Safi Khan – Soul Food for College Students To Post or Not to Post Social Media
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The speakers discuss the benefits of positive fatherhood, including experiencing a moment and capturing sensory experiences through pictures and videos. They are joined by volunteers and their brothers, and are reminded of sensory experiences that they have experienced. They are reminded of sensory experiences that they have experienced, and can capture them through pictures and videos. They are reminded of sensory experiences that they have experienced, and can capture them through pictures and videos.
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Being safe and keeping that part of our awareness comes about we
have a really awesome treat for you guys today. You're so food,
not only because of the topic, but actually because of, you know, one
of our guests that came to visit us today, all the way from
Mansfield, he
welcomed a lot, you know, we're here to discuss this topic. The
topic says the fire to close or not to close. And I think a lot of
people kind of get an immediate trigger when they when they read
that write about your life on social media. And, you know, the,
like the entire idea of the effects of social media on are on
us spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and how you kind of go
about maneuvering through that journey. And I think some of us,
you know, I remember watching this special is a couple of days ago,
where, you know, this idea of this overwhelming nature of social
media times drives us to this kind of burnout stage in our life where
we read so much we hear so much. We get DM so much about things
that are going on and just reading article after article about things
are happening in our world to the point where we almost feel like
it's just too much right. And as believers you know, as people
we're supposed to feel right, we're not supposed to read we're
not supposed to hear some of the field things. How does that impact
our hearts people who are worshipers of Allah and at the end
of the day trying to do as much as we possibly can. So humbled Well,
you know, we're gonna have celebrate mine and technically,
mashallah, for those of you who do not know check me out, it'll get
an instructor at the institute. A lot of you guys may see him every
single morning if you tap on Instagram, and you see him doing
morning entrecard and Victor and and remembrances and he's always
kind of a rounding a lot of good programming here in Dallas, from
the land all across our communities around the country. So
inshallah I'm gonna hand off to Selma to start us off. And then
we'll hear a little bit from technical ale after him and then
at the end, usually do every single Thursday, we'll open up for
q&a, if anybody has any questions that are public and want to ask
us, you know, straight up or we'll provide a platform through which
you guys can ask privately and anonymously who didn't last.
So now you can everybody spill out from the low salatu salam ala
Rasulillah, or that early, he was having my hope everyone's doing
well in sha Allah insha Allah making sure that you guys, you
know, stay safe. Be smart in sha Allah, I know that everyone is
super exhausted and super tired of, you know, shifting our
lifestyle, but sure, a lot of the, you know, the end of it inshallah
is near, especially with the holidays coming up and
Thanksgiving, just make good choices and share a lot. And you
don't want to put anyone that you love whether you know them or
whether they're a friend of yours, you don't want to put anyone at
risk. So we asked Allah Tala to protect everybody and give
everyone health and keep everyone healthy, including, you know, I'm
sure many of you know sialic acid bridges, who's our beloved scholar
at the Valley Ranch Islamic center, he actually contracted
COVID from the likes that he's doing okay, but nonetheless,
scary. So we make the offer everybody who has it and we ask
Allah Allah to protect us to share Allah, tonight's session, I'm
actually not going to go too long. Because, you know, we wanted to
honor Sheikh McHale and give him the platform to share some
thoughts on his topics actually really good. He was texting me
earlier today about what he wanted to speak about. But I wanted to
cover just almost like an introduction, because I think the
part that I'm going to talk about is fairly obvious, everybody, I
think, thinks more so of the part that I'm going to speak about, but
the part that shake McHale is going to share is the part that
kind of sneaks, you know, beneath the radar, and the amount of
design he actually mentions, and a lot of scholars do, but I read it
recently from him where he talks about, you know, like, the
dangers, that shape on tries to capitalize on are the ones that we
don't think about most commonly, right? So it's easy for a person
to identify the most, you know, dangerous elements in the room.
But for a person of spiritual acumen, a person who understands
you know, their role, they need to be careful with every danger that
can be there. So Sheikh Mikhail is going to shed some light on that.
Tonight, we're discussing probably the
the challenge of your generation, I think without a doubt. The
reason I say that, and I don't mean to sound too old, is because
I'm 32 sure if you're what 25 For me,
especially young Yes, I realize I fell in love. So I'm 32 years old.
And the way that I understand my generation is that we were I think
the last generation that in order to get a Facebook account, you
actually have to be in college you needed a.edu email address. If you
did not have a.edu email address, you could not get a Facebook
account that was kind of like what they were known for. In fact, I
don't know if you remember shake, but it was very, it was like super
exclusive. Like I remember being in high school being like, people
were just applying
to college so they can get a Facebook account. That was it, no
one actually cared about going to school or going to class. They
just wanted it. And now like every, you know, fake Russian bot
has one has a Facebook account, every single person can get one,
it's super easy, it's super accessible. The amount of access
that we have to different networks and communities right now is
unprecedented. If you looked at it on a graph to see kind of when the
uptick happened, and when the shift happened, it was probably
when most of you were right in middle school, or high school,
probably high school. And that kind of access that kind of
exposure.
To be quite honest, you guys are handling it really well. But there
are some major challenges and major dangers that might seem
normal to someone like you or someone like me, because everybody
does it, right? That word normal is so incredibly dangerous.
Because a lot of times what's normal is not healthy. A lot of
times something is normative, meaning that it's prevalent very
commonly in the society, society, everywhere you look around you
it's there, but it's actually not productive. It's not good for you.
It's not healthy for you, right? And so it's important for us to
look inward and see, okay, what is something that I consider to be
like an average action, something that doesn't stick out something
that everybody does? And to ask myself, okay, is this really
something that is beneficial for me? Or is it in fact, detrimental
to me? Alright, so the part that I want to speak about tonight is the
output. Sheikh McHale is going to speak about the input of social
networking, social media, I'm going to talk about the output.
And the reason why is because we have basically two realms in the
Islamic tradition in the spiritual tradition. There's the Balton. And
there's the law here, there is the hidden and there is the manifest
or the apparent, and every scholar in the Islamic tradition that
talks about the impact of good deeds and bad deeds, that talks
about the impact of temptation and tuck law that talks about just
kind of the realm of spiritual growth, they're always going to
mention the inner and the outer, they'll mention either, you know,
they'll mention that by talking about the heart and the linens,
they'll mention by talking to the inner or the outer, the parents
and the hidden. But all of those contrasts all points of the same
thing. That there is you the presentation of who you are, how
you wear your clothes, what kind of clothes you wear, how you cut
your hair, how you style your hair, how you walk, how you talk,
everything about you that you contribute to that outer identity.
But then there's the inner side. And that inner side is really
scary, actually. Because nobody in the world knows what it is. Nobody
around you knows who you really are. There was a philosopher, I
forget the name. But I remember hearing this in a in a education
conference I attended years ago, where he said, there's three
versions of every person, there's the public, you, the private, you
and the real you. The public, he was the one that you want
everybody to think is you, the public use who you present
yourself to be whether it's on the internet or in person, you want
everyone to think that that is who you are, the private you is the
one who all your family and your friends know who you are. So the
private you is like the public who is the person that talks about,
you know how clean they are, how how, how well and how groomed they
appear to be. And then the private use your mom yelling at you at
home talking about how filthy your roommates are, how you need to,
you know, do your laundry, or how you need to do this, this this,
the public person is presenting one image the private is the one
that your real people know. But the real you is the person that
you interact with just before you fall asleep every night. That
consciousness that you're engaging with every night, so you're laying
down, your phone is finally awake, you finally have that dreaded blue
light off your face, you have the phone on the side table. And as
you're taking those last breaths of your day, and as your soul is
going to leave your body for the night unknown whether or not it
will return. The real you is the person that you're thinking about
that moment. What am I what am I doing? The things the thoughts,
the feelings, the the actions, the deeds that you know, are inside of
you that nobody else knows. It's just you and Allah. Allah Allah
knows it when Lady was shahada, he knows what is hidden and what is
apparent. Right. So that person that person between there's a
tension between the real you the private you and the public, you
there's tension, and it causes us a lot of sometimes anxiety
sometimes difficulty managing that and we identify it with certain
labels certain terms, right? I want to be authentic. Anyone here
ever heard this before? I want to be who I am. I want to be genuine.
I want to be authentic. I want to be I don't want to be a hypocrite.
Anyone ever raise your hand if you've heard these kinds of like
phrases before? I don't
be hypocritical. I want to be authentic. Right? I want to keep
it 100 Like I want to be who I am. Right. And while that sounds good
on paper and it sounds really good, it sounds, you know,
courageous, sounds admirable. Someone says you just have to be
who you are, you have to show who you really are. What Islam says is
no,
you don't.
You don't have to actually, because who you are and who I am,
is a person who's trying a person who wants to get close to Allah, a
person who wants to be good, but we do have flawless perfection
passed away with the passing of the Prophet Muhammad SAW asylum,
everyone after him had flaws, some very minor microscopic, you
couldn't even identify them. For our purposes, we would consider
them perfect too, but they knew their flaws, and for others,
flaws, much more apparent put out on display.
And so now we've entered when we bring this conversation of who we
really are, and the social sometimes, you know,
the social pressure, I would say to be authentic and to be who you
really are. And then now the social media uptick that everyone
is on if you're not on Tik Tok, if you're not on Snapchat, if you're
not on Instagram, I remember when shaken Mackay eel before he bought
the 29 inch iPad. That's a joke, by the way. It's just a 17
it's just massive. It's like carrying a TV around right and
it's pocket. I remember before shipment girl bought this. He
actually went on like a digital minimalism, like faster test,
basically how long? How many months? Three months? Three
months, three months? So three months and he actually bought a
flip phone. Do you remember what those are? Because remember what
those are? You guys even know what those are? A flip phone now I'm
being serious? Like I'm genuinely serious. You guys know the flip
bonus. Okay, so the flip phone, right is like the opposite of
everything that we have today. Your your your Apple Watch
probably has more technological capabilities and your political
perspective. Definitely. Right. I remember actually, you know, using
my dad's flip phone to use Do you guys remember AOL? Messenger was
that everything? I remember using my dad's flip phone to chat with
my friends on AOL Instant Messenger. And I kid you not on
the bottom of every messenger and say one slash 13. You know, that
means? That means that the message that someone sent me was so long
the screen could not could not encapsulate it. So it took 13
screens for a person they said I like what I'm loving Catherine.
Like how are you? So shake McGraw Hill willingly chose to go back in
time.
And to give up the phones and the iPad and everything, and he
decided back, he just can't hear back. Now he's back. And he's he's
going to tell us what the past you know, he went back to the back to
the past No, back the future. And he decided to and I, you know,
part of the reason why because he and I spoke about it, you know, we
all kind of talked about it we used to joke around about it was
to see like what life would be like this connected.
Right? What life would be like the willingness to share the need to
share the power of the red notification on your phone, the
power of the buzz or the or the or the time or whatever it might be
the power it has over you, like a carrot and a stick in front of a
donkey or a mule. So he wanted to see like what that was going to be
like right? Now what I wanted to focus on today was the idea of
controlling what you share and not letting what you share control you
being the one that's in control. And there's a couple reasons for
this. Number one is that from the perspective of, you know,
psychology, from the perspective of mental health, there are
numerous numerous studies now it was just a theory before it was
just kind of like a proposition that people put forth based on
anecdotes and observations that maybe this stuff is not good,
right? Maybe there's a lot of
mental anxiety and ailment that's developing are coming from
oversharing because of the innate competition, the subversive sort
of fakeness that's there and trying to present yourself in a
certain way when you know you're not there that tension can
actually make someone go mad. Right that the tension to fake it
until you make it can make someone go bad. So that's there
psychologically, we know that when a person shares something, very
few people will share reality. There's actually a new trend right
on Instagram, amongst parents and moms especially.
There's a new trend amongst parents and speaking of moms and
moms especially right and the the trend is actually really funny
humor me for a second guys. I know that I'm 32 and a half, two
Kids in your like,
everyone presents their life at imperfection yesterday, right?
Like the selfies, the filters. Like I still lose my mind when I
see somebody posing in public for Instagram. And I don't understand
why it's the same picture three times just different poses. I
don't get it when someone's like, right to the side, right. And and
I and I still like I know, very clearly very evidently that when
it's a guy doing it, he's not doing that for other guys. Right
guys don't post like that for other men. Right? So any guy who's
grew What do you think? They don't care about the girls, right?
And I Subhanallah I wonder about like this pressure of perfection
that's constantly placed in front of your eyes. To be somebody who's
this to fit this this lifestyle, right? It's like when everyone
found out that the rappers are making music videos back in the
2000s. In the 90s. They were renting the cars. They were
renting the mansions. I remember when people found that out. They
were like what? They don't own that they don't have like six
Bentley's and four Rolls Royce and like the Lamborghinis like, no,
they don't. That's not even their home. That's actually the that's
the record labels. That's the record label owners house that the
rapper is using the rapper lives in a two bedroom apartment in LA.
Right. I remember what it was like blew everyone's mind because the
presentation the bubble was burst. Right? So that's number one, which
is what is this doing to me psychologically the need to show
what Who am I showing to Who am I lying to? Who am I trying to
present myself to so there's this trend of moms on Instagram that
actually show you all the lowlights of their day. It was
like highlights. Oh, my kid ate steel cut oatmeal with apricots
for breakfast with Greek yogurt. And everyone's like, Wow, mom
supermom Yeah, like jazz hands. And then like oh, and then after
that he you know, learned his numbers. And after that he took a
nap on his like organic fairtrade quilt. And after that, like he
contributed to world hunger and poverty. And then after that, he
used his like hemp diapers. And then after that, he went rolls
around some granola outside and after making went to bed at 7pm,
and slept through the night, me and my husband grilled salmon.
It's like, you know, I mean, like this person, you know, he's
laughing because he's a parent, he knows that there's this
presentation. There's this president. So there's a new trend
of moms on Instagram that are like, today, my son threw his GI
Joe for the window and shattered it. And then after that, he took
his hot dogs and catch up for breakfast, because I had nothing
else to feed him and smear it all over again. And they're showing
all of these not again, because they want to create some like
circuits.
But because I think the pressure to perform was so great. It was so
overwhelming, that eventually there came a critical mass of
people that said, You know what, this cannot be upheld, this cannot
be kept up. We can't do this. And so the desire to be perfect,
eventually was outweighed by the desire to be human. Right. So
that's one side, the one side is you're allowed to not be perfect.
That's the way that Allah Tada created us. He created you
perfectly, but you are allowed to be imperfect, right? He created
you perfectly in the way that he created you but we have
imperfections and that's okay. what Islam teaches us and this is
really important is that when and if you find out about those
imperfections, and when and if you struggle with them, that it is
your job, and in fact, it is good for you to not put those
imperfections in front of the eyes of people.
But that is something that is critical to your spiritual state.
That if a person wants to have a good relationship with Allah, that
that person needs to maintain their spiritual dignity in front
of the eyes of people and there's many Hadith about this. There's
many a hadith about this. The Prophet SAW Selim said men sotera,
OData, SAP, Allah muslim soccer, soccer on Oahu, I would love to do
that whoever covers right Satara means to bail something whoever
covers that's why I lucked out as a thought. The one who veils the
one who covers whoever covers the outcome, which is like we know it
to be the physical, vulnerable parts of the body. But this is
also speaking about like spiritually as well whoever covers
and veils the vulnerability of their brother FET Muslim, their
Muslim brother, a Muslim sister Sultan, Allah who are older who
Yeoman the Amity that Allah to Allah will on the Day of Judgment
will, you know, cover that person on the Day of Judgment when it
matters?
So this is talking about number one covering up somebody else's
fault. But there's another Hadith in which the Prophet Muhammad SAW
said and said something that's also incredibly powerful and it
doesn't have to do with somebody else it has to do with you.
And he said the problem commensal Salim said, whoever, whoever does
not have either learned to Steffi fifth, I'll match it. Whoever does
not have any shyness or modesty towards anything, either Ellen
says that he whoever has nothing if you have no shyness or no
humility, or no embarrassment, or no, you have no sensitivity
towards anything. High as all those things combined shyness,
modesty sensitivity, for I'll mash it up, then do whatever you like.
And that's not not giving you like permission. You're not saying
like, if you like conquer the hill of modesty, then go ahead and do
what you like you saying like, what can what can be a person who
has zero humility, I remember actually kind of a lot. This is a
really funny story, but it's kind of done. In my physics class in
high school, there was a fellow student amount of classmate and I
remember in the middle of class in the middle class for no reason it
was like dead quiet. He just broke his will do.
Like super loud,
like super loud, and some people took your greatest fear. Or like
your mom's like, do you want to eat under brought up have
breakfast? Like not? I'm not today? Like, I don't know what
he's gonna do to me. He farted, basically, that's not everyone's
like Brickman will do it. Let me explain. Okay. He just straight up
just farted in front of the entire class. I remember people were
like,
and he was just kind of like,
and one of our users don't even think of him now.
Because No, literally, maybe it wasn't like the greatest of combat
and like it was a major sin. You just have to go. He wasn't Muslim,
by the way. So I don't think he even knew about it. But
the fact that the fact that he felt so comfortable just
expressing his bodily function like that, you know, I still kind
of get weirded out when I hear people say article P just
announced it to the world. Like what on earth? You know what I
mean? Like it's very cringy. Right? So think about those kinds
of those kinds of things that creeps you out a little bit, is
it? Is it about hiding? what's natural? No, but not everything is
meant to be shared, right? Why? Because either Learned to Stop if
evaluation.
Every believer has the Prophet saw some said, every person, every
faith has its defining characteristic. And he said that
my faith slump, the defining characteristic of my faith that I
brought is,
is having some modesty, having some humility, having some
shyness. So this night, and I wanted to bring forth in front of
everybody, this idea that what you're doing, what you do, who you
are, in public and private, wherever it might be, there is a
threshold of actions that you are definitely a lot to share. You're
having a great time on vacation. You want to share it with people
because you're friends with them and you want to show them the view
the sunset is Milan. You're having a delicious dinner, right?
Somebody's grilled some steaks smell good some steaks, right?
Yes. And like some jerky, you got some legit food you want to share
with your friends and family that wants to go home post it's fine,
say Hampton and let's say Bismillah and Masha Allah do your
another routine and go for it. Okay. But the actions that are
below that threshold of what the Prophet SAW Selim would smile at
you for versus what he would look away from. If he knew if he was
there, that threshold when it's below that threshold, we rethink
sharing things like that. And that includes favorites, retweets, you
know, I don't know what the other likes, that includes all of that.
Because not only from our end is as producers, but we don't want to
perpetuate as well, we don't want to share as well. It's always so
one of the things that I see that's so shocking to me, is when
people favorite or retweet something on Twitter, and the
avatar, the profile picture of that person is *. I
mean, quite frankly, it's just *. There's no other way
to like, there's no other way to describe it. And I wonder
Subhanallah like, do we wonder how on the Day of Judgment, Allah to
Allah is going to ask us about every eye that laid on those that
was laid on those pictures, because we thought that tweet was
funny. And we thought that if we liked it to retweet it, it'll I
don't know its appreciation or give us clout or something. But we
didn't think that everybody who looks at that they're being
impacted negatively. These are the things that we have to think
about.
I know some of y'all like it's not that deep, bro. But I'm here to
tell you it really is. It really is
You know, there are people that this addiction of social media and
sharing has actually ruined marriages. It's torn apart
families, kids and parents, I don't want to tell you guys, you
know this, you've heard stories. So it's so important for us to
never ever say about this conversation. It's not that deep.
So this is just the introduction, this is what I wanted to share
with you. And I wanted to share just a few pieces before I hand it
over to Sheikh mokotjo.
About what the impact of some of these sins will do, because
everyone has sinned. Yes, raise your hand if you've committed a
sin before. All right, thank you, right. Yeah, we've all committed
sins, everybody,
but not repenting. Right is the first level of not caring, and
then publicizing making light, it's that it's the fab to make
light of something is the next level. And then proudly sharing is
the next level.
And the Prophet Mohammed Al Salam said that every person is eligible
on the day of judgment for forgiveness, except for the one
who publicize their mistakes.
Every sin you've committed, Allah will forgive you for it. He
promises that
Allah to Allah will forgive, right? Everything in the lava, the
other federal Guba Jimmy I'm powerful, Allah will forgive all
of your sins, Jimmy on all together. So he's talking to all
of humanity, billions and billions of people. In Allaha, karuna,
Virginia, Allah will forgive all sins, collectively, everybody,
nothing won't affect them in the least bit.
So we hear that and say, good, good. The Prophet SAW Selim says,
except for the one who took it and plastered it, on the screens of
other people's phones,
on the minds of other people's consciousness.
So I want you to think about that. And I want you to think about what
am says, I'm only going to share a few he said that there are 1717
things that happen to a person when they commit sins, and in
particular, when they do so shamelessly without repentance.
Number one, he says is that they are prevented from the knowledge
of Allah.
How does this play out I commit a sin? How am I prevented from not
how does that affect me? I commit sins and if I don't feel in the
least bit, least bit apologetic to Allah regretful to Allah
remorseful to Allah. Or it's not about being perfect. It's about
feeling that regret that remorse, then I would I stand to pray,
will not feel anything when I come to roots will not feel anything.
When I stand for total weight, and the person to my left is crying,
the person to my right is trembling from from the
realization before their Lord. And I'm sitting there saying, my feet
hurt.
Right? If you've ever felt that before, because I know I have. I
know I've been in places where I should have felt something as a
young Muslim and I didn't feel anything.
And the reason why was because my heart was so far gone. Maybe it
still is, may Allah Allah help us so far gone, that I could not
taste or feel what they were tasting what they were feeling now
that he says this says when the body is sick, when you have fever,
your tastebuds go haywire, you can't taste anything you have ever
been sick before. You could be eating cardboard, and you're like,
It all tastes the same to me.
Your mouth as it says, When your heart gets sick, it's the same
thing. You can't feel anything. You got like the most beautiful
recitation of Quran known to humankind. And you're listening
and you're like, sounds the same to me. Because the heart is gone
as far gone. So that's number one, prevention of knowledge, I'll
share four with you. Okay, number two that I want to share with you
on this list
is
it brings humiliation and loneliness. If not laughing talks
about this a little bit. committing sins will actually
humiliate somebody will lower somebody. And this isn't talking
about like a one for one transactional process. Okay, if I
commit a sin, I'm going to be humbled or I'm gonna be
humiliated. That's how it works. The way it works is what that I
will start to garner this stench. This this this, this negativity,
this aura of disobedience from Allah. And as a result of that, I
will start to lose the respect and the honor that anybody sees me
with potentially because of that, and it's true, man. Well, Llahi
it's true. Every sin that a person carries with them in private, they
have to know that eventually it'll be it will be found out. If they
don't repent to Allah. It's just the way that sins work. They're
too heavy for you to carry. Well, lying sins are too big to hide.
Unless you repent. That's what extinguishes the flame. Right? A
small fire in a building like this
You can ignore it. If there's a fire in that room, we would never
know. And so what until it spreads, and then it's ignored and
then eventually the whole building comes back.
So that sin that a person carries that they think, you know, nobody
cares, nobody will law he time and time again, whether personally
from my own experience, or as an Imam, dealing with the community,
I've seen that sin has a very uncanny way of revealing itself.
Right, cheaters always get found out liars always get exposed.
There's a reason, right? There's a reason. Okay, number three, sin
corrupts your intellect, you're not able to think properly. And
this is kind of what I was going to talk about. When a person sins
they start to rationalize and justify everything. And they can
think Shavon was the greatest example of this. Allah asked him
one very simple
what I'm better than how was that the answer to the question that
had nothing to do with it. Shape on answering the question that was
never asked. Allah did not say who's better you were him. Allah
said, Why didn't you obey me when I commanded you to do something
for you? The command was Why didn't your baby shake hands up?
And
you see how intellectually deconstructed he was? Because his
arrogance took over. He couldn't see the world straight. He
answered a question that was never right. And lastly, the last one
that I'll share with you that I wanted to share with you guys is
that
sins are one of the reasons why Allah subhanaw taala removes his
protection from certain people.
That Allah to Allah has a default status with every person that will
never every single person has the protection of a loss of talents.
But an unrepentant, flagrant, stupidly courageous, there's a
reason I'm using these terms, right? Because that's really what
it is. Arrogant sinner who says you know what, I don't care. I
don't care and shoulda known in this room, but I don't care it is
what it is. It is who I am. I have to be me, that kind of person.
They actually take this umbrella that Allah Tata has given every
person to protect them from calamities, and they throw it to
the side why I don't need this. I'll be fun.
And in that moment, passing on the that that shield that Allah Tada
has given them, they open themselves up to serious trials
and serious tests that they can come back from. But why would you
ever want to experience it in the first place? So we asked a lot of
times to protect us, we ask for less power to Allah, to give us
wisdom in what we share, to allow us to be people that don't feel
this tension between who we are and who we portray ourselves to
be. And we asked the last comments, audits that allow us to
be people that when we do engage, when we do share, when we do post
when we do retweet or like something that we always think of
the face of the property,
we think of his smiling face. And we think of the day that we're
going to have to meet them to say yes to a lot. Here's my timeline.
Here's my feet. Here's my algorithm, what do you think?
Because on the Day of Judgment, all of that is going to be talked
about and I don't want the Prophet SAW sent him to be embarrassed at
me on the day that I needed most. eyes off the bat of loving
everybody in sha Allah will allow Sheikh McHale now to share some
better thoughts
can I move to Glasgow
bless people. You'll get used to it. Cool. All right. Bismillah R
Rahman r Rahim Al hamdu lillah wa salatu salam ala Rasulillah ala
alihi wa sahbihi. Woman Weida Allahumma Ines alga Burma you
Hedberg, Amylin Yukari guna Isla papakea Kamara he mean I'm just
talking about credit everyone for coming out. May Allah subhana wa
Tada accept this is like really exciting to me because this is
like the first live audience and like,
like eight months, nine months and so to share the space with you
right now is beautiful hamdulillah the topic is something that has
been a concern of mine for a very long time and the Indian lights
Allah will be able to talk about what are we talking about today to
post or not suppose was sad did a great job speaking about you know,
the the the outputs right, that desire to want to show everyone
that desire to want to put out there and I we're going to talk
about that in the breakout when we do question and answers, but I'm
going to focus on something else. I'm going to focus on the input,
what we're receiving. I'm gonna start with a hadith of literal
suicide Salaam. This hadith is very important. I want you to
think about what the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is
saying in this hadith. The Prophet size and Amano Hadith, he said is
Stephen Roman hola Houghton HYAH he said have shame before Allah
subhana wa Tada as is due for ALLAH SubhanA wa Tada and I no
shame is a is a word in our context, which is like, No, you
should never have shame and you're really woke if you don't have
shame for anything, and I don't even wanna get into all that right
now. But anyways, so the prophets I send them said have shamed
before Allah subhana wa Ana, and the Sahaba they're like for all
Yasu Allah and that led us to him and Allah when hamdulillah they
said, Yo, we have high Al Hamdulillah. They're the Sahaba
right? They're like we have high up and the prophesy said and he
says, Listen, Daddy can No no, no, you don't even know I'm talking
about. That's not i Ah, well, I Kindle is the Yamuna, la hackled
HYAH the true type of shame or HYAH before Allah is listen
closely to this, and a little rock's wha wha when button
wallmount how up. There are suicides then and he said, you
know, you know nowadays in the last like 710 years, having a like
a alternative diet is very like in like you're either vegan, you're
no carbs, you're high protein. You're keto. You're vegetarian,
vegan, vegetarian with
honey and no honey, something like that. Whatever point being point
being nowadays, to be a conscious consumer of food, to be a calorie
counter to know what you're putting in your body. That has
become a very like, woke thing. Oh, I don't eat that. That's the I
don't I don't eat that. Is there's you don't have you guys don't even
have anything with no meat in it. Really? Wow. Oh, wow. I can't
believe you guys. Right. So this is very interesting. It's become
very, very like thing to be a conscious consumer. But what's
interesting is in this hadith, the prophet size seven, he correlates
the intake of two things, which is really, really interesting. He
says, one is to protect your stomach and what you put in it.
The second is to protect the brain, the mind and what you allow
it to contain as well. And so what I find very interesting is that as
science increases, and as our discoveries increase, we still
have so much ignorance, man, it's like, I mean, 7 million people,
how many, 7 million right? Nevermind, forget him. But a large
number of people despite that, despite the level of education, we
have this kind of ignorance that is in our interactions. And so the
reason I'm bringing that up is we all know the harms of certain
things, chloric, sugar, carbs, things like that. But that doesn't
stop that stop the the diets that we have, especially in America.
Now, the research is clear now about the psychological, the
neurological and the cognitive effects of taking in certain types
of imagery. But unfortunately, we don't heed those messages. Like
that's not something we're really paying attention to. Why bro, I'm
just chillin I want on my phone. It's not a big deal. I'm just
chillin for a minute. I'm just just checking my feet. You know,
what's crazy? Why do we call it a feed? Because you consume it.
Because you consume it. And you are what you eat. So you better
check your feed real quick. Yep.
Because whatever you're scrolling through, that's what you're
feeding on. And whatever you're feeding on, that's going to be the
reality of your brain. That's what you're going to walk around
talking about. That's what you're going to walk around thinking
about. And that's what you're going to dream about.
And so, so what I wanted what what happened to me is like, like, I'm
not this kind of like, I know, I'm not 27 By the way, my man's
trolling me big time, like double like, not double but you know, add
10 On top of that. But back like seven, eight years ago, I started
to recognize what cell phone a cell phone was doing to me what
notifications were doing to me, I pick up my phone, I can't even
remember what I needed to do. I can't even remember what I needed
to do when I picked it up. And that made me like reflect I
started reading book after book on this. One of the first books I
read, you could check this book out. It's called
a hands free mama. Hands Free mine Oh, it's really wack. But
whatever. It's about this woman who was raising her child who was
only four years old at the time. And she said I took my child to
the park like I did every day. But I mistakenly left my phone at home
this one day. And so while she's playing, I'm watching her and I
realize how many times she looks back to validate that I'm there
with her present. And so what I realized and I'm gonna come back
to this, but one of the things I want you to realize is cognitively
you have an amazing ability within yourself. If you're able to focus
and concentrate. You can you can
And you can accomplish so much. But guess what attention your
attention is being bought and sold man. And you don't have the same
amount of focus that people used to have.
And so that concept of being present, she was like, I'm there
at the park and I don't have my phone. And so what happened
because I didn't have my phone, I ended up watching my daughter
play. Now I was watching a child psychologist, just last night,
he's like the first four years of their most instrumental.
The first four years, that's where you make or break down that child
emotionally.
And unfortunately, for many of us growing up now and what the reason
I say what I said earlier is there's so much information, but
we're not changing our actions. It's like we have the studies that
show your child needs you present, but we don't have the cognitive
ability to be present even for like a 45 minute class.
We check out we check out we go somewhere else, because we can now
you feel what you know what I mean by go somewhere else. Yo, you
don't you know, I was watching something on Abraham Lincoln. I
just read some wack stuff every now and then. Abraham Lincoln was
giving one of his his he was doing a debate. It was a presidential
debate. It wasn't like today, Trump, right? It wasn't like one
person speaks for 60 seconds, one person would speak for an hour
bro. And then the next person will come up and rebut for another
hour, these debates would go on for like five hours straight, six
hours straight, and the audience would be present. And historians
are like what was going on in these people's brains? Well, it's
simple Cal Newport says, Look, you used to have to deal with boredom
in the past, you don't anymore. The moment you get bored right
now, you could get real quick. You're physically here, but you
could do how pick up your phone go somewhere else real quick.
So you're not allowing yourself the awkward moments of being
alone.
And that really has affected our ability to be present. And so one
of the things I want to talk about number one is presence, right?
Presence, presence presence. That's huge. Your ability to be
mentally, cognitively where your body is. That's huge. That's what
affects your Salah. That's what affects your relationships.
That's what affects every relationship you have with any
other human being.
Check the dude that's trying to you know,
win somebody over. He's got mad presence. Yo. Amen. dialed in,
like really? Wow, you'd like to. So
tell me more about that. Come on, bro.
Presence is there when we need it.
Presence is there when we need it. So the first thing I wanted to
talk about is how social media is affecting our ability to be
present. And the way it's affecting that ability to be
present, is you always have an outlet to lead the gatherings that
you're in at any moment. And so your mind is constantly at the
exit door, bro. You're literally right now at the exit door lie
heads. I'm bored for 30 seconds. Let me dip out real quick. What?
Wow. That's interesting.
And so understanding presents number one. So that's one thing I
wanted to talk about is just realizing presence. Now the thing
that presence is also connected to is when we're scrolling when we're
going through the feed. Why do you eat when you feed yourself? You
eat because there's a feeling of emptiness inside. I think there's
a deep correlation between the the physiological emptiness that a
person could feel and the spiritual emptiness that you feel
when you start scrolling.
Yo, what are you looking for? Have you ever been scrolling and kind
of like had this like metacognitive moment where you're
like, What am I doing?
Like just a brief moment of metacognition you feel me all
metacognition, where you like looking at yourself for a moment,
and you're like
it doesn't end.
And so the question is, What are you searching for? Think about
this question. What are let me share something with you. So I'm
mad. How real can I get with you guys?
Yo, I can't get that real. Yes, I can. So what I converted this
disclaimer, I had a proper I am an alien.
Okay, I cool. So this was injure helium. So I remember I used to
smoke in January. I used to smoke, all right, just because it was
cool. I was 18 Everyone's whatever everyone did. I remember one day
after I converted and I'm trying to leave all those bad habits
because this is a slow process.
I remember one day I was holding the cigarette.
And I had just inhaled. And then I looked at the cigarette and I said
to myself, What am I trying to get from this? What am I searching
through this cigarette after cigarette pack after pack? What am
I searching for. And there was this moment of realizing that
there's a spiritual void inside of me, which is causing me to be not
present. I'm sorry, not always searching for something to fill
me.
And so what most of us happens to most of us, we pick up the phone
and start scrolling, not knowing what I'm searching for. But just
just just just scrolling, just just going through it searching
for something, but I don't know quite what it is that I'm
searching for. And there's this inner emptiness that we need to
realize that we're trying to fill through randomness, through
randomness. So that's one aspect. The next thing is this. The hadith
I said, the prophesy centum he said to protect your brain and
what it contains, I want to I want to share with you a word that has
kind of like changed my perspective on many aspects of
life. The word is mental and emotional real estate, mental and
emotional real estate. How much will you pay? How much will you
charge me for your attention? Tell me if someone asked this question.
Yo, yo, real Loki, come here. Let me talk to you. How much will you
charge me for your attention? We buy what you mean? I just want you
to pay attention to a few things for a moment. Like how much are
you willing to pay?
Is it that valuable? Let me ask you a question. How much does a
Superbowl ad costs?
I'm gonna sell super Superbowl ad costs.
Millions like 60 seconds. So wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. Hold
on. You telling me these these economic geniuses that run these
companies are willing to pay millions of dollars for 30 seconds
of my vision?
And my dad's special?
Hold on, hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. I give it to you free
on Instagram, bro. Why do you gotta pay are already scroll all
day on Instagram. Just put your ad on Instagram. I give you my time
for free.
But they know the power of you watching something. They know the
ability. This is old science guys. This is like 19 7060 science that
if we let you see this thing for 60 seconds, we will affect you. I
said to my wife the other day something. And I was like yeah,
just do it. She's like Nike. Oh, no, no, I got it. So my wife she's
probably watching right now too. So Oh, no, she, I don't know if
she's on right now. But so my wife like she'll go shopping and she'll
get like hungry really quick. Like hunger will come super fast. So
she'll get home and she's like, famished. I'm like, yo, just ate
like, whatever. But anyways, so I said to her, yo, when you go out
you should take a Snickers with you. And she started laughing.
She's like, she's like a Snickers. How many of those commercials Did
you watch? Hungry? Grab a Snickers. And it made me think I'm
like, dang, man. I've been programmed. But they got me. I
literally said I was like, You should take the snickers with you.
What's wrong with you, bro? She's like Snickers this? No, that's
horrible. Like Snickers You could have told me a granola bar or
something. A Snickers bar. So the reason I'm trying to say this is
Look, don't sell yourself cheap. Your heart is a vessel that was
created to know Allah subhana wa Tada. But they will fill it if you
left them with every other garbage there is in the world.
And here's the thing about a feed. You don't even know what's coming
next, bro.
You don't even know what's coming next. If you're like, you're like,
uh,
I love y'all. I'm not trying to disrespect nobody. But like the
garbage disposal. You just put whatever comes next it turns on it
consumes it.
I'm saying Yo, your heart is precious. Your mind is valuable.
And I'm proving it to you because CEOs of Pepsi will pay millions of
dollars for 60 seconds of your attention. Just so you get it from
that side.
I'm already showing you the prophets I send them said Your
attention is valuable.
So that I'm hoping that makes us realize like, what does it mean to
give my attention to things?
Now there's another aspect as well. A lot of us come from
households that weren't that great. Baba wasn't there. Or Baba
was abusive. Baba was this mama was that. So there's another
aspect I think is important about this.
Are we gonna perpetuate that cycle look
let me come at this from a different perspective for you.
There's a social network of people all of us have social networks,
social networks, okay? Social networks are people that you
interact with
works are any
five people.
At the immediate, and he is within who says in a social network at
the immediate, both of them provide something psychologically
and emotionally that no one in the entire world can give. Does that
make sense to everyone?
What's happening to us today is that social media by nature pulls
my attention from the immediate circle to like the 10th layer,
bro. Do you know 10th layer that's like, like 500 people who I just
know by face. So instead of spending quality time with Wifey,
or mom, or my little brother, your little brother and got no other
brother, man, you'd only want if you expect some other person to
become that your little brother's brother and I and I'm sorry.
But you won't be on social media all day. With Poulin, friends and
Funan followers, you're ruining the inner core of your social
circle your social network, because you're spending time on
the outskirts
of your social network. Why I don't know why.
I don't know what's going on.
So my intention here is for us to realize that the mental real
estate you have and the network the people that are closest to
you, if you don't nurture those relationships, and be present with
those people, there's no one else that's going to do that. And
you're going to continue the cycle of broken families, you're going
to continue the cycle of broken families for that reason. All
right, one or two more things, and then we'll have an open
discussion.
So this kind of connects with what Mustad was saying, with the output
part. But I think it's important to understand this aspect of
social media.
And I hate to get all philosophical on your on a
Thursday night, whatever, but whatever I just deal with
inshallah. So life is meant to be lived. I think we would all agree
about that. And what is living mean? It means it's actually
experiencing the moment. Right? It's like, if I shake his hand was
that and I feel the warmth from his hand, I felt a grip on there.
I look him in the eye. That's experiencing a moment. Alright, to
experience a moment and be present. What if I told you there
are some actions that we did? Really normally? And we think we
don't even think twice about them. That take us out of the actual
moment. And we are actually watching our life. That's it.
Think about this, you'd be like, Wait, why would I watch my life
instead of living?
Like, that doesn't make sense. Why would I watch life? If I'm alive?
Well, there's a tick tock SE. girl who's filming girl.
That's exactly what I'm talking about.
That's what I'm saying. Look, he said, I don't know if y'all can
hear him. He said he there was a tick tock video about a girl who
was filming her own proposal.
So hold on, hold on, hold on. Are you experiencing the moment or
recording the moment? Are you an actor in the play? Are you behind
the camera? Which one is it? Now imagine this? I'm gonna take this
to another level. Imagine if your whole life was filled with moments
where you're just recording life. Have you ever actually live life
is crazy stuff if you think about it, like what am I doing?
I'm I'm recording the moment not living the moment, but I was
created to live and so what this is weird. This is like some What
was that show? The black and white one. Where are you? Oh, Twilight
Zone. I don't know about that. Y'all don't know about the
Twilight Zone.
Oh man, that's crazy.
messing with that stuff. Yeah. So so that's one aspect. I just
wanted you to realize like that, that recording of the self and
posting it. Those are moments I'm not actually living my life. And
if you're cool with not living your life, I mean I'm by all means
go ahead. But I think you should at least think about what that
looks like what that actually looks like someone asked Sheikh
Hamza Yusuf, like why don't you take pictures? He's like, because
I want to live the moment not capture the moment.
Jonah's heavy. I want to live that moment not capture it. I think
that's interesting. Last thing, last thing, and then we can open
up for discussion, emotional overload, emotional overload.
I don't think that the human brain has evolved to the point where it
is capable of dealing with the sour sorrows, troubles, joys and
happiness of millions of people at one time.
Think about what I just said. I'm gonna say it again. I don't think
that the human mind has evolved to the point where it's equipped and
able to take the sorrows, the joys, the happiness, the the
trauma of millions of people at one time.
What does that have to do with social media? It has everything to
do with social media. I only have the emotional bandwidth for my
wife, my children, my immediate circle people close to me.
Am I Am I cognitively emotionally adept to handle this this trauma
of millions of people?
It's a very important question to ask. Because as I'm seeing sad
post after sad post after sad post after, I'm like, this is going to
drive me nuts.
I can't take this. I don't want to know this. And I don't think I was
made to know all of these traumas. I have a daughter, two daughters
and a son. I need to deal with their trauma. Maybe my neighbor
maybe my close friends might tight circle, but millions of people all
around the world. I think that's a discussion we need to have.
I think that's a discussion we need to have and what social media
has done to me it's placed the entire world's traumas miseries in
front of my face every moment.
I don't even know who to make dua for no Morial.
I'm just like, Y'all, Allah help everybody on my feed? Y'all Allah?
Oh, my daughter, too. Yeah, my kids too. So these are just some
thoughts. My main thing if I can leave you with anything, if I can
leave you with anything, it's
you have to value your own attention.
You have to value your own attention. I think once you start
valuing your own attention, and realize people pay millions of
dollars just to put an ad in front of your face for 60 seconds, you
realize how priceless you are? Remember this, anytime the service
is free, you are what's being sold.
Anytime the service is free, you're the merchandise buddy.
That's why it's free. So they can sell ads to people that you will
see.
Oh, so that was a big deal. Shake me I'm just going to IKU
if you if that's your that's your life, I'm done. Oh, cool. As long
as we know what's going on. All I'm trying to say is we got to
wake up realize, my my brain, my mind, my heart is very special.
And I don't want to sell it cheap. That's all.
And the last thing I'm uh, I'm gonna share just just to step on
his toes for a minute, when it comes to just on a point that he
was talking about. It wasn't my topic. I'm talking about input
he's talking about oh, I want to add to the out. I mean, I think
the out is indicative of the end.
The reason we need that we I feel I'm not trying to project on
everybody, but you can assess this for yourself. But the reason we
have to put out so much is there's an emptiness within and we need
that validation. We need that validation. I need that dopamine
release is quick hit that like button for me man.
You ever hit somebody's like button because they hit yours? As
a joke.
Crazy. May Allah subhanaw taala give us Tofik I wanted to talk
about something else when it comes to Instagram and Twitter as well
but we time is kind of out. We've been there for a while and I want
you to stay present with me I want you to stay present with me. But I
will say this though, like a lot of the things have gone to just
image and very small word count.
And I think that's kind of indicative to our like, it's like
a smack in the face.
You don't say it's like a smack in the face word count under 40 What
is it how many is Twitter not how many 200 Oh, it's there's more
now. They increased it. Like whatever you got to say got
to fit in, that's it. Well, there's no nuance in life no more,
there's more like depth. We're just that much. And then imagery.
Oh, it's just an a picture. Just look at the picture. I think
there's a lot we could talk about that but let's leave that for the
open discussion. I hope this was beneficial. This has been
something that's been extremely important to my life. It's always
a struggle. I think living life has become more important. As you
grow older, you stop caring about what the whole world is doing and
you realize that your life is your life and yo people on Tik Tok
don't even care about today, you're gonna come to your Janaza
yo,
think won't be there. So I just hope this was beneficial for you
in sha Allah. But let's open it up for discussion in sha Allah to
Allah doc Mala who Claire Subhanak Allahu Allah be handing a shadow
Allah Illa Illa antenna software to way like Subhanallah the
gullibility is the phone or tsunami added more sunny will
hamdulillahi rabbil Alameen. If I said anything that upset someone,
please forgive me. Sometimes I get ahead of myself, so please forgive
me.
So any questions, comments or discussion points? Sharla. So just
like last week, we can, if anybody has any anonymous questions, you
can open up your browser and type in online questions.org. And when
you get there, it's a very simple kind of, you know, website, and
you punch in the code 11247. And you can text us a question to
Allah, and we'll be able to answer
anybody about people who want to ask publicly Yes.
So I was
like the person who what changed?
What? Like, yeah.
Okay, so here's the deal. The question for those online is, when
I switch to a flip phone, what happened? Okay, the first thing
that's going to happen is you're going to realize you don't know
what to do with your time.
That's the very first thing you're going to realize you do not know
what to do. You will be like checking the weather app all day.
Because you don't even know what to do. Huh? Yeah, exactly. So one
of the things I realized right away is, I need to find better
hobbies, I needed to figure out where to put my time. And so it
made me realize, like, there was a lot of like, wasted time. That was
number one. There was immediately right away this feeling of I can't
do this 100% I'm missing out. I'm missing out. That was the biggest
thing that hit. And for me, it was like, What am I missing out on? I
had to fight that. And I would realize a week would pass, and I
didn't miss out on anything important. I think a lot of us
just want to be the first to know stuff. And I was happy finding it
out secondhand. Like, I would find something out from these guys at
like 7pm that happened at like 12pm
cool. I'm cool with that. Like, I'm not you people say oh, you're
not gonna be informed? Yes, you will. You just ain't gonna know it
right when it happens that millisecond after it happened. So
that was one thing. There's other conveniences. I think flip phone
is extreme. So what I would do now is no read notifications on my
phone. Because, man, you got to study Cal Newports deep work, you
got to study Cal Newports deep work, you got to study the
shallows.
social dilemmas great. I read this stuff years ago before social
dilemma came out. But like they literally use the same things that
were used in gambling casinos to keep your attention on the phone.
Think about it, you put your you put you pull it to refresh. You go
and it jumps up.
It's literally literally mimics after a casino Casino. You feel
you know I'm talking all right. You pull it
in now you got more. There you go. There you go. So anyways, um, I
took off notifications. And then I start using the browser form of a
lot of these social media joints because it sucks.
Yeah, I started using the browser for how long am I going to keep
this site is horrible. You go there, they tell you to download
it.
It's crazy. So some of the things I realized the other thing is I
had to like learn the directions of a place before I was going.
Right? So I was like, Yo, I gotta go to Dick's like, how am I gonna
get there? I was like, Oh, let me look and see the direction before
I leave. There was a lot of small inconveniences like that. It's
just like right now you know that Muslim, Muslim Pro. Everyone got
rid of all their things. So I printed up a prayer sheet. Right
and I put it on the fridge like oh the school yo
My daughter was like, Yo, what's that? I'm like,
It's a prayer sheet.
It was such an I realized I was like, we are so wack. Yo, we are
so lame. We take certain, like luxuries, and we're like, I can't
live without that. I literally printed up the prayer sheet for
November and put it on my fridge. Like your pops does.
Like your pops does. And my daughter was like, What the heck
is that as a prayer sheet? So there was a few inconveniences
like that. Oh, the other inconvenience, obviously. Okay,
everyone's got to know this. Some people love to like text you and
expect you to answer instantaneously. Mashallah, you've
trained us at Hamdulillah I mean, you don't like I know. That's
good. I love it. I love it. I'm serious before like, I hope we get
a response. So we expect immediately like if I message you,
you better get back to me right away. That's the way the world is
now.
My, my kid is on the toilet and I got a cleaner.
My other kid just bumped her head in like, I got to console her. My
other kids had Baba, you're always teaching classes. You never put I
can't stop that. Hola, bro. You know, I'm saying so let me tell
you this issue. Texting was so crazy. People would text me. I'd
call them Yeah, what's up? Yo, they blocked?
You.
I was like, Yo, you got something to say? What's up? What's going
on? Oh, I was just wondering if. Okay, cool. Yeah, that's
done. So it I had to like train people to interact with me a
little different. I don't recommend the flip phone. Now.
There are no smartphones, that the
the whole thing was smartphones. When you read Cal Newport, you'll
realize the smartphone and the Facebook all came together. It had
to come together. They had to keep it with you while you walked and
talked and everything. You had to feel like you needed this all day.
So I don't have a solution except for get rid of the apps and turn
off notification
settings that you can we can all get past limitations. 15 more
minutes. Okay. Right. Like, I don't know.
Okay. Okay. So there's new ways to do it. It's funny, they give us
the drug and then give us the flag.
All right, any other questions? It was tough to be real with you. But
you know, I got things I want to achieve. And I realized I needed
cognitive and like the ability to focus to get my objectives done.
And I could not concentrate. I literally would start typing. And
I'm like, yep, like, I'm like, What's wrong with me? And I
realized what was wrong with me? Yeah, please, please. Like, and I
know that a lot of people like to, like jokingly say that they have
ADHD, like they like to jokingly say it Yeah.
And you know, that it's not ADHD is not, like, oh, I can't, I can't
focus on writing my paper. ADHD is genuinely a condition in which a
person is, you know, neurologically and biologically
impulsed to go. And it's almost like following a, you know, like a
tangent line over and over and over and over and over again,
right. So these devices, although they don't give you anything,
that's like an inappropriate thing to say, from a mental perspective.
But they can reproduce some of the symptoms of that they can
reproduce that right. So like, it can make a person act as though
they have it because again, the constant need to like check this
app, but that but missa anyone here find themselves opening the
same? Oh, I hate that three times within like two minutes. Oh, I
hate that. So again, like if you saw yourself from the outside, you
think you actually were not well, like you watched yourself over
your shoulder, like the angels on your shoulder, like what is wrong?
Straight and I'm not saying this about you, I'm saying about
myself, like I, if I watch myself, I'll be like, what's wrong with
you just open that there was no new messages. Nobody cares about
him, right? Like, yeah, why is he texting and again, I had to
conquer this within myself. And so the way that I did it, just to
kind of share is I have a certain amount of time, every hour where I
don't have my phone on me at all. Forget viewings, forget silence. I
don't have it on me. I put it on the kitchen counter and plug it
in. And for half an hour, 3545 minutes. I don't touch it. Within
the hour. It's something miraculous happens. When I get
back to it all those messages that I kept scrolling down or
refreshing. They're all there. No one has died.
And my kids are actually having
Time would their father, right? Like, that's the biggest thing
that for me was my son was like Baba, put your phone down. Yes, yo
Valley's biggest thing, and we have the excuse of our work is on
here. But honestly, like, No, dude, I don't care.
Like you're my work my son. Yep, my daughter is my work like I
don't I don't care about, you know, making sure that the roots
event is posted on the calendar within the next six minutes. I can
do that later and try a lot. If it means that my son knows that I
actually listened to him and love him and care for him. There were
actually children that there's a study from the Harvard Business
Review. No, not Harvard.
Yes, that did a study on the executive fathers, executives, and
infant children. And they found that infant children started to
develop anxiety at the presence of phones. Because infant children,
they function primarily off of attention, things like eye
contact, things like touch. And so whenever they saw that their
executive Father, I'm sure from others the same, but they did a
test on fathers when they walked in the room. And they had their
phone in front of their face. And the infant. Of course, like you
said, the immediate circle wants nothing more than what that phone
is getting. Yeah. So they actually start to develop jealousy towards
the false. Like they want another child. This is like a legitimate
study, I'll try to find and post it. So they said the infant child
who cannot speak developed anxiety and free anxiety you like we talk
about anxiety, adults, a baby felt anxious when a film was present.
And the reason why I don't have kids, it doesn't stop. Yeah, it
doesn't stop. What we're telling you now is as fathers were having
to reconnect a lot of his behavior, and we weren't even as
steeped in it as you are. So imagine, imagine, again, not
trying to freak you out. Imagine the challenges that this
generation will have in 10 years when you guys get married, and
leads to divorce at least a lot of things, a lot of things. I've
counseled couples where the wife is like, he just doesn't look at
me. Right? The wife, the husband, she just doesn't listen to me
doesn't when I'm talking. It's never ever present. Right? So
these are all like incredibly common symptoms that this stuff
can possess. So you can start today by doing something that
sounds kind of weird to you, which is putting your phone in a
different room. Conversely, yeah, I was gonna say we need some
practical, like simple solution when you go to sleep tonight, put
your phone on the floor.
Don't put it next to your bed. Don't sleep in your bed. I know.
What can I do you guys think of your phone like on your person?
Please don't answer that. Please don't do that next to your bedside
like on the nightstand.
Put it in your put it in your bathroom. That's what I do. Put it
in your sink and put the alarm for pleasure. When you go there,
you're not gonna be able to, you have to eat. So let me start.
Let's back up a bit. Hold on, hold on a second. Let me just back up
real quick. Um, first thing first really quick, you're about to go
to sleep. If the day is over, it's done. You Kraid your Isha, you
want to get up for Fudger we all want to write we all want to
write. Like, really, we should think about those last 30 minutes
when you're trying. You're like in your bed scrolling. Because
honestly as Muslims, I'm speaking as as from the Islamic side.
Everything I said from before, had nothing to do purely with Islam.
That's just like, be a good human being. But listen to this from
Islamic perspective. That is the time for your thicket of Allah.
When you're in the bed, you're about to go to sleep. That's when
you're like stuff that a lot of stuff that stuff that are lost and
lots of time a lot more also kind of love like that. Like everyone's
I don't have time for thicker. How do I get more spiritual? I'm like,
yo, put your fault yo. Okay, the day is over, bro. Just put a tie.
Alright. 930 I don't know. Maybe that's too early for y'all. 1030
That's it. I'm done. There is no more information I need from the
rest of the world. Can we agree? Can we agree there's some portion
in the night when I don't need information from the rest of the
world. Do we agree to that? So now we're just debating what time that
is. Okay, once we agree to that premise. So, so now first thing is
that 30 minutes before sleep. Phone is away. I don't need the
world. I'm okay. It. I don't need it. It's done. It's done. It's
done. All right. Okay, now we move to this next step. Phone is away
from me when I go to sleep. Now here's my next thing. You don't
have to raise your hands. It's rhetorical. I'm asking myself. How
many of us the first thing we do when we wake up?
Oh, you can't even see your eyes. Don't even your eyes haven't even
opened it burns yield. You're like God, are you waiting for me right
as your eyes oh my goodness.
First thing you do after you turn the alarm off for tahajjud or
Fajr. You check one of those apps
Now Now you may be like, what's the big deal? So what? Where's
your heart supposed to be? Why is your heart in the other wise? Why
do you care so much about everyone else? When you just woke up from
buzzer for? Like, you should be questioning yourself? What's wrong
with me? Like that's not healthy. Now from an Islamic perspective,
you should be at Hamdulillah. Hey, Lydia, Jana Bioderma Amata Anna,
you know, all these to us. hamdulillah Allah gave me like, I
let me get up. Let me Sunday. All right, let me do some thicker a
little bit. Before I even touch, try your best. I'm gonna give you
simple this simple for one to two hours after you wake up. And
everyone's a little different. For me, I can say like, if I wake up,
like five o'clock, then I'm going to try to go to like seven where I
don't really touch or check it out. Check it out, not touch your
phone. Maybe you're on the phone. Maybe your eyes are on the phone.
But I'm not gonna check it out. I don't need to know what Twitter
says I don't need to know what Instagram I don't
for like two hours, and then what I want. I'm going to check it. I
guess my point is, I want them to you, me and you to learn to
control it, learn to control it. Once you realize your audit
control, then you'll be like, Yo, man, what's going on? Alright, one
more thing I want to say is JK Rowling's the one who wrote Harry
Potter. Okay, do you know she used to rent? Not rent? Right? No, no,
like in the Ritz hotel.
She used to get a room like, like a very, very expensive room in a
very, very expensive hotel, to seclude herself. In order to write
that book. Yeah, there's a lot of people who do that there's a list
of so many people who in order to produce true content, isolate
themselves, because they need to focus. I'm all over the place
here. But I just want to wake people up and be like, Yo, do you
want to create like, Liba leave something after you Yo, you gotta
take Yo, you gotta take like, serious man. And you got to start
learning like, Okay, I gotta take like, serious well, I need to
concentrate. And that's, I'm hoping you get that message. So,
practical step, 30 minutes before sleep, put it away, put it away 30
minutes before, but see if you can put it out of reach. My thing is
see if you can put out of reach? Can you put your phone in a place
where you won't be able to reach when you wake up? That's my whole
thing. So whether it's like on your far dresser, like in the
corner on the floor, or whatever, to see if you can put out a read.
See what happens. See how you feel if you feel pain? If you feel
irritated? Like that's put go deal with it? No, no, it's okay. It's
okay. That's a good sign. Because you're working on anyone else.
I'm so sorry, to monopolize that question and take it all over the
place. Any other questions or comments? No questions, just
comments. Sometimes you're feeling something. And when you say it,
another brothers, this is Pamela. That's exactly what I'm going
through. So it doesn't have to be just a question. If you're
experiencing something that you just want to share, please, please
share.
Yeah.
You know, I have a theory on this, actually. So I used to share a lot
like my feet and my coffee and stuff. And now I know. And even
then I share like my kids on social media. And the reason I do
that, quite frankly, to be very honest with you guys. So I've met
a lot of Muslim, Muslim men who are not prepared to be good
fathers. And I've met a lot of Muslim men who haven't seen
fathers interact with their kids. And so I've taken it upon myself
to talk about this one's a shout out to me, I remember you told me
people who don't want to share their family online, which I get.
But I think there is, in my case, some benefits, kind of putting out
an image of positive fatherhood. Not that I'm perfect dad, I just,
you know, just funny moments, or whatever.
So there is that. But I do think that when we talk about
experiencing a moment, it's not just visual. And it's not just
audio, there's like, all of your five senses are involved, your
hearts involved. So like your, your couple real bodies involve
your hearts. And there's so much in there. When you talk about
reliving the moment on the phone, whether it's a video or a picture,
you're limiting that experience. And so if a person if a person is
theoretically what you're saying is like a person should experience
it, and then maybe towards the end of that moment, or come back to it
and then capture it for memories. That's fine. I don't see anything
wrong with that. photographers do that. And this, I think was
shaking my head was much alluding to was people who their their
visceral reaction to anything, is to pick the phone up. Right. So
that was the video that someone sent me today on tick tock, which
is like a woman whose fiance on one knee, yeah, on a rooftop. And
she literally pulled out her phone to film the ring. And he actually
I think, took the phone and threw it out and like maybe frustration
again, it was probably a freaking stage to the internet. Yes,
exactly. Exactly. I wasn't even real because the internet's
garbage. But the point I want to make is like, where are you in
that moment? So like, I can smell the peanut right now. Mm hmm.
I can hear Medina Fletcher because in those moments, I'm not walking
around like a videographer. I'm walking around like a person who's
there, I can hear the sunrises of Medina, I can hear the birds
chirping, I can see the crescendo of the purple into the orange. I
can see like, I know that if I close my eyes, I can truly
experience Makkah. Right, I can truly experience Istanbul, I've
been to these places, right? If I if I if I close my eyes, I can
actually imagine my mother's you know, breakfast and the tea the
color of a tuna she makes with the milk and the black tea, I can
imagine it perfectly.
Those that and I can smell it as well. Right. And I even know what
temperature it felt like when I grabbed a cup a cup of tea. So
these things like it's such a multi dimensional experience can't
be It can't be captured, right? So what I would say is like, don't
stop experiencing for the sake of it. rather's you know, prioritize
this second, like, it will be there, I can somehow capture it.
And let this whatever pictures on your videos on here, let it serve
as a souvenir of the experience. If nothing more, it'll just remind
you of all of those other sensory experiences that you have. From
that moment. I have some pictures and videos and pictures of vodka.
But when I look at them, I'm not limited by them. They're like a
doorway into my actual memory not like that's
something really interesting, I wanted to share this, as our two
kind of teachers were reflecting, we have a good friend at roots,
actually, who is a really, really amazing photographer. In fact, she
actually takes a lot of pictures of like a lot of programs, when we
were up onto the retreat last year in Tennessee, really seen in
places that people want to kind of remember, but I remember one thing
he said that kind of really, really shook me to the floor. And
because everyone now is a photographer, right? Like trying
to take pictures everywhere they go and everyone's like trying to
like put this filter on and get that zoom lens in and kind of make
sure that's in focus. But one thing he told me he's amazing at
what he does, he said people who take pictures for the sake of
taking pictures are really bad.
So the first part of taking a picture is that you have to use
your eyes to actually be there. Wow. You know, is it that's why
everyone's like not good at it. Like if you can ask some other
kind of like, you know, very picky on my booth. We want people photos
of like certain things because like to do that is like extremely
significant, amazing skill. In order to do that you actually have
to use your real eyes and not that lens on your camera. And when he
said that it kind of hidden you really deep because we're all
trying to like capture these moments, right? Like I want this
introduction. But as he was saying like a second ago, the best
memories you have or should have are things that you actually
didn't take a picture of. Sheikh Hamza was talking about this
actually like years ago I remember watching like a video that he did
years or years ago. He was when I close my eyes I see my teachers he
was when I close my eyes I see like those moments I never took on
on camera and you can never replicate those moments ever in
your life. Never and that's why there was a study done by the way
it was like Georgia Tech I remember I read this article a few
weeks ago that people before like smartphones and cameras came out
that veteran memories they have better memories it's amazing why
people struggle people people people in December's have
struggled memorizing Quran
you know, it's it's incredible when you really think about it,
right.
But yeah, I just want to kind of share that
question.
It's gonna
go
well, we'll be back next. Actually, no, we're taking a break
next Thursday. Next Thursday, literally. Today everybody has
off. Thanks.
Yeah, exactly. So spend some time with your family and reflect on
salah.
And so it's always a wrap up today. We're gonna be back next,
the Thursday after next Thursday. So joining us
as you're saying
but inshallah we'll be back week after next Thursday on your way
out just kind of like a housekeeping announcement. Our
brothers over here. First and foremost, say I've come to love
and we have our volunteers here at roots are brothers are literally
here to walk people to their cards. So when you so when you go
out in the front doors and
pick yourself up a meal, we have meals come to love to go like we
don't Monday night. So pick yourself up a meal, I believe it's
like New York east from Arlington, it shows so
pick it up on your way out of town.
And one of the problems will be taking anybody who park on the
left hand side and I'm saying and you will talk to the right hand
side behind the building itself. So trauma spines, your fighters,
your drones and allowing you to play and they'll all be there for
the rest of your life.
Excel
is now
aware