it sounds insane, even indecent and irresponsible, as long as we don’t do it out of necessity. Who will ever say that we can’t live without a brand new car, a fancy dinner every week, and new cloths every couple weeks! Well, only those who don’t have a clue what “real life” is will say so!

In the famous book “The Millionaire Next Door”, one of the noteworthy characteristics that the author found common in self-made, first generation millionaires is that they live “below their means”. Not only they don’t spend what they don’t have, they actually don’t even spend “all” that they have. And that’s how they could build real wealth that ends up liberating them from money. They might live a simpler life, and others, who heavily rely on their high incomes to qualify for big credit, live a more sparkling life, dwelling in more expensive homes and driving luxurious cars. But the first group lives a simpler, yet comfortable life that is “theirs”, while the latter lives a luminous life that doesn’t really belong to them. They are at risk of loosing it every month, even every day. If their big fat paycheck stops, their ill-founded life falls apart. This is indeed a sure prescription for stress and the inability to truly taste and enjoy what we “think” we own.

I recently heard from a friend about a pilot who committed suicide. He got laid off, and obviously couldn’t find another job with a similar income. He gave up on life once he was hit and paralyzed by his finances falling on his head. He must have relied too much on his big pay, borrowing heavily to buy a nice house and new cars, etc., the typical scenario. Had he waited and lived “within”, not even below, his real means, he wouldn’t have ended up in trouble. He could have rented a nice place to live, or bought a reasonable house, used his big pay to save money while living comfortably, and his life would look very different by now. He’d probably be having enough savings to cover all his expenses for a long time, until he figures something out. He was one of the millions of victims of the norm. I wish more of us humans were strong enough to go against the norm, when it’s not really normal, if we just use some common sense! When enough of us do that, soon we will change and restore the norm to a more normal and harmonious state.

I like this advice from Suze Orman, even though I myself am nowhere close to it at the time of writing this. She suggests that we should have enough savings to cover our expenses for 6 months. That’s the first financial foundation we should build on. If your paycheck brings you a decent sum every month, I’d even say it’s safer to start by building enough savings for one year in case you lose your job. Six months sounds good, but we all know that life is UNPREDICTABLE. Yes, in capital letters, because I want it to look you bigger in the eyes! It’s one of those obvious facts that we tend to forget.

Well, I do think that the system itself is not going the right direction. We have seen what happened in the last years in the US market, and how many people lost their homes. I don’t think it’s even fair that you make payments for your house, then lose everything once you can no longer afford to pay. Buyers make mistakes and buy things they can’t really afford long-term. Buying a house is really a long-term commitment, mortgages going for 15, 20 or 30 years. We need extra caution when committing to something this long. However there is something wrong with the system itself.

In Islam, interest is strictly forbidden. I do believe that the Islamic rules are divine and meant for the ultimate, long-term good of both individuals and societies. Interest is a passive and abusive profit. We need no proof; those who got caught in debt know it too well. It’s hard to get out, and it enslaves the borrower to his ever-increasing debt. I do think that we can use the rule of “no interest” with the lessons of modern economy, and we can come up with the best formula. We need a just economy and just profits. No one can go wrong with justice, because it’s a win-win. In the meantime, we individuals have to start by our own selves. You don’t have to believe that interest is evil, because you might not believe in the Islamic teachings as I do. But we can all believe that it’s always better to use what we have. We can easily believe that buying a house or a car that we’re not sure to afford over time is like living in the house with no roof over our heads. It will get damaged with the first storm, and we’d even loose what we already paid in the walls and the furniture, thinking that the storm will wait for us until we can get to that roof and build it!

Build the whole house first, then move in and enjoy it! Now it’s really yours.

Expression vs. Depression

I once heard Dr Wayne Dyer say a very interesting definition of depression. The beautiful thing about this definition is that it reveals both the cause of depression and the possible cure for it. He simply put it this way: depression is the opposite of expression.

Expression here refers to expressing one's self. Expression has various forms and tools. We express ourselves in words and in actions. Expression requires a clear understanding of ourselves, and a course of actions and a life style based on that understanding.

I know first hand, for one example, how depressing it is to do work that's not expressive of who we are, our natural talents and our interests. Many people find themselves in this situation, mainly because sustaining life requires things that only money can buy, ranging from the very basic (food, shelter) to the less basic (paying your bills!).

Expression requires freedom. Freedom of money and freedom of other obstacles to expressing ourselves. That's why we can also say that lack of freedom surely leads to depression. We don't like feeling forced to do anything. If we feel forced in too many aspects of our life, we will inevitably be depressed.

A worthy pursuit is therefore to free ourselves, to try and create ways for us to do things we really believe in. When looking for a job, income shouldn't be where we look first, but more important is how expressive the job is of our interests.

We also need to simplify our life, to lessen the clutter and the things that we don't really need, which will free space, time and resources for the things that really express who we are. We're not this extra shirt, this new car, that new piece of furniture that we want to add to our superficial experience of life. Those things can only limit our freedom, add financial burdens that won't help liberate us or allow us to connect to our true purpose.

The Prophet Muhammad once said something that goes like this: everyone will find it easy to do what he was created for. We find resistance when we do things we don't like. This resistance is the same depression that's opposite of expression. When we do things we like, they happen easily. Time goes by light , and we have delight! It's an indication that this is what we were "created for". It's in harmony with our purpose.

This is the path to happiness: make it a priority in choosing your life to express yourself, to do what you like and what interests you, what feels so easy that you'll know it's something you were created to do!