Abdul Nasir Jangda – The Company Which You Keep
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the importance of social friendships and finding the right ones for one's personality. They touch on the topic of finding the right friends for one's personality and managing one's success. They also discuss the difficulty of managing cultural differences and the importance of finding friendships that help one grow and survive in tough situations. They emphasize the importance of finding lifelong bonds and finding oneself as part of a culture.
AI: Summary ©
So my salads. So it's really awesome to get to talk to the brothers and have a nice exclusive little sitting with just the guys, and allows me to kind of keep it a little more informal. For those of you who showed up in the earlier session, you see that I want to kind of just kind of let it all out to say what needs to be said. And then you see a couple of uncles start to freak out, then you pull back a little bit, then you say something, then you retract. So just by nature, I enjoyed just kind of talking to the guys and keeping it very loose and just saying what needs to be said. So this type of settings really great for that sauce. And for that
I was thinking about what to talk to the guys about is a couple of my friends, I texted a couple of
people that I know, Mashallah, they're also good brothers good speakers, I kind of texted them, ask them what they thought I should talk about. And it's actually a topic I've talked about a lot in my own community with the youth and the brothers in my own community. And I thought that would be good today. It seems like a really played out topic. It seems like something that gets talked about a lot. But and I should say this at the same time, because a lot of these talks make it almost sound like friends are bad. Be a loner.
Like, it's not so psychotic commercial being a loner, right. So it's not Oh, that's not it.
We're human beings. We're social creatures. It isn't, it's it's human need to want friends.
If you don't have friends, there's something wrong with you. If you don't feel the need for friends, there's something wrong with you. It's human need to warn friends. You know what the prophet said, and this is really beautiful. I don't want to get completely sidetracked but sallallahu Sallam the prophet SAW Selim, he said
that,
if I had not made like, if my best friend wasn't Allah,
if my best best friend, like that one best friend you have, if my best friend wasn't Allah,
then I would have made a book and my best friend.
meaningless slots already been filled.
But otherwise, if it wasn't allowed, because he's Mohammed Rasulullah sallallahu sallam. So his best friends are, of course, going to be a lot themselves. But he said, if it wasn't that
leader,
I would have taken him back to be my best friend. So even the Prophet says, I'm at home ease and friends.
So it's natural to watch them. And friends can be an amazing thing. It can be an amazing influence on a person, and can be there for you in difficult times, and help you be a better person. But I'm just talking about the effect and the influence a friend can have on a person, then it can go that far, it really can go that far.
So choosing the right friends, is extremely important.
And
one issue that comes up in the in the topic of friendships and the people that you hang out with, and you associate with is,
you know, and this is something we rationalize. And a lot of times we're very intelligent, we're very, you know, especially the guys that are more intelligent, the guys that are more mature, the guys that have good strong personalities, or use are usually the ones
that end up falling into this trap more than the others. And that is the more outgoing the more confident and strong of a personality you have. You start to convince yourself that you're above the influence.
You're above the influence, like I can hang out with some guys and not just get caught up in their mess. I can I can I can manage myself, I can control myself and have some zombie I'm not some crony I'm not some groupie, I can manage my own self just hanging out with these guys because they're kind of cool. Or I just you know, I like to just play ball with these guys are steady with these guys are just you know, they have good tastes and food. So I just go eat out with them or whatever. But I can I can totally manage myself, I'm not affected by them. I'm not one of those weak minded people. I'm a leader, not a follower.
And it's really easy to convince yourself of that. And by the way, the number one thing that convinces you of that shape and by the way, chiffon loves to convince people of that because at the end of the day shadow knows that no matter how confident and strong your personality is, he's more confident and has a stronger personality than even you do. So he has no problem by saying, Man, you're awesome going because he knows at the end of the day he'll be able to get in your head. So he wants to push push you out there into treacherous territory. treacherous terrain, like unstable footing, pushes you out there and then just
you know, pulls up the rug from right under you and bam you're gone. And the Prophet gives us a beautiful example.
about how you can think you're above that influence, you're above that pressure. And you can just hang out with somebody without being affected by them, no matter what it is, like a lot of you guys, anybody here in college already, a lot of you guys, okay, some of you guys, you know, especially by the way, the further you get in life, the older you get, the bigger this becomes a problem. It's actually a bigger problem for the older guys and is for the younger guys. Because you start to rationalize that more, you become more confident, more mature, you think you're in control. Right, so the with the younger guys, there's some guys, you know, some guys at your school or whatever, the
cool guys, so you'd like to hang out with them or play ball with them or shoot hoops with them, whatever it is. And then they they're having a little hangout afterwards, they're hanging out at somebody's house, and there's gonna be girls there and everything like that. So you figure I'm gonna go there, I'm just, I just play ball with these guys. So I'll be there. Brian won't get caught up in any of that nonsense not on I'm above that. I'm too. I'm too I'm too good for that. I'm strong, I can manage myself. Now you can.
When you get into college, and it starts to change, now the guys are going out to a club, they're going out to a bar, they're going out to some
some some some concert or something. Some band is playing in town, there's a party at a frat house.
something of that nature. And once again, these are just the guys you know, you study with kind of hang out with
guys who live in your dormitory. So you feel like you know, I'm just kind of going with them. So I don't they don't think I'm weird or anything like that. I'm just going to see what's going on. But I won't get affected by any of that. Don't think yourself above that. And it gets worse as you get older. Once you graduate from college, you get a really nice job. professional job. Now, son, you know what, you know what everybody does after work to go for drinks.
That's what I work with these people.
I get left behind to talk about work. I've had a good friend call me.
At night, he's crying on the other side of the phone.
Really, really close personal friend is crying on the other side of the phone. What happened?
He doesn't want to tell me but he calls me because he needs to talk. But he won't tell me what's going on. Finally tells me he got drunk.
And this was somebody that I looked up to.
He's I used to admire his strength and his conviction.
I was like, What happened? How could that happen? And he's like, because they would all go out for drinks afterwards, afterward, new trying to make it out there in a cutthroat field, extremely competitive. And he said, I never used to go and they would talk about work over drinks.
I was like, I gotta go, I gotta stay in the loop. I gotta be in on what's going on at work.
So went two days, three days, couple of weeks. Venture, the pressure grabbed me. I tried something and then just snowballed from there.
Now he's getting drunk, like crazy. He doesn't know what to do anymore. I was like drowning in the evil the sin and he can't find his way out.
And so it's a real danger. And it continues like I said, No one's immune from it. Sometimes even the older you get the more of a problem it becomes.
So the profits are seldom he gives a beautiful example.
So having a good friend is like
it's like having a friend who's a perfumer.
perfumer, you know, today we buy colognes and perfumes at the department store. But even then, when you're walking through the department store and you pass through the perfume section, Doesn't it smell like really nice? Or you can smell like really rancid as well, depending on the Cologne, they're trying to push on you. Right. So but like a classical like very in the traditional sense of perfumer. You have to see what that's like. It's amazing stuff. I actually got to notice one family for hundreds of years. For hundreds of years for last like five 600 years, their family business what their family does is they make perfumes. They supply like his great grandfather's and stuff
they used to supply perfumes to Kings. So they were like the Royal perfumers like the mobile kings and stuff. They used to supply perfume to them. So it's like a family of perfumers that's they have like the secret recipes to make certain types of perfume. And it's like the family treasure like they literally keep the recipe the ingredients like locked in a safe, right so it was it was pretty cool getting to know them. I was a really regular customer so I used to hang out and they would tell me these little cool things about their history and stuff.
And I literally experienced it so they had like this back room where they used to cook up like the ingredients and mix all the different stuff together. And just being in that room was amazing.
You would literally
Just be in that room for like 10 minutes and when you walked out if you ran into somebody they would just be like wow you smell good
You smell like a bath and Bodyworks
you'll smell like a woman but you know so they would be like wow you smell amazing and you would just sit and standing in there for 10 minutes you didn't put anything on you
just because it's all the raw materials and they're mixing it up and everything it's all the air is thick literally the union tasted in the air because using all these raw ingredients and cooking that stuff up
so the profits and having a good friends like that
meaning even if you didn't put it on you you still do smell good just by being around him his being a good person will rub off on you the way he respectfully talks to people will rub off on
his habit of saying Salaam to people will rub off on
next time after two three times whenever you run into like some other people in your that do that just kind of goes like this mean mugs people. Right?
And he's like slowly go slowly goes now I go he said goes around saying Salaam to everybody find him brother. How's it going? She's an Aquarius now on ecomondo how are you doing? He's got that really respectful talk to me says set up to three, four or five times a day you know what's gonna rub off on you? Next time you run into some people and like you're gonna catch yourself snakes.
It rubbed off on you.
So you're not regular about prayer. And you guys are watching the bears game.
Right? And he says, gotta pray. Or maybe he doesn't even bother you at first he just kind of go gets out goes quietly makes a little Do you see him in the corner off there? praying. Everybody's still sitting around watching the game.
And then next Sunday's praying again in the corner. The third Sunday when you see him get up to go you go back, where are you going? So I'm just gonna go pray real quick.
It just rubbed off on you.
That's all it takes.
And obviously, like we talked about, but the bad friend works the same way. The Prophet said the bad friends like a blacksmith.
a blacksmith again, I realize and myself included. I grew up in the burbs, I never seen a real blacksmith. Actually, I've been into third world I've been overseas. So that's where I saw blacksmith. Otherwise, I wouldn't have seen no blacksmith in the suburb of Dallas either. But most of you have probably haven't seen a real real blacksmith.
But it's it's a nasty scene.
It's a nasty scene.
Once again, you can't even breathe in there. They just learn they just get used to breathing in there. But I literally was was was at one of these places. And when you walk out of there when you like spit, it's all black. You blow your nose and it's like black comes out from there. It's not like I worked or something. I was standing in there for about 15 minutes.
But you walk out from them you're like blowing your nose and black. It's like all dirty inside has such an effect on you for just being there for 10 minutes and standing in the room. And that's what a bad friends like it rubs off on you.
It will completely rubs off on you.
Right? I mean, most people who've tried a cigarette, how did it happen?
You know, wake up one morning and say nicotine.
I'm gonna have nicotine for breakfast. Nobody wakes up in the morning just saying that one day, you're with somebody and they go.
And you watch them do it and you're like.
And then the second day, it's like after school, it's like
I said, remember there was a canal behind our school.
And all the guys would go there and they would smoke their cigarettes that they stole from their parents.
All right. And that's how it happens. That's how everybody's tried whatever they've ever tried
from somebody else, just being around them.
So that's how things work. So nobody's above the influence, so to speak. Everybody is acceptable everywhere. Human is how we function. You go outside, you feel cold, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why
it affects you, you feel it.
So that's exactly it. And that's something really important that needs to be understood
that we're not above the influence were impacted or affected by it. So understanding First of all, it's human need to conference.
Number two,
that friends have an influence whether and the people I keep saying friends do take friends, people you hang out with people that you're around. So human beings need to be around other people, other human beings. But here's the problem, the people that you're around will have an impact and an influence on you. More so than you you give credit moreso than you realize or you're willing to accept and that could be good or bad.
And they could be so bad. Where it could go to the point of literally such
Severe regret and remorse like I explained on the Day of Judgment. So now we come to something practical, practical thing is, you know, recently we had a couple of programs, where we, in Dallas, in our local community,
we talked about a lot of important things from a job to,
you know, gender relations and things like that. So a very common question that comes up a lot of times, especially in the area of gender relations, you know, how do I manage it? How do you deal with it? It's all around us, I guess, especially this type of evil, this type of problem of like guys and girls and the whole business. Like that's, that's one of the most difficult problems to avoid for younger people today.
And the recommendation I always give number one recommendation is by finding like minded company,
because you know, what the circle that you have the friends that you have the people that you keep company with, you know, what they essentially are, they insulate you.
Like, what's the only way to not die by being out there in the cold right now, is by being by being layered, having something on a coat, a scarf, a cap, to have a hook to have something on, that insulates you from the cold that protects you from the cold as the only way you'll survive out there. So the only thing that helps us survive in society and in culture, and everything that's going on all around us, is an insulation and what insulates us, socially speaking, is that the friends that you have.
So when you find friends, I'll tell you, I know you guys are brothers. So I want to show you the flip side of this as well. One of my younger cousins,
sister, she, you know, wanted to wear hijab, in high school, both struggling with it didn't have a light. So it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't like these parts of Chicago where you have things, it's probably more of you people than there are like other people in your schools A lot of times, right. So,
but it wasn't like that. It was very few Muslim students at the school. And there wasn't even an Islamic high school or anything like that. There were no other alternatives, no other options.
She wants to wear hijab, but she felt the pressure just being singled out like that.
So how do I survive? How do I do it? So I asked her, I said that, are there any other Muslim girls at your school? So yeah, there's a couple others, as well get to know that talk to them.
So she got to know them find out what they were found out. The parents kind of knew each other good, good kids, as well from good families as well. kind of talk to them. And I said, Now bring up once you get to know them, and you break the ice. And you see you guys have a lot in common on the same page, then bring up the hijab issue. And so how long would you brought it up, then find out they've been wanting to start wearing the hijab as well. But feeling the same pressure.
So these three girls are wearing Hijab together at the same time.
And I told him, then you just form like this little circle,
you just stay within yourself, you insulate yourselves,
even each other from any and all pressure that you might feel from the outside.
And that's what they did. They would hang out together and try to make you know, get their schedules synched up as much as they could. They would have lunch together,
everything, walk to school together, walk back home together, just like that.
So they were three weirdos now instead of one weirdo. But because the fact they were three weirdos, they didn't have to worry what anybody else thought about because I don't care. I got two friends, my best friends now that that just, I don't even care what anybody else says I got two more people to talk to, to eat with the sit with. Don't talk to me that are hanging out with me. So I don't care what anybody else thinks. And somehow it I one day I was actually driving by the high school. It's kind of like an open it's one of the older schools in area. So it's kind of smaller. So they built the they had to create the extensions of the buildings literally across the street. It was like a
street that passes through. So I was driving down the street and they got like some benches and stuff outside. And I saw three of them sitting together on the bench. And they just got like their own little like corner and nobody likes standing near them or anything. right but they got their own little corner they have taken over like a little section of the courtyard. And they're sitting there having their lunch out there. And I saw them too. You can't miss them. Right? So I just saw them sitting there. I was like Mashallah.
And that's literally what friends can do. That's how you can avoid the other external influences as well. So you insulate each other. So never underestimate the value of finding like minded friends, memorize that word like minded and know what it means. They have similar values that you have. They have the same goals that you have
spiritually speaking
spirit
Generally speaking, they get it.
Right. And that's going to be so valuable for you, you, you, you can't imagine how by when you when you've been through the trenches together with friends like that, you guys know what that means gonna be in a minute frenches you've gone through the tough times, you've been through tough times with these 234 or five, whatever those friends was like minded friend, you guys were synced up, you're on the same page, same goals trying to same away, stay away from the same bad things, when you've been through difficult times with those friends like that. Those are lifelong bonds.
Those will be your best friends for life. Those are still my friends. I have so many people now other moms and other speakers and to you, and there's not a lot of people and their friends as well. And I value their relationship and their friendships. And I love these people. But when if somebody was asking me about my, my, my, my guys, my friends, they were the guys that went to high school with
two in specific.
Two guys specifically, one was a convert brother to each other with us to each other in middle school.
And so that brother, and there's just one other guy is an extremely shady character today. All right, no, but he's a good brother. Mashallah.
And but, you know, in life, just generally speaking, once an attorney once a lawyer, once he's he's, he's into the into car stuff. So he actually has a business, he owns a couple of auto shops, like a mechanic shop and auto body shop. But he restores like old classical cars and stuff. completely different. What does an attorney,
any mom,
and a guy that restores classical cars have in common?
we survive together, he survived high school and college together, that's what we have in common. That's what we have in common. So we were different people programmed differently. But we did have similar goals. The ultimate goal was similar. We wanted to be Muslim.
I want to be good Muslims. And we wanted to make sure we remain Muslims. And we made a lot we pleased a lot. And we were there for each other through this difficulty. And we made it
and actually see very rarely see them. Because the attorneys Believe it or not, he travels more than I do. I didn't think it was possible, he travels more than I do.
And the car restoration guy, he's been because the other two, we travel so much. He's in town all the time. And he takes care of his parents as well, may Allah bless them, they're really sick. But he takes care of his parents as well. So he's really busy.
The two of us travel, we rarely see each other. The last time all three of us were actually sitting together was maybe like eight months ago.
But those are still I mean, I can't forget those guys are my best best friends. If something major went out, those were the guys that would call.
And so that's what happens. Those are the bonds, the friendships that you develop that you build, because you've been in the trenches together, like I said.
And so just wanted to emphasize that to you guys about how important it is, and how practical it is, and how real it is. And it's important to find those type of that circle, that friend, that group that you can that can help you survive
to Southern Middle School.
And so that brother, and this is one other guy is an extremely shady character today. Right? He's a good brother, Mashallah.
And but, you know, in life, just generally speaking, once an attorney once a lawyer, once he's he's, he's into the into car stuff. So he actually has a business, he owns a couple of auto shops, like like a mechanic shop and auto body shop. But he restores like old classical cars and stuff. completely different. What is an attorney,
any mom,
and a guy that restores classical cars have in common.
we survive together, he survived high school and college together. That's what we have in common. That's what we have in common. So we were different people programmed differently. But we did have similar goals. The ultimate goal was similar. We wanted to be Muslim.
I want to be good Muslims. And we wanted to make sure we remain Muslims. And we made Allah happy. We pleased a lot. And we were there for each other through this difficulty, and we made it
and actually see very rarely see them because the attorneys Believe it or not, he travels more than I do. I didn't think it was possible. He travels more than I do.
And the the car restoration guy, he's been because the other two we travel so much. He's in town all the time. And he takes care of his parents as well. May Allah bless him. They're really sick. But he takes care of his parents as well. So he's really busy.
The two of us travel we rarely see each other. The last time all three of us were actually sitting together was maybe like eight months ago.
But those are still I mean, I can't forget those guys are my best best friends. If something major went out, those were the guys that would call.
And so that's what happens. Those are the bonds, the friendships that you develop that you build, because you've been in the trenches together, like I said.
And so, just wanted to emphasize that to you guys about how important it is, and how practical it is, and how real it is. And it's important to find those type of that that circle, that friend, that group that you can that can help you survive.