As I usually do, yesterday after finishing off my daily work, I was looking forward to some relaxing and refreshing mental time. For that, I usually like to read books or watch any educational shows that are being offered online. As you all know, with the Coronavirus Quarantining, a new industry has kind of sprung up – “Online-a-verse”….meaning, every single day, something new is created and posted online and is free and available for thousands and thousands of people to see, watch, hear and react to. One such discovery I made over the last year was “Star Talk”.

Hosted by none other than Neil deGrasse Tyson and Chuck Nice, Star Talk is the perfect brain stimulation tool that I had been looking for which helps engage my curiosity nerves in the best possible way!! Prior to Corona, it used to be a radio show which, over time transitioned to being streamed online on You Tube, and it still is aired as an online show where Neil deGrasse Tyson, the Astrophysicist tackles a range of subjects mostly related to Cosmos but at times also dabbles into other topics, such as Grit & Perseverance! Depending on the topic, there are additional guests, considered experts in the topic being discussed invited to join the show! And for this topic of Grit & Perseverance, he had Angela Duckworth, the founder and CEO of Character Lab.

I watched the entire episode and every thing that was discussed was so powerful and the thoughts, ideas, perspectives shared by all of them resonated so well with me as they were re-iterations of what Allah SWT has taught us in Quran and through the life of Prophet Muhammad SAW.

Through my upbringing and even the formative years of my adulthood, I always operated with a mindset that whatever you work on, whatever you want to achieve, always give it your 100%. I still operate with this notion and with an added layer of understanding that, I should still keep persevering through any kinds of difficulties or challenges if I want to achieve my goal, but in the end, after I have given it my 100%, if I still don’t achieve it, then it was never meant to be. Allah SWT has something better planned for me. And although my efforts in this world may go unnoticed, I know the on the Day of Judgement, Allah SWT will reward me for my sincere efforts!

With this understanding, we all need to have a longer term vision and work towards it instead of longing for and wanting “Instant gratification”! If you have a vision and a goal, you will be able to better create a path to achieve that vision or goal, and no matter how long it takes, and how hard it may become on the way to achieving it, you should give it your full and sincere effort. If you do everything right, and if it is meant to be, you will not only achieve your goal and feel happy and fulfilled, but along the way, you will find many instances of immediate happiness, which just come through because you never lost focus of your long term vision!

Organizations always plan with a long term vision. They always plan with where they want to be 5 or sometimes 10 years from now, and build a path to achieve that goal. And along the way, if they work hard towards their plan, they experience many short term wins! As parents, we educate, we provide experience and help stimulate interest in our kids in a variety of things with a goal in mind that when they become adults they will know how to face the world as they would have experienced a variety of things through their growing up years! Similarly, Allah SWT has explained to us in Quran that this life is a short fleeting journey. Always think about what will come next after this life and the kind of legacy you want to leave behind in this life! Don’t subject yourselves to short term thinking. Thing big picture, think longer term and always keep a razor sharp focus on achieving that vision! Prophet Ibrahim AS did not built the Kaaba’ just for him and his son to worship Allah SWT. He built it with a long term vision, with the ability for the generations to come to be able to know his legacy and do the right thing!

I will wrap this up with 2 famous life quotes from Ziad K. Abdelnour:

“Never let success get to your head and never let failure get to your heart!!”

“One of the hardest decisions you will ever face in life is to walk away or try harder!!”

So choose wisely!