New Year's Resolution 2013

I want to give this a try. Hopefully, on 31st Dec 2013 I can cancel off most of these.

1. Nak sentiasa solat awal waktu
2. Nak mula pakai stokin (wei, ni memang paling susah dah lama giler nak cuba istiqamah tapi susah yang amat. Cuma skarang tak pakai sandle nampak kaki dah, pakai covered shoes. Semoga tahun 2013 berjaya once and for all. Insyaa Allah)
3. Nak sentiasa ada minimum RM5k dalam bank
4. Nak kurangkan shopping. Ok tipu.
4. Nak jadi lebih fit. (Fat percentage iols nak bawah 20% with high muscle mass. Takpelah kalau orang cakap bahu besar, badan keras, bontot leper macam jantan. Tak kira nak jugak)
5. Nak berat 55kg.
6. Nak berkhidmat dengan parents lebih daripada sekarang.
7. Nak baca Quran hari-hari. Sikit pun jadilah.
8. Nak masuk pertandingan lari. (Start with 5km, 10km, so on...)
9. Nak travel lagi banyak to countries I haven't been to
10. Nak buat umrah.

Hehe. Dah azan maghrib. Jom Solat. ;)

XOXO,
Aisha

2012 Resolution. It took me 26 years to realise this. Have you??

Assalamualaikum ya'll.

3 more days to go before we welcome 2012 and bid farewell to 2011. I personally feel that 2011 is the year i grew a lot spiritually and getting to know what actually my life is all about. Some of you may think who needs another new year resolution? It will only lasts until March anyway. Until recently, what i learned about new year's resolution is pretty much from CLEO magazine. I want to lose 20kg!! Or get that senior executive position!! Or I'm gonna get married!! Or I'm going to get a diving license!! Yada yada. I don't realise how secular the world has make me.

You see, I'm a planner freak. I often feel empty without having any strategic goals to achieve. And Alhamdulillah, I achieved a lot of things that i THOUGHT i wanted. It looks like I'm all set and ready to face new challenges and new life goals.

But having said all that, why do i feel tired but unfulfilled? It feels like I'm constantly in search of something more fulfilling after achieving each goals. At one point, losing 10kg is a piece of cake. (Keeping the weight off is THE challenge but i couldn't care less, losing it is freakishly easy)

This coming year, it'll be different. I already found my ULTIMATE LIFE GOAL. Whatever my resolutions would be after this are my MEANS for me to fulfil that lifelong goal. The challenge is 100 times harder and the reward would be 1000 times better InsyaAllah.

The goal is to be closer to Allah. To my religion. Period. That simple. (CLICHE nye la minah kan!!!)


The thing about this ultimate goal is, it should NOT BE ONLY MINE. If you are a practising Muslim, you pray 5 times a day, you fast during Ramadhan, you went to or want to go to Haj and you believe in Rasulullah S.A.W...you might want to take this seriously. 


After understanding this is your goal as a MUSLIM, now its time to pick your means toward achieving it for this particular year.

In general, Islam teaches its believer to look for balance in life. We don't want to miss out on 'Dunia' at the same time collecting good deeds for 'akhirat'. As long as you put your deen and akhirat in front of dunia, InsyaAllah you will be fine. But how do we do that? What is the thin line between putting akhirat above everything else and yet get akhirat at the same time? (Yaaa..this is the part that took me twenty freaking years to get it through my thick head) 


For me, (this part varies for different individual) i want to achieve these 7 main things in life until the day i die. I will highlight the sentence that making it a MEANS to the ultimate goal of getting closer to Allah.

1. DEEN -  I want to be a good muslimah. I want to be that sort of person who put religion in front of everything else.

2. EDUCATION - I want to finish DBA. Knowledge is the foundation of Iman

3. CAREER - I want to be somebody significant in the company. I want to contribute. We need more successful practising muslims to influence and be decision maker. 

4. FAMILY - I want to keep good ties with them. I strongly believe that successful people have good relationship with their family. Soon, insyaAllah to learn how to be a good wife and how to raise little khalifahs


5. FINANCE - I want to have lots of money. Who doesn't? But money would stay only in my HANDS never let it touch MY HEART. Spend money on people, not on self. (Dalam setiap harta kita sebenarnya ada bahagian orang lain, bukan semua hak kita)


6. HEALTH - I want to be healthy and fit so i can live long. Our body is Allah's gift. It is definitely an important tool for us to make ibadah. Hopefully, being healthy means I can wake up at night and pray. 


7. SOCIAL LIFE - I want to surround myself with the best of people. Intelligent people with ethics and values. People that can help bring the best in me. Do you know that our social life is about the average of 5 people we spend most of our time with? Who do spend time lately? Look at your friends. They are YOU.

These seven aspects are my MEANS to get closer to Allah, which is my GOAL. In each of these seven part, Al-Quran and Sunnah teach me some very specific way to follow. You see how balanced and complete ISLAM is my dear friend? Subhanallah. Everything is laid bare in front of us. Its either we go and look for it or get distracted by something less significant.

Its all about a change in perspective. Let me give you an example of how wrong and twisted things could be if we don't put Allah as our goal.

Heedless goal: Get married to Mr. X

How to achieve: We make doa to Allah to let me marry Mr. X. If he doesn't want to, open his heart ya Allah...let him see me and only me ya Allah (contoh doa kita la kan..cewahh)

Problem: Our knowledge is limited. Does marrying Mr. X makes me close to Allah? Even if he is the best Muslim guy there is. If marrying him do not make me closer to god would you still wants Allah to grant you that wish? Whats your choice? Your Deen or your Man? If deep down, you are picking your Man...TETTTTT. 

Lets turn the situation around if we put getting closer to Allah as our goal.


Goal: Get closer to Allah

Means/Tools: Make doa, istikharah, etc. to let us marry Mr. X if the marriage is good for my relationship with Allah. If Allah give him to you, it is for the best. If not, forget Mr. X, look for Mr. Y. (wink wink)


Selingan, this is my favourite ayat from Surah Al-Furqan, 78 (if i'm not mistaken)

"Ya Tuhan kami, anugerahkan kami pasangan dan keturunan kami sebagai penyenang hati dan jadikanlah kami pemimpin bagi orang-orang yang bertakwa."


There goes. Honestly, what i write is nothing new. Its just a new and better perspective that i feel i need to share with people close to me. It change my life and how I see the world. It feels like my journey now does not lead me to nowhere. It leads me to Allah, insyaAllah. I hope it can help you too. :)

Wassalam.

Trying to write again, this is the 15th attempt

I don't get why it is so hard for me to start writing seriously again.


I remember used to love writing.

Back in school (which like a gazillion years ago), i entered all kinds of writing competitions and got my work published in the school magazine.

No bullshit. I've tried looking for any bit of remembrance of my forgotten interest but to no avail.
I think my mum threw it all away because my cat peed on it.

In fact i was a decent writer. (not to the standard of the 'First Malaysian to win something of the something Asia Pacific bla bla in Fukuoka, Japan' yuck! but decent!)


At the age of 14, my ambition was to become a journalist.


But then, after PMR i was forced into pure science class.

I applied to change to arts but they didnt allowed since they wanted to open 4 pure science classes. Out of 499 students only 20+ got straight A's. So they just shovelled as much students as they can into science classes. Being a smart-ass rebel at that time i knew something was wrong with this school. And when i said i'm not taking science just because i got all A's, the teacher got mad and scolded me for trying to 'teach' someone who was older. There and then i decided i cannot take it. If i were to be forced learning science, let it be in a good school. Not where clueless students were forced to learn pure science.

I applied into MRSM and got in. It turns out to be at that time one of the best MRSM in Malaysia where more smarter-ass students from all around the country pooled together.

so you can imagine the ego of such elite school with richer-smarter-ass- students. I fit-in fine but i learned that i had to study like crazy just to be 'ordinary'.

With all the pressure of being farrr away from home and studied things i didnt prefer, i lost all my enthusiasm, interest and self confidence that i owned back home.

I was so focused on getting on with the flow. and i did.

Ok that was a long babble isn't it? not on purpose though..continue.

Anyways, i can do this. Just need to practice and read more books.

In fact, my job requires me to read a lottt! so i must not be that bad,right? no?

Should i just write normal stuff? 

about things?
about life?
about people?
about work?
about MBA class?
about how i hate things that don't go my way?
or maybe about who are my friends and who are not my friends anymore? 

Yea right, i'll go crawl in a hole and die.


I'll rant about my idealistic and realistic views of how I see things.


Then give my utter judgement.

wow. don't we all love judging?

Just remember to use sharp words, with long multiple subject sentence.

to influence reader in thinking i am indeed a smart-ass writer.

Right.


We'll see.


Good night.