Tom Facchine – Minute with a Muslim #120 – Security Is A Trap

			insecurity is a trap. And it's kind of tricky. I mean, we need, there's a sweet spot, like with
everything because we, we need a certain amount of financial security. But you know, just like
Robinson Crusoe, or these sorts of novels show that there's no end, because feeling secure is a
subjective thing, right? So what makes one person feels secure in their wealth versus what makes
another person feel secure in their wealth? I'll never forget, you know, when, when I was in my, my
first undergrad, you know, and this was, it was turbulent times because it was the recession. And
basically, we had a new college president. And they did the classic neoliberal thing where they,
		

			they were trying to fire a bunch of the cafeteria workers and trying to hire twice as many at
halftime, so they didn't have to pay him benefits, and basically ruining livelihoods. You had some
people that, you know, the position of like being a cafeteria worker at a university, it used to be
something that someone could have that as their career, and they could support a family, and, you
know, the neoliberal push to make it into a temp job, basically. So that couldn't happen anymore. So
we tried to fight back, you know, we some students went on hunger strike, and some students, you
know, and one of the things that God told us was that the President made probably like, $300,000 a
		

			year, right. And I remember we were sitting in our office, and we like other presidents across the
country, you know, it's tough times recession and stuff like that have taken a pay cut and even
taken, skipped a year, though their salary, just so that everybody else can be okay, that's
leadership, why won't you do something similar? And the response that we got from the president was,
you know, well, my job is really stressful, and I need that much money. And
		

			so what makes you feel secure is never, it's not objective, right? In some sense, there's a lot of
subjectivity to it. Let's say that, you know, somebody feels secure with, you know, 30,000, some
buddies feels doesn't feel secure, except with 100,000. Some people don't feel secure, except for
300,000. Right, and as different from person to person. And so there's this kind of trap. And the
last one was, Allah wants us to be aware that of not falling for the trap of Tikka thought of more
and more and competition for more and more, yes, you have to set yourself up and take care of your
responsibilities, but you can't just put off doing other things, especially religious things,
		

			whether it's Hajj or Umrah, or even you know, just dedicating your life to worship or things like
that. It's not a get my piece of the dunya and then be religious. That's what a lot of people sort
of imagine it as, because two things and one thing is very well known. And the other thing is not
well known, but needs to be said, people often bring up you don't know how long you're gonna live.
And that's true. It's true, you might die tomorrow. So you might not ever make it to that period of
your life where you're going to turn into a religious person and start praying and start going to
Hajj and stuff like that. The second thing and this is even scarier, what if you live that long, but
		

			you're not the same person then because every decision that you make has an effect on you. It's a
habit. And so you have this motivation now and this potential now to be doing religious activity.
Now, you're assuming that you're going to have that motivation. 1020 30 years down the line. What if
you don't want to when the time comes, even if you have the means you're an older person, you have
finally have the ability, the time and the money to go to Hajj and you don't want to you finally
have the time free time to pray. You don't want to that's the scary thing. And may Allah subhanaw
taala save us from that