Tom Facchine – al-Raghib al-Isfahani #28 – How Much Power Do We Have To Change

			how able are we really to change our manners and our habits, right? And we hear this all the time,
or at least we make excuses for ourselves all the time somebody gets angry, they curse, they throw
something, they hit somebody, oh, I do that when I'm angry, or they get sad. And they say, Oh, this
is just how I am, right. And we've reached a challenging time in history in our society, where we
have a lot of kind of ready made excuses for people who really just have poor behavior, not to say
that every single poor behavior is simply, you know, poor manners. There are such things as chemical
imbalances, there are such things as clinical diseases, but we definitely have reached the time
		

			where people have ready made excuses for their poor behavior at a time, like more than they've had
in the past. And so at all of us, Rouhani he wants to take us on he said, Okay, well, how much power
or ability to act and control and change our behavior do we actually have, it talks about things
like nature, he says, everybody has a certain nature, and everybody has a certain personality, and
these things you don't really have control over. So let's say for example, if you have a short
temper, okay, or if you are very sensitive, and you kind of take what people say about you, you take
it personally, or you get emotional, like some people get emotional, different ways, these are
		

			things that Allah subhanaw taala created you if you're not going to change that, however, you can
intervene and change how you respond to those sorts of emotions, and respond to the ways in which
Allah created you those sorts of capacities. So that has to do with your manners and your habits. So
if you want to put it on one side, we have our nature and our personality, which a lot kind of gave
us and that this is something that is not really able to be changed, then we have habits and
manners, and those are the things that you can change. And so everything that we're talking about
here is doing what we can, right, you can't necessarily let's say for example, you're somebody who
		

			has a short temper, okay, you can't use the fact that you have a short temper as an excuse to not
work on your anger, okay, it might be harder for you to control your anger than for other people.
Some people are naturally patient people, they're just, you know, they don't get angry, hardly at
anything like for that person. That's easy, right? But just because it's harder for you doesn't give
you an excuse to not do it, right. In fact, it's possible that the reward for you might be greater
if you try hard to control your anger, because it's something that you actually have to struggle
with. And there's a very nice hadith of a judge that where the prophesy son um, you know, he praises
		

			that judge, because he
		

			should face because he has two qualities, he says, you have two qualities that Allah loves, and he
says, You have a helemaal. And he says that you have forbearance, and you take your time you don't
rush things, and then a shirt has a really ugly face is a really, really interesting response. He
asks, and we all you know, 1400 years later benefit from from his question because he asks, Is this
something that Allah created me like, or is this something that I kind of did myself and I'm
responsible for it and the Prophet alayhi salatu salam, he said, No, this is something that Allah
created you like and so then a schedge is has another amazing sort of response. And he says, Praise
		

			be to Allah, Who created me with characteristics that Allah loves, right? So there's some things
yes, okay, shut up. Look, he's had this capacity. He had this natural quality, it came from Allah,
not everybody might have that. But that doesn't mean that you're not responsible for trying to
obtain it. Maybe you have to work harder than Shut up the place, but maybe you'll see a special sort
of reward because you had to struggle with that.