Abdulfattah Adeyemi – How To Linger Longer
AI: Summary ©
The importance of living life, survival and growth, love, and growth is essential. Lishing and linger longer is a journey and a gift that slows our attention to our current existence. The speaker gives an example of the yeast that causes dough to rise and how humans can achieve their goals. They also discuss the benefits of living with intention and purpose, including achieving]], and how living to linger longer is not just a choice, but rather a journey.
AI: Summary ©
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Living the life is more than just a
measure of time spent on the accumulation of
experiences.
It's the art of being fully present in
the moment.
It is being aware of the fitting beauty
that surrounds us.
Life is a balance between the inevitable passage
of time and the choices we make within
time.
It is about understanding that existence is not
merely about survival, but about thriving, about growing,
and finding meaning in every breath that we
draw.
To live the life is to engage with
both the highs and the lows with a
sense of purpose.
It is not the pursuit of constant pleasure
or avoidance of pain.
It is the willingness to embrace all that
life offers.
The joy of success, the lessons of failure,
happiness in marriage, not very happy in marriage,
the peace of solitude, and the richness of
relationship, all of these come together, and you
understand that this is what it is.
Life is what it is.
It is realizing that every experience, no matter
how small or seemingly insignificant, can contribute to
the mix of the concoction of who we
are becoming.
You are a conglomeration of all your experiences
put together.
If you see an old person, you should
respect the fact that it is a lot
of so many years of experiences that have
come together to formulate who they have become.
Life is a journey and not a destination.
Sometimes we chase after goals and milestones because
we think that happiness lies at the end
of some distant horizon.
But living the life means recognizing that the
horizon will always move forward.
It is the mirage, and that the true
beauty of life is in the steps we
take to get there, not even when we
get there already.
It is the moments of reflection, the laughter
that we have shared, the memories we have
created, the tears that we shed, and the
wisdom that we gain along the way.
These are the things that actually make us
to live the life.
So living the life also means acknowledging our
vulnerability.
We are humans.
It is to understand that time is a
gift that slips through our fingers with each
passing day.
The human desire to leave a mark or
to leave children behind when we die or
to be remembered by all and sundry, these
are all testament to our yearning for immortality.
However, there is an irony to this immortality.
It is not found in the length of
our days, but found in the depth of
our living.
It is found in the kindness that we
offer.
It is found in the love that we
share.
It is found in the impact we have
on others.
In this way, life echoes long after our
physical presence have faded away.
And in living life, we understand that happiness
is not something to be pursued, but something
to be discovered within ourselves.
It is the simple moments that often go
unnoticed.
Ultimately, living the life is about being fully
alive, not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually.
It is about feeling the pulse of existence
in everything that we do.
It is knowing that each moment is precious,
that each breath is irreplaceable, and that each
day is an opportunity to live with intention,
to live with purpose, and to live with
gratitude.
Then, how do we live to linger longer?
Must our stay alive be extended?
There is a quiet irony in the human
condition.
We are beings that are bound by time,
yet we are possessed by a desire to
linger longer on earth, to stretch the fleeting
moments of this existence into something that is
eternal.
From the moment we first draw our breath,
we march steadily towards an end that we
cannot escape.
You cannot press forth on life, so there's
something that keeps dragging us and keep dragging
us towards one kind of end like that.
And despite this, the heart beats with an
endless hunger to remain.
The way the heart is beating, it doesn't
seem to want to stop beating one day.
But you know, we deal, we dream, we
conquer, as if somehow we might trick the
passage of time, as if all of the
things we have accomplished will just stand as
monuments to our resistance against the inabilitable, as
if you can just present your houses or
present your car, or show Asarairu the money
you are having in your account so that
he can spare your life.
No, it doesn't work that way.
The truth is always there.
The truth is whispering beneath the rush of
our days that life is transient.
Like leaves that are born on the wind,
we are carried from the tree of life
only to fall and wither, then we become
one with the soil that nourished us.
The earth rotates, but it is indifferent to
our desires.
The life doesn't care whether you have achieved
what you want to achieve or not.
The earth will still rotate.
The moon appears and disappears without paying attention
to our aspirations.
The sun rises and sets and it doesn't
care if we finish what we are here
to do or not.
Everything we touch, everything we love will one
day fade away and we too will return
to the dust from which we came.
Even if we don't want to leave this
world, the world will still leave us and
life will still go on.
And in our case to live longer, we
are not merely fighting the decay of our
bodies, we are also wrestling with the deep
rooted desire for meaning.
We wish to linger, not simply for more
years, but for more time to become, for
more time to transcend, for more time to
be happy, for more time to have with
family, for more time to leave behind a
mark that outlasts our flesh.
They also write not just to compose, but
to imprint a piece of themselves on a
book that may outlive them.
The same way the architect designs not merely
to build, but to leave a structure behind
that will stand when they can no longer
do so.
But as we chase this elusive permanence and
perpetuation, senescence that's steady companion will always be
walking beside us.
And senescence seems to be another name for
a surrogate that is busy checking the time,
checking the schedule, watching over us and saying
to himself that look, your time will come
someday.
So with every passing year, it reminds us
that to linger longer is not to escape
aging, but to accept its presence.
Our bodies change, our energies fade, and we
find ourselves slowed by the weight of the
years.
Yet as we age, we discover that perhaps
the true beauty of life lies in the
depth, but not in its length.
Let me say that again.
The true beauty of life lies in the
depth, not in the length.
In many ways, the desire to linger longer
is the longing for moments of significance, for
connections that endure even when the body cannot
stand again.
Allah Akbar.
And the Prophet s.a.w. said this.
The Prophet s.a.w. said, إِتَّانِمْ خَمْسًا
قَبْلَ خَمْسٍ شَبَابَكَ قَبْلَ حَرَمِكَ وَسِحَتَكَ قَبْلَ سَكُمِكَ
وَغِنَاكَ قَبْلَ فَكُرِكَ وَفَرَوْغَكَ قَبْلَ شُغُلِكَ وَحَيَاتَكَ قَبْلَ
مَوْتِكَ Allah Akbar.
The Prophet s.a.w. said, Take advantage
of five before five.
Your youth before your old age, your health
before your illness, your wealth before your poverty,
your free time before you become busy, and
your life before your death.
If you can take care of all of
these things, then you are not aging, but
you are and you can begin to linger
longer while taking advantage of the age that
you are in now in preparation for the
old age.
But mind you, reaching old age is not
certain.
It is not everyone that will reach that
same old age.
Aging is the one constant drifting and shifting
in the river of time.
No matter how we try to swim against
this current, it carries us forward, unstoppable, unavoidable,
irresistible, and irreversible.
Because as we are swept along, we are
given the choice to find peace in the
brevity of our stay.
So taking care of that chance you have,
that choice you have, is an ability for
you to linger longer while you are young
and not aging.
To linger longer may not be possible in
the physical sense because there's a time we
won't be able to do it again, but
it's in the memories that we leave behind.
And with this, let me give you an
example of the yeast that we eat in
bread, the yeast that we use for baking
bread.
You see, the human life begins with birth,
a moment filled with potential and the promise
of growth, and each person starts as a
unique individual shaped by genetics and environment and
ready to embark on their journey.
As for the yeast, the yeast begins its
life as a tiny insignificant organism.
When introduced to the right environment, that's warm
water and sugar, it activates and it starts
to grow the same way like a human
body responding to nurturing care.
Then for human beings throughout life, we seek
purpose and meaning and this can be found
in relationships, the marriages we had, the works
we did, the creativity and the personal growth,
and each person contributes to the world in
their own way and we all strive to
leave a positive impact.
As for the yeast, the purpose of the
yeast in the bread is to ferment and
to cause the dough to rise.
In doing so, it transmits simple ingredients into
something greater.
Just water and sugar, it becomes bread and
this process is similar to human beings finding
their purpose and making a meaningful contribution to
society.
So human life, the end of human life
is inevitable.
It is marked by death and then the
life of the yeast, its own end is
bread that is baked.
The heat of the oven will kill the
yeast, but the work is complete.
The bread is now risen and baked and
serves as nourishment and symbolizes the lasting impact
of one's effort.
So when the yeast rises, that is when
we arrive too, but the yeast will not
rise forever.
There will come a time when the yeast
will have to go into the oven and
the heat will kill the yeast and the
bread will remain.
How long should the remain in the oven?
It has limits.
You cannot, because you want the bread to
be sweeter and to be better, you make
it overstay in the oven.
If it does that, your bread is going
to get burnt and when you stay in
this world, you want to linger longer beyond
necessary time, then you'll be shocked, you'll be
donated to a museum, you'll become a living
ancestor.
So we have our time, we have our
limit.
When the yeast makes the dough to rise,
that is the opportunity the yeast has to
achieve its own purpose in life.
And by the time the bread is put
into the oven to bake, that is the
peak of the achievement of the yeast.
And by the time the bread is removed,
before it is time for it, you see
that the bread looks funny, it looks whitish,
it is not sweet, it doesn't achieve its
potential, it has not risen well enough and
it doesn't taste so nice and it looks
sick.
That is the bread that is whitish, nobody
likes to eat it, it looks undone.
And may Allah save us from death at
a time when we are not ripe enough
to leave this world.
As for the bread that has stayed just
at the right moment, now this is it
now, Allah SWT knows for how long we
are going to linger on earth and He
knows the right moment when we are ripe
enough, when we are baked enough as a
bread that is supposed to be fresh and
nourishing to anybody that will eat it.
And Allah takes the life of people whenever
He wills, when they are ripe and when
they are okay.
And may Allah let us continue to remain
in this world so long as being alive
is good for us.
And may Allah take us away from this
world when Allah sees that we are already
baked as a bread, we are fresh and
we are brown enough to live, may Allah
let us live at the right time.
What you must strive about is that it
is not about living in fear of the
inevitable end, but in gratitude for the chance
to be here, the chance to love, the
chance to rise, the chance to grow and
the chance to give nourishment to others.
And when our time comes to return to
the earth, we do so with a quiet
understanding that while our bodies may fade, the
essence of what we were will still remain
imprinted into the life that we have touched,
into the hearts we have healed and into
the world that we helped to shape.
And conceivably, that is the truest way to
linger longer on earth and live through the
old with grace, with gratitude and graciousness.