The cliche questions frequently heard in philosophical conversation such as what is life, Is there a God, why are we who we are, often provoke thought, and the third question baffles me the most. We meet people of all talents, backgrounds and features, and no two are the same (apart from the Mawjis). More often than we should, we look around and question “why is he better at football than me?”, “why does she score higher grades than me?”, “how do they know so many people?” But the answers we hear are never convincing.

One important factor I feel is environment. Now this not the same environment of The Leaf Story or of my carbon footprint, but rather a more immediate environment around us. For example, last week I was in the holiest city of Makkah and the environment was such that I felt compelled to do nothing but pray and contemplate. Now that I have moved onto Dubai where commercialization is its culture, I feel compelled to do nothing but open my wallet. So what about my environment at home? Who controlls that? My parents surely. So am I who I am because of them, yes – partly.

What if I could control my own enivironment, what type would I want? First of all I would decide who I want to be, for example, if I wanted to increase in knowledge, I would surround my room in books and befriend only scholars. On the other hand, if I wanted to stop smoking, I would stop hanging around with smokers. But what if I wanted a combination of talents? I would then chose my hobbies accordingly such as reading, charity, sports and socialising. I feel what’s important is getting rid of the hobbies that have negative effects such as the friends who hold bad habits. From this simple concept we can grow. We will have control over our environment and thus have more of a control of who we become.

Let’s take this a step further. What if I chose my hobby to be worship because I wanted to be close to Him. Now in this month we slow down our usual hobbies such as sports and socialising and increase our hobby of worship and from this we can move closer to Him. If we embrace Ramadhan as our environment, our hobbies will change accordingly and, if we are sincere, we will become closer to Him.

I wish your wishes are answered and you do embrace Ramadhan as your environment.

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