The Current of the Dunya: How well can YOU swim?

I have officially begun a four month long journey interning as a student teacher at a middle school. I hadn’t worked full time since last summer when I administered a summer camp. However, because my last job consisted of doing crafts and playing games with kids from the Masjid, I didn’t feel the pull of the Dunya. [Dunya is a term which often refers to the hustle and bustle of this world.]

However, within the last week, working around 40hrs in a professional environment, I felt my inner spirituality slowly waiver. Considering I was amid planning and attending meetings for FAYM in the evenings, I expected that I would not be distracted from my acts of worship. Yet from Monday to Friday, the lists of tasks made my Dunya obligations somehow overtake my Akhirah resolutions and personal goals.

It made me envision the Dunya as an ocean current flowing in different wavelengths and degrees of strength. It pulls you from one direction to another, and for many, they are lost at sea. Others are taken away without a choice by the rip currents –the vulnerable and innocent –captured by shaitaan’s lure. I imagine our scholars on boats floating above the surface. I imagine myself as a struggling Muslimah floating along, sometimes crashing waves and sometimes meeting smooth, warm bubbles.

If you are still able to follow this extended metaphor you understand the message I am trying to convey –the Dunya will consume you if you allow it. Our priorities slowly change and we begin to neglect the source that keeps us going –our faith.

Whether you swim or float, don’t let your life get swallowed into checklists and schedules that keep us from fulfillment. There is always somebody busier doing more (and doing it better). Don’t let the routine of offices and suffocating demands stop us from LIVING. “Man is born to live and not to prepare to live.” [Boris Pasternak]

With that being said, I have discovered some tips that can help us curb the waves and surf into the sunset with ease living our lives to the fullest. Here are my swimming tips to survive the currents of Dunya.

1. Strive to pray every Salaah on time everyday without exception. Pray your Sunnah as well because it protects your Fard.
2. Connect yourself to an Islamic Jamaa’ah or group. None of us is strong enough to battle Shaitaan on our own. It keeps you contributing and developing which makes you feel good about yourself. It also gives you support for those days that you just need to vent.
3. Soak yourself generously with GEMs (genuinely enlightening moments); sit under a tree and make dhikr, listen to lecture series, recycle, attend online Islamic web sessions, listen to nasheeds, volunteer in PD or relief efforts, give da’wah, take a walk or simply share a kind word. All of these and more will make the ordinary become extra-ordinary.
4. Always evaluate and set high expectations for yourself.

I also lastly share an important read to solidify our intentions to rise above the currents:

Awakening the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins; How to take immediate control of your mental, emotional, physical, and financial destiny!

One Peace.