Mirza Yawar Baig – Finding meaning
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Helena Haven hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa salatu salam ala William Gable mousseline.
Rasulullah sallallahu, alayhi wa sallam just given.
I'm abajo
Melbournes is just
the
famous psychologist called Frankel.
And he wrote a book about he called it the finding meaning.
And there's a very
powerful line he writes in that book and what he says there is, is
when he cannot find any meaning he and his life
he's talking about the human being.
And he says that the vast majority of suicides
is because people cannot find meaning in life anymore.
Why am I alive for what
I was created as human beings with different kinds of needs VSM needs which are common with all animals is all mammals, which are our physical needs.
So, it is food and water,
reproductions on the physical needs
cows, buffaloes, I will be no different.
Then there are emotional needs,
which is family, which is friend, which is affiliation needs, you want to feel valued, you want to feel part of a society, part of community. And in that you want to feel a sense of importance, a sense of being needed.
So these are motion leads. And one of the places where we find the biggest damage happens is when people are old,
then we have this system, professionally, what is called retirement.
So when you are, quite frankly, when you are now you've accumulated working wisdom,
3040 5060 years, the organization, now you go,
it's a completely ridiculous and idiotic system, because now is the time when the guy can actually do some good for you, because he's got accumulated wisdom all these years, and you send him home.
Now, the logic behind that is okay, but you know, we have to find places for the new younger people to find jobs. And if the old people keep sitting there, that's fine. So Fine. Think of other ways of doing that. You are losing the accumulated wisdom of decades.
trashing it.
So we have that. The second thing which happens is, especially in our Western society, but every time I say Western societies now I'm thinking when this is spreading all over, we have the same problem also in the COVID countries, which is
nuclear families,
husband, wife, children, that's it. Once the children grew up and gone, only husband wife.
And even with the best of children, relation between the children and parents, the where the old parents are more or less discarded you whatever you call it what you want, that's the actual
thing which happens.
The Father, the old father, your mother really have no road, they have no use of being
in extended families, there was a use in extended families there was, there was a meaning to that, because they had, you know, in our cultures, there were cultural
things that happen occasionally, and so on where they played a part played a role. Somebody came to them for advice, and so on, so forth, in marriages. And so today, we have broken out those cultures, we don't have those cultures, we don't have those those knots. And to make matters worse, or better. We have moved to different countries, we're not even in our own environment. And so the elderly are literally they're like old horses. Find put out to pasture with the grass, wait for them to die.
There are two articles of mine. I'll ask me to put them here. Links, read them on loneliness is one of the biggest killers.
Just loneliness I think as there's nothing physically wrong with a person it just dies
because of loneliness, a sense of feeling unimportant. Third, is the psychological need
the need for learning the need for
you know, understanding greater
in greater depth, the need for creating wisdom and so on, and then we have spiritual needs. So unless rather has created us with all of these different kinds of needs, and Frankel says,
When he stops when he cannot find a meaning, which means a need, why he and his life, he's talking about general people who are who would have suicides. Now, he gives a very good, he gives three
tools or solutions.
And let me share that with you. He says, One, develop ideals, which is personal examples to aspire to.
I want to be like so and so. And my advice is, don't do the usual. Well forgive us the lazy things, I want to be like Russell Russell,
you don't if you really did, you wouldn't be where you are. So let's get real. Find a real living, breathing body that you want to be like, somebody you know, personally, who sit and talk to somebody who take as a mentor, right, have the balls or sell them as an overall goal. Obviously, we are we all have Muslim, but let us be truthful to ourselves. Don't tell lies to yourself.
Find a role model that you want to aspire to be like, then spend some time in their company, talk to them, get to know them, ask them questions once. And second thing is he says, embrace challenges and tensions along the way. So you want to be like somebody means that you want to do what they are doing, which means their life is what you're going to make your you're upgrading your own skills. And so now you say I want to be like that person. Oh, so that I must learn more, I must do something more. So he says embrace challenges and the tensions that come along the way with the challenge, the tension will come.
Right? Now I have two from two days on that way myself. Second, last day, Friday, I'm gone for eight weeks, to an immersion course, in a college, I'm going back to college after Garner 40 years. Right? And to learn
the Arabic language, not from scratch, Hamdulillah, they would be an intermediate level, but still.
So I'm gonna go sit in class and that that course is eight hours of classes plus four to five hours of homework every day for 60 days at a stretch no holidays.
Right? Sometimes I tell myself, I must be insane. Why am I doing that? Nobody told me. Nobody told me to do that. Nobody's paying me to do that. Nothing.
But I'm not insane. I know I'm not insane. This is the whole challenge of finding food, challenge yourself, push yourself. And nobody can do it for your eye after a certain age. Nobody can tell you nobody will tell.
You don't do it, don't do it. Nobody does nothing depend on it. But if you do it,
you know, at least it gives the brain cells working. And third thing he says is pursue personal tasks. That things that you have decided that you are excited to do that you are excited to be or do or you have the future. So three very critical things, develop ideas, embrace challenges, and pursue personal tasks. And the whole idea of pursuing personal tasks is to make those tasks tough,
difficult tasks, because you're like the same principle as in the gym, and so on. The only thing only if it hurts, it's what benefit you.
So if you're doing exercise is not hurting you. It won't benefit you it has to work, then only you will benefit to only the Stress produces the growth.
So this is the meaning of finding meaning and hamdulillah Islam begins with that.
Allah subhanaw taala has already created us for this purpose, that purpose, the meaning is of our color to dinner with the elderly I presume,
to know Allah to worship Allah subhanaw taala to have this dialogue with Allah subhanaw taala.
And that's why when you think about an essay, sometimes people say this, especially older people, Oh no, my life is over. So no life is not over.
If you're breathing, your life is not over.
There is something that you need to do.
What is that something and that's very important to keep this in mind and focus on the from the earliest age inculcate this in your children to find meaning in their lives. The key thing of meaning is to inculcated from the beginning in the children itself.
Find meaning what are you doing?
Think about that. How can I make it more rewarding for me? And more rewarding almost invariably means make it more difficult.
Stretch more that will keep you awake, the scary of it.
And by that you are more alive.
We ask Allah subhanaw taala to help us to live live
which are full of meaning and will benefit us and benefit all those around us for some of our non recurring halali He was never Africa