In this day and age it often feels like there is a looming deadline for our personal success. As a result, we push ourselves to work to extremes in order to meet our self imposed ideas of what success is. As a Muslim, I understand that monetary success or career successes are all peripheral to the real success one can achieve, which is being content.
Islam places friends, and especially family in high regard and teaches Muslims to ensure those ties remain strong throughout one’s life. Knowing this, I try to look after my well-being by balancing my career goals with my personal life. I believe spending time with friends and family is not only cathartic but helps me to refocus and re-centre myself when I feel like I’m drowning in my own expectations.
It’s important to remind yourself of why you’re working so hard in the first place, often it’s for those we love. Remembering my motivations gives me strength to continue.
Whilst it may seem overly simplistic or even cliche, like Occam’s razor suggests, it’s often the simplest solutions that are the most effective ones.