head, and in the other compartment you realize that all of that means nothing if
I’m not building my
ākhirah
. All of those plans are worthless; they are
meaningless; they are not any kind of accomplishment at all, if this is not
building me towards Allah, if it’s not taking me closer to Him, if it’s not making
me a slave of Allah.
There are people’s perceptions of us and then there’s the reality. People’s
perception, our own perception and the reality. People’s perceptions may be
you’re successful; people’s perception may be your knowledgeable or you’ve
accomplished something. And the opposite is true too, people’s perception might
be, you’re worth nothing but you know what? People’s perceptions, at the end of
the day, mean nothing. It stands to give you nothing before Allah. It will not add
to your deeds, it won’t take away from them. People’s criticisms will not take
away from you and people’s praise will not add to you. It will not. At the end of
the day, when people get praise and criticism from others all the time, you know
what starts happening? They start getting affected by it. They start seeing
themselves in light of how other people see them. So their image of themselves
becomes polluted because they’re not seeing themselves for who they really are,
they’re seeing themselves in light of other people’s words. That’s a human
phenomenon. This is why we have Allah’s word. So we can see ourselves in
light of Allah’s words; and that will help us see ourselves for who we really,
truly are.
At the end of the day, truly, we can have friendships and family and loved
ones and community, we can have all of those things. But at the end of the day,
we are in this world alone. We came alone, and we are going to leave alone. And
in that solitude, if you don’t find a connection with Allah, then all these fake
connections that you and I have, that are not really based on a relationship with
Allah, they will all disappear. They will not last. The façade will dissipate
eventually, if not in this life then in the next. So we have to internalize a very
powerful reality that Allah has given us:
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