Adnan Rajeh – Towards a Modern Awakening #04 – Efficiency and Effectiveness
AI: Summary ©
The lack of efficiency and effectiveness in modern societies is causing problems for Muslims, including lack of action, lack of efficiency, and poor quality of life. The importance of excellence and doing deceptive deeds is emphasized, along with the need for working in teams and finding excuses to avoid mistakes. The speakers stress the importance of planning for actions and events, including achieving goals and goals for success, and the need for effective action plans to improve efficiency and achieve progress.
AI: Summary ©
As-salāmu ʿalaykum wa-rahmatullāhi wa-barakātuh.
Bismillāhir-Rahmānir-Rahīm, walhamdulillāhir-Rabbil-ʿālamīn.
Allāhumma ṣalli wa-sallim wa-bārak ʿalá nabiyyinā
wa-ḥabībinā Muḥammadin wa-ʿalá ālihi wa-ṣaḥbihi
ajma'īn.
Allāhumma ʿallimnā ma yanfaʿunā wa-anfaʿnā bima ʿallamtana
wa-zidnā ilmā.
Welcome to our seven-episode series of Towards
a Modern Awakening.
Today is episode number four.
Today I'll be talking about efficiency and effectiveness,
or effectiveness and efficiency, it doesn't really matter.
Now, if you've ever been on a board
or if you've ever been a part of
a committee, you understand what it means to
sit for hours and hours in a meeting
and literally get nothing done and walk away
with no real action plan, only to come
back next week with the same issues being
talked about again and again.
And that's where we lack in terms of
our efficiency.
When we look at our Muslim communities, whether
here in the West or even anywhere else
in the world, you always find that the
number of Muslims that exist in a community
is quite large.
There's a lot of Muslims, yet we don't
really get much done.
And we lack in terms of our effectiveness
and the difference between these two terms.
Effectiveness is doing the right thing, knowing what
to do, so you're doing the right thing.
Efficiency is doing that, whatever you're doing, doing
it right.
So effectiveness is doing the right thing and
efficiency is doing things right.
And together, when you bring them both together,
and you can imagine for a moment what
the four categories we can walk away with.
If you're effective and not efficient, you're doing
the right thing, but you just don't know
how to do it.
You can't seem to get it done properly,
which is in a lot of cases one
of the problems that we have as Muslims.
And when you're efficient but not effective, you're
doing things right, but what you're doing is
not the right thing.
And that's another set of problems that we
have in our societies as Muslims as well.
But when you put both of them together,
when you put effectiveness and efficiency together, you
walk away with something called excellence, which is
basically what Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A
'la calls Al-Ihsan.
And the Qur'an is filled with this
concept.
وَأَحْسِنُوا إِنَّ اللَّهَ يُحِبُّ الْمُحْسِنِينَ And do what
you do with excellence.
Indeed, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la
loves those who perform their deeds with excellence.
هَلْ جَزَاءُ الْإِحْسَانِ إِلَّا الْإِحْسَانِ When Allah Subh
'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la treated us with
excellence through all the bounties that He's bestowed
upon us, isn't the proper way for us
to pay Him back is by showing excellence?
Or the ayah could be understood the other
way around, that if we show excellence in
our lives, then Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta
-A'la will only treat us, Yawm al
-Qiyamah, with excellence as well.
He says, Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la
in Surah Al-A'raf, إِنَّ رَحْمَةَ اللَّهِ
قَرِيبٌ مِّنَ الْمُحْسِنِينَ Indeed, the mercy of Allah,
the compassion of Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta
-A'la is very, very close to those
who show excellence.
The Prophet, Alayhi Salatu Was Salaam, spoke of
this concept many, many times.
إِنَّ اللَّهَ كَتَبَ الْإِحْسَانَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ فَإِذَا
ذَبَحْتُمْ فَأَحْسِنُوا الذِّبْحَةَ وَلْيُرِحْ أَحَدُكُمْ ذَبِيحَتَهُ
وَلْيُحِدْ شَفْرَتَهُ Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A
'la wrote and decreed excellence upon everything.
Excellence applies to everything in life.
And then he gives the example that doesn't
come to mind.
He talks about slaughtering an animal, which is
something that we usually associate with blood and
it being messy and it's something you don't
want to think about.
We enjoy the food but we don't want
to think about the actual process.
And he tells us, Alayhi Salatu Was Salaam,
even when it comes to slaughtering an animal,
you have to do with excellence.
So make sure that your animal is being
treated properly.
Make sure that your knife is proper.
Because even when you do something like that,
it's excellence that is required.
He says, Alayhi Salatu Was Salaam, إِنَّ اللَّهَ
يُحِبُّ إِذَا عَمِلَ أَحَدُكُمْ عَمَلًا أَن يُتْقِنَهُ Allah
Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la indeed loves
when one of us does something, that we
do it with excellence.
We do it properly.
We actually, we're effective and we're efficient when
we're doing it.
If you take the hadith of Jibreel Alayhi
Salaam, that known hadith where the Prophet Alayhi
Salatu Was Salaam was sitting in the Masjid
and a man comes in and he sticks
his knees to the Prophet Alayhi Salatu Was
Salaam's knees, sitting right in front of him.
He asks him about Islam and he asks
him about Iman.
And then he asks him about Ihsan.
And you can categorize this hadith in whatever
way you want, but Ihsan, excellence, is a
third of whatever Islam is in essence, or
whatever this deen is in essence.
And when he answered Alayhi Salatu Was Salaam
what Ihsan actually is, أَن تَعْبُدَ اللَّهَ كَأَنَّكَ
تَرَاهُ is to worship Allah as if you
can see Him.
Because this is excellence in rituals.
What he's saying is that you are so
close to Allah, that all that is left
is for you to see Him.
That is excellence in how you perform a
ritual.
So what do I think the problems that
we have?
Why is it that we lack effectiveness and
why is it that we lack efficiency?
What is the issue?
I think we lack them because we lack
a few core concepts.
I think we lack decisiveness and full commitment.
تَجَرُّد When you commit to something, that you
commit to it with everything that you have.
You give it your 100%.
You're fully decisive regarding how to deal with
it.
And that's what تَجَرُّد means.
Not to get distracted.
Not to get diverted by anything.
And the Qur'an again is filled with
verses that tell the Prophet Alayhi Salatu Was
Salaam exactly that.
Not to get diverted.
Not to get distracted.
أَلْهَاكُمُ التَّكَاثُرُ حَتَّى زُرْتُمُ الْمَقَابِرُ كَلَّا سَوْفَ تَعْلَمُونَ
ثُمَّ كَلَّا سَوْفَ تَعْلَمُونَ You've been distracted by
wanting more.
By running in this life after getting more
possessions and more fame and more relationships and
more whatever it is you're after.
You've been distracted by this from doing what
you're supposed to be doing.
He says سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى وَإِنْ جَادَلُوكَ And if
they're going to spend time arguing with you
فَقُلِ اللَّهُ أَعْلَمُ بِمَا تَعْمَلُونَ اللَّهُ يَحْكُمُ بَيْنَكُمْ
Then tell them Allah knows what we're doing
and what you're doing.
And who's correct and who's not correct or
incorrect.
So don't get distracted by them.
وَاحْذَرْهُمْ أَنْ يَفْتِنُوكَ عَنْ بَعْضِ مَا أَنْزَلَ اللَّهُ
إِلَيْكَ And be aware that they will try
and distract you from what Allah Subhanahu wa
Ta'ala has revealed to you.
In another verse he's talking to him about
the Munafiqeen refusing to listen and refusing to
follow.
أُولَٰئِكَ الَّذِينَ يَعْلَمُوا اللَّهُ مَا فِي قُلُوبِهِمْ فَأَعْرِضْ
عَنْهُمْ وَعِظْهُمْ Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala knows
what's in their hearts.
So leave them alone.
Shy away from them.
وَالَّذِينَ قَالَ لَهُمُ النَّاسِ إِنَّ النَّاسَ قَدْ جَمَعُوا
لَكُمْ فَخْشَوْهُمْ On the day of Uhud, the
Muslims were being told, Oh, the An-Nas
is people, but what they mean by it
is the strong people of Quraysh, An-Nas.
They're using that word to give them the
illusion that there's a lot of people.
قَدْ جَمَعُوا لَكُمْ They have gathered all their
armies and all their allies.
فَخْشَوْهُمْ So you should be afraid of them.
So the response of the Sahaba فَزَادَهُمْ إِيمَانًا
وَقَالُوا حَسْبُونَ اللَّهُ وَنِعْمَ الْوَكِيلُ They weren't distracted
by the numbers.
They weren't distracted by the power of their
enemy because they were focused.
They were fully focused.
There's full tajarrud.
When they know what they're doing, they know
why they're doing it and they're doing it
properly.
They're not distracted and they're fully committed to
doing it.
There's a surah in the Qur'an that
talks literally about decisiveness within communities and that
if we're not decisive as communities, we will
not succeed.
Surah Al-A'raf talks about that and
nothing else.
And it gives us examples of how when
Adam and Hawa were not decisive, they left
Jannah.
And it shows us how all the other
nations of prophets, the Qawm Nuh and Qawm
Hud and Qawm Salih and Qawm Lut, they
lacked decisiveness and they were all punished.
And then it shows us the example of
Bani Israel and how they struggled with being
decisive and being fully committed.
And Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la
would command Musa when he was given the
Ten Commandments فَخُذْهَا بِقُوَّةٍ وَأْمُرْ قَوْمَكَ يَأْخُذُوا بِأَحْسَنِهَا
Take what I give you بقوة, بقوة with
strength, meaning with full commitment, with decisiveness, with
تجرد وَأْمُرْ قَوْمَكَ يَأْخُذُوا بِأَحْسَنِهَا And command your
people to take the best of it.
See أحسنه is from Ihsan, again from excellence,
to take the best they can from what
they learn and do it to the best
of their abilities.
I want to give an example of the
Prophet ﷺ's effectiveness and efficiency and there's so
many of them that just for the sake
of time I'll just give one.
When they dug the trench during the Battle
of the Trench, during معركة الخندق I want
you to imagine 5 kilometers, 5000 meters long,
4 meters wide and 3 meters deep.
That is 60,000 cubic meters that the
Sahaba were going to dig.
They had 14 days to do it.
The Prophet ﷺ had 1500 people, he divided
them into 60 groups.
Each group had 25, each 25 had a
leader.
So 60 groups, 60,000 cubic meters, each
group was going to dig 1000 cubic meters.
They had 14 days, they had leaders.
Those leaders had, there was Sa'd ibn Mu
'adh who was responsible for the day-to
-day issues.
Abu Bakr and Umar were responsible for two
halves of making sure things were going well.
All the Prophet ﷺ stood on the mountain
and they were so effective and so efficient
that in 10 days they were able to
fully achieve this.
Imagine if they didn't fully achieve it.
Imagine if they only dug, I don't know,
4900 meters and the last 100 meters they
didn't dig it.
It would have been completely useless.
The army would have just entered from there,
it would never work.
They had to dig this trench fully and
complete that to actually get this done.
They had to be effective and efficient in
order for this to work and they were.
Even though they lacked resources more than any
time within their lives, they had never been
so hungry and so poor than the time
when they were digging the trench.
So what do we think our issues are
today with our work ethic?
I think we struggle with our work ethic.
And when you take the phrase, the word
ethic is right in it.
So I think it's an ethical problem.
Previous generations, the generation of our fathers and
our grandfathers, they had stronger work ethics and
you know that about them.
They would get up every day at a
certain time and they would go to their
jobs very focused and maybe sometimes they overdid
it and we don't necessarily agree.
But I think our generation actually struggles with
our work ethic.
And it is an ethical problem because if
you want your rizq to be halal, if
you want what it is that you bring
into your house in terms of food and
drink to be halal, rather than not doing
your job properly, doing it effectively and efficiently
is extremely important.
الوفاء بالعهد, making sure that when we sign
an agreement that I will do this job
with you, that we're actually going to stick
to the agreement that we signed.
It's an issue of ethics, of making sure
that we are willing to do our job
properly.
And when you look at examples of that,
the Prophet's work ethic during, for example, his
time that he worked with Khadija, before he
was a Prophet even.
When Khadija tried him out, she sent Maysarah
with him, one of her servants, to watch
the Prophet.
And when Maysarah came back, she asked him,
what did you find?
So he told her, that I've never seen
anyone work as hard as this man.
He wakes up every day before sunrise and
he works until sunset every single day.
He never lies.
Even though he's a businessman, he's self-taught.
He never lies about anything.
Another example is when the Prophet saw a
man coming into the Masjid to pray, and
he didn't pray properly.
So when he came to sit with the
Prophet and the Sahaba, he said, ارجع فصل
فإنك لم تصل Go back and pray again.
What you just did doesn't count as a
prayer.
You have to do it properly.
Whether it's done properly or not.
When you do it, the man went and
he kept on sending him back until the
person said, This is all I know.
I don't know how to do it any
better than this.
What does that have to do with our
problem as an Ummah today?
Well, I think it's very central.
Because our relationship with Allah SWT is based
on an agreement.
اِنَّ اللَّهَ اشْتَرَ مِنَ الْمُؤْمِنِينَ أَنفُسَهُمْ وَأَمْوَالَهُمْ بِأَنَّ
لَهُمُ الْجَنَّةِ Indeed, Allah SWT has bought from
you your life and your wealth and your
possessions.
And for that, you will get Jannah.
There's an agreement here.
There's an agreement that requires us to work
and to do our jobs properly.
Another issue that I think we struggle with
a little bit is getting the right people
in right positions.
The right people in the right positions.
The Prophet SAW, in a known hadith in
Bukhari, said اِذَا ضُيِّعَتِ الْأَمَانَةِ فَانْتَظِرِ السَّاعَةِ The
moment the amanah is lost or mistreated, then
wait for Yawm al-Qiyamah.
So they asked him, because the word amanah
means trustworthiness or a trust.
It's unclear.
وَمَا الْأَمَانَةِ يَا رَسُولُ اللهِ What do you
mean by amanah?
فَقَالَ إِذَا وُسِّدَ الْأَمْرَ غَيْرُ أَهْلِهِ فَانْتَظِرِ السَّاعَةِ
It's when you give the wrong person authority,
or you put the wrong person in a
place of authority or a place of leadership
or in the wrong position that they shouldn't
be in.
And we struggle with this, not only in
the Muslim world, but even in our societies
and the communities that we live in, where
we can't seem to find people with the
right qualifications and then give them the autonomy
and authority they need to get jobs done
properly.
And we find ourselves being led or being
guided by those who don't have the ability
to actually do it properly.
And this is a problem that can change,
and this affects our ability to be efficient
and to be effective within our own communities.
Another issue I think that is extremely important
is العمل الجماعي, is group work, is working
in congregations or teamwork.
The Qur'an is very, very big on
this concept.
وَتَعَاوَنُوا عَلَى الْبِرِّ وَالتَّقْوَى وَلَا تَعَاوَنُوا عَلَى الْإِثْمِ
وَالْعُدْوَانِ And work together and help one another
and cooperate in achieving birr and taqwa, achieving
things that will allow you to have the
best of ethics and to be the most
pious.
وَلَا تَعَاوَنُوا عَلَى الْإِثْمِ وَالْعُدْوَانِ And don't work
together to do the opposite, which is unfortunately
in many situations the case.
The Prophet ﷺ says, المُؤْمِنُ لِلْمُؤْمِنِ كَالْبُنْيَانِ يَشُدُّ
بَعْضُهُ بَعْضًا A believer to another believer is
like a building.
Every part of that building strengthens the other
part to make it stable, which is the
concept of us working together.
We should be working together within the idea
or the mindset of نَتَعَاوَنُ فِي مَا اتَّفَقْنَا
عَلَيْهِ وَيَعْذُرُ بَعْضُنَا بَعْضًا فِي مَا اخْتَلَفْنَا عَلَيْهِ
We work together on the issues that we
fully agree upon, and then we find for
each other excuses of why we disagree on
other stuff.
Instead of turning these disagreements into reasons for
us not to be able to work together
as groups, we find excuses.
We say, yeah, well maybe that's how he's
viewing it, or that's how they see it,
or that's why they struggle with this issue.
We can let them do that part.
But we find the common ground that allows
us to work together.
Teams are so important.
I believe heavily in teams.
I believe everything should be done in teams.
Of course there are negatives to working in
groups and congregational work, but I think the
positives of working in groups outweigh the negatives.
And if you actually want to be effective
and efficient, then we need to work in
teams.
I think every imam should have a team.
I think the Prophet ﷺ had his team.
He had Abu Bakr and Umar and Uthman
and Ali.
They were always there.
He consulted.
They worked together.
And he taught the Sahaba after that to
also work in teams.
The concept of a one-man show doesn't
go very far.
Everything has to happen in teams.
And when it does happen in teams properly,
the outcomes are amazing.
And that requires us to work together and
to increase our effectiveness and increase our efficiency.
But also in the midst of all this
talk that I'm bringing forward about work ethic
and working in groups and effectiveness and efficiency,
we sometimes lose sight of just doing our
individual jobs.
Al-amal.
Just do your role or do your job
to the best of your ability.
And the concept of al-amal, of وَقُلْ
يَعْمَلُوا فَسَيَرَ اللَّهُ عَمَلَكُمْ وَرَسُولُهُ وَالْمُؤْمِنُونَ And he
says, work and do.
And Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la
and the Prophet and the believers will see.
They will see what you are doing.
They'll see the fruit of your actions and
your deeds.
The concept of just focusing on your role
and doing it properly.
The Prophet ﷺ explains that in a beautiful
way in a hadith that most people know.
Where he says, إِذَا قَامَتِ السَّاعَةِ وَفِي يَدِي
أَحَدِكُمْ فَسِيلَةً فَإِنِ اسْتَطَاعَ أَلَّا تَقُومَ حَتَّى يَغْرِسَهَا
فَلْيَفْعَلْ If Yawm al-Qiyamah is beginning and
in your hand is a plant.
If you can put that plant in the
ground, meaning if you can prepare it to
live, give it a chance to actually grow.
If you can plant it in the soil
properly before Yawm al-Qiyamah happens, then do
that.
When you think about it, why on earth
would I do that?
Ya Rasool Allah, Isha' is happening.
Earth won't exist anymore.
That's not the point.
The point is, if you have a job
that needs to be done, then do it.
If you have a role that needs to
be fulfilled, then fulfill it.
Do not underestimate the importance of fulfilling your
role and doing your job.
I think that this has been a problem
for Muslims for a long time.
We've lost connection with that.
Just focusing on doing our roles.
Again, tajarud, decisiveness and commitment is just focusing
and doing what you need.
See, Islam won't give you its all.
If you don't give it, you're all.
If you want Islam to actually reap the
fruits of Islam and benefit from Islam, you
have to give Islam your all, everything you
got.
You're 110% everything.
That's what amal and tajarud actually mean here.
Making sure that we're effective and efficient.
Making sure that we are doing the right
things.
And that we're doing them properly is the
way to actually achieve that.
We always joke whenever there's a meeting, people
show up late and we say it's almost
MST. It's Muslim Standard Time.
That's very untrue.
It's very untrue.
The Prophet, Alayhi Salaam, was extremely punctual.
He was extremely punctual, Alayhi Salaam, for everything.
He was always early.
But maybe we have lost that connection.
The Prophet, Alayhi Salaam, tells the sahaba in
a known hadith, على كل مسلم صدقة Every
Muslim has to work and then the charity
or benefit from that work should reach others
as well.
So they said, Ya Rasool Allah, well some
of us, we can't do that.
What if we can't do that, Ya Rasool
Allah, then what?
فقال يعمل بيده فينفع نفسه فتكون له صدقة
Work with your hands, meaning work hard and
benefit yourself and your family and that's your
sadaqa.
So one of them said, Ya Rasool Allah,
what if I can't even do that?
فقال تعينوا ذي الحاجة الملهوف Help someone who's
in desperate need, who's in less need than
you.
Support them.
That's a sadaqa for you.
فإن لم يستطع What if I can't even
do that?
قال تأمر بالمعروف و تمسك عن الشر لك
الصدقة Encourage good deeds and don't harm others
and that's a sadaqa for you.
You need to do something.
We have to make sure that we perform
our jobs to the best of our abilities.
You see, when we lack effectiveness and efficiency,
we also lack the ability to make a
difference.
Making a difference in the world and making
a difference in our communities is something that
can only be achieved through being effective and
efficient.
And there are so many examples in this
era for that.
I'm just going to bring up two quickly.
أبو بكر رضي الله عنه In a known
example, he once was telling one of his
army leaders that I expect this battle that
is coming to be very swift and very
quick.
And he told him, well, why is that?
He said, well, you have in your army
القاقاع One of the Sahaba And he said
صوت القاقاع في الجيش بألف رجل His voice
amongst the soldiers in the army itself is
more worthy than a thousand people, a thousand
men.
Now once عمرو بن العاص was sent by
عمرو الخطاب for battles in Egypt And عمرو
بن العاص took a bit too much time
And he sent عمرو الخطاب asking for help.
He wanted some help.
So عمرو الخطاب sent him He told him
I'm sending you 8,000 men 4,000
and 4 men But those 4 men, each
one of them is equal to a thousand
men So when you're asked how many people
did عمرو الخطاب send you You will say
8,000 men So of course عمرو بن
العاص wouldn't dare cross عمرو الخطاب But he
sent 4 men He sent زبيل بن العوام
And نقداد بن الأسود And عبادة بن الصامت
And مسلمة بن مخلد And these 4 men,
he said each one is equal to a
thousand men Just the ability to make a
difference How is it that you make a
difference when you're effective and you're efficient And
when we're not effective and we're not efficient
Nothing works and nothing gets done And whatever
does get done is not even the right
thing in the first place And when you
think about it Isn't that this downward spiral
that we've been living in as Muslims for
so long now That we can't seem to
figure out what needs to be done And
then if we do figure out what needs
to be done That we can't seem to
figure out how to do it properly And
we do have enough skills and enough expertise
within our communities To actually get both done
If we can just work together And focus
on these two extremely important elements Okay, the
action plan I think that within the time
that we have now Where we can't really
do much And we have excessive amount of
time to reflect and think I think what
we should be doing individually Is figuring out
within this huge mosaic of an existence Where
our peace fits What exactly we can do,
what we can offer What is the right
thing for us to do And then if
you can figure that out Okay, how am
I going to do it right And that
requires a certain amount of planning Planning is
a very underestimated activity I think it's one
of the most important acts of worship that
you can ever do Is just to plan
things out Spend time planning how you're going
to achieve What you want to achieve And
what is worth achieving in the first place
Ramadan is time to do that Ramadan slows
everything down a little bit As you can
see, we get tired in the middle of
the month We all slow down a little
bit And that gives us time to focus
on things like planning And figuring out what
it is that I'm going to do And
how am I going to do it Fully
committing ourselves to doing something Performing tajrud So
that we're no longer being distracted and diverted
by everything in life So we can focus
on serving Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala in
the proper way Knowing what our goal and
our activity is actually going to be So
we focus on it, we don't get distracted
We figure out what we're doing And then
we do it well We achieve it with
excellence There's a known table called the time
management table And they also call it the
Eisenhower matrix And if you look at it,
it looks at things, at activities And the
concept of urgent, non-urgent, important, non-important
And what I want you to do is
I want you to fill this out I
used to fill this out once every 2
-3 months when I was younger I fill
it out maybe once a year now Sometimes
less than a year Every 8-9 months
I fill it out I sit down and
just look at it Because it's extremely helpful
in allowing us to revisit And kind of
just redirect ourselves And what we're doing in
our lives Obviously, urgent and important are crises
Things that need to happen right now And
they'll change our lives if we don't do
them The box that I really want you
to focus on Is that one on the
upper left side Or probably the upper right
side from where you're looking at it Those
things that are important and non-urgent This
is a critical box in our lives In
that box exists our relationships The relationship that
we have with Allah The relationships we have
with our family members Within that box we
put in all our long-term goals I
want to learn more about Islam I want
to do something for the sake of Allah
that can last I want to have an
action I want to have a deed that
I can come Yawm al Qiyam and say
Ya Rabb, I made many mistakes but I
did this I achieved this one thing for
You Ya Rabb And hopefully with that one
action That one strong and effective deed That
Allah will forgive us In that box we
put all the issues that allow us to
be better people I want to get in
shape I want to learn a new skill
And they rarely get done They rarely get
done And time is of essence There isn't
much time in life There just isn't You'll
see how your life will just pass by
so quickly And you'll wonder what do I
have to show for all this Well, fill
in this table for me Just fill it
in and look at it And think, okay,
I know what's important and urgent that I
have to do And here's a bunch of
stuff that are unimportant They're urgent but they're
unimportant Text messaging and phone calls And there's
stuff that are not important and not urgent
Binge watching a Netflix show that you were
told was good Unimportant stuff But then that
important box that isn't urgent But it's going
to make a world of difference in your
life And not just in yours But in
the life and the progress of this ummah
Take time to fill that box And then
take time during Ramadan right now To plan
out and figure out How am I going
to achieve these things Identify what the right
thing for you is So that you can
be effective And identify how are you going
to do it properly So you can be
efficient Because if we can fix our effectiveness
and efficiency as individuals Then hopefully we can
fix effectiveness and efficiency as groups As congregations,
as an ummah, as a nation And then
actually get things done That are needed, that
we need to do I cannot count for
you the number of problems That we have
within our communities That are pressing And that
are getting worse by the day That we
should have started working on solutions for years
ago But we don't have them right now
And if you were going to start actually
providing these services properly Then we probably not
even do it properly And it's not for
the lack of expertise Or the lack of
skills Or the lack of people Or the
lack of, I think it's just the lack
of commitment The lack of full decisiveness and
clarity To focus on doing things and doing
them well And I think we have the
ability to do that And we have the
time on our hands to actually achieve that
I hope that was beneficial سبحانك اللهم وبحمدك
أشهد أن لا إله إلا أنت أستغفرك وأتوب
إليك وصلى الله على محمد وعلى آله وصحبه
أجمعين We'll see you tomorrow inshallah السلام عليكم
ورحمة الله وبركاته