The beautiful thing about Ramadan is how it lasts for a month. It is not just a day of trying your best, or a few days of trying hard. It’s a whole month. This allows us to train ourselves, to keep trying to get to where we want to be even if we’re not there right from the start, and to build habits. As only a few days remain, I look back over what I have achieved, what I hope I had achieved and the things I hope to continue. I aim to use this post to continually reflect throughout the year, so that hopefully this time next year I can have better aims – and from there I will grow strength to strength.
#kidgoals
Daily Prayers
Life does get in the way often, and I found myself rushing my prayers or missing them all together. But in Ramadan, I am conscious of this. My prayers are a time for me to zone out and think about the relationship between me and my Lord. They’re a time for me to reflect on myself, to re-energise and to reestablish my values. This month, I’ve been ensuring I do no touch my phone after wudu. I don’t let anything get in the way of my me time. The results, I’ve been calmer throughout the day, more focused and more at peace.
Reading Quran
And if my daily prayers were shady, my relationship with the Quran was non-existent. I haven’t built this area as strongly as I would have hoped just yet but it is one of the things I want to keep working on. I have signed up to an Arabic class to appreciate the literature and unlock the miracles contained within. I’ve also created an achievable schedule and am excited to get started.
Character Building
My focus for this year has been to stop backbiting and reduce my swearing. I say reduce and not stop because I think swearing can be therapeutic and in certain situations I don’t see the harm of it. But I have been swearing more and more at home and that’s not the kind of thing I am comfortable doing around family. Outside of actions, I have also been working on being forgiving. I try not to hold grudges, and have been actively siting down to release some residue anger I have left over from the past, mainly towards my abuser. This has been difficult because I keep thinking my Lord will deal with him accordingly but I’m not sure that’s the point of forgiveness.
So those are my top three. What sort of self-improvement things would you work on?
“Allah says, ‘I am as my servant expects Me to be, and I am with him when he remembers me. If he thinks of Me, I think of him. If he mentions Me in company, I mention him in an even better company. When he comes closer to Me by a handspan, I come closer to him an arm’s length. If he draws closer to Me by an arm’s length, I draw closer by a distance of two outstretched arms nearer to him. If my servant comes to Me walking, I go to him running.” – Prophet Muhammed (peace and blessings be upon him)
being woke 
What a wonderful post. I admire you for the respect you show to your religion, for the sacrifices you make and the gratitude you receive. Your aims are amazing. Every year I list all the resolutions I wish to attain, some scare the hell out of me, others are laughable, but at the end of the day if I only managed to achieve one, I would have done well. The point of it all is that we wish to improve and we are – one day at a time. Have a blessed Eid 🙂
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Thank you for that lovely message.
I personally believe we are also rewarded by our intentions as well as our actions. So with the intention to better ourselves, hopefully that will have some benefit – even if we don’t achieve everything we want. And we are only human – so little at a time!
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Wonderful post beingwoke. While I myself do not participate in Ramadan, I do believe that a time of self-reflection and relationship building with your Lord is important. I wish you well in the remaining days of Ramadan.
To answer your question at the end, I would say the things I would work on would be a reduction in my usage of profanity; an increase in my scripture studying; and an increase in risk-taking. Two of the three things are alike to yours and all of them are things I genuinely should better about myself. Still, I do not plan of giving up getting to that point eventually 🙂
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That’s brilliant. Wishing you the best getting there. Which structure do you follow, if you don’t mind me asking.
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Christianity. I have an interesting relationship to my Lord but I know that He loves me and I love him. No one can take that away from me. I know He wants better for me so I’m trying my best. 🙂
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I love that!
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Thank you! 🙂 I am also interested in other religions. I have always believed that although we have formed many religions as humans, there are universal connections amongst them all. I’m not sure how I can prove this theory but I believe it to be true.
If I recall correctly, you are a Muslim correct? I am ignorant of the culture and beliefs but I am fascinated nonetheless. I encourage you to keep posting topics related to this. I’d be delighted to continue to read them! Learning from a first hand practitioner is one of the best ways to learn. 🙂
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Yes I will do
Yes I am Muslim.
Judaism, Christianity and Islam have very very similar beliefs and ways of worship because they each stemmed from one other – and in fact in Islam we love all the prophets both those religions have – including Moses (who we call Musa) and Jesus (who we call isa). We believe Jesus was a prophet, not the son of God but we still follow his teachings and learn about him and love him.
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Wonderful things! I think Christians should do the same as far as learning about other figures. I had no idea that in Muslim culture that you also learn about Jesus. I think it would actually do the Christian community some good to maybe learn about the Prophet Mohammed. 🙂 It might also take away from some of the supremacy some Christians feel about the religion itself. Supremacy is not really good for human thought.
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I think it’s because prophet Muhammed (peace and blessings be upon him) came after the Jesus so he’s not considered as a figure in the bible
But yes finding out about other faiths is always such an amazing experience.
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ما شاء الله 👌🏼
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