Introduction
Mapping out the next five or six years of life can seem pointless knowing that the Planner has His own plans for you, none-the-less, it’s wise to set goals that can be broken down into achievable objectives to help set yourself in the right direction. What follows are a few of my ideas about what I would like to do and where I would like to go. Although this may sound very “me” driven, the overwhelming majority of my ideas are taking into consideration my wife and daughter, who are the lights of my life.
At home
One of the most overlooked aspects of working towards goals is living life where it is and maximizing the here and now. How friends do we know that work only towards their next big trip, to buying a new home, or for the newest technological toys? While these are all fine to work for, especially if they’re your passion, we can not treat the rest of life like a jail term until we reach these goals. As long as we’re alive, we’ll always desire more of something else and we’ll never run out of wants or goals to meet. The trick is to make the most of your life while simultaneously working towards your goals.
My first goal, which is a lifelong ambition, is to make my house a sacred place of learning. This doesn’t mean that my family and I won’t ever relax or enjoy the simple life at home, but it does mean that we will be continuously trying to learn and implement our faith at home. Too many Muslim homes have taken their televisions as the Qiblah Worse yet, many have devoted their lives to checking endless notifications on their phones and other mobile devices. A life of constant interruptions is bound to lead us to stay unfocused and distracted from our families and our pursuits.
It’s my intention to first maintain a clean home, devoid of huge furniture and not cluttered with endless stuff that fills the homes of so many. Like some sacred places in the East and like the mosques of the early generations of Muslims, I would like to keep the place I live stripped of all unnecessary objects and keep a minimalist setting for my family to live in.
Learning from the cradle to the grave is the mindset of our family. The second objective towards making our home a sacred place of learning is to set aside time for our family to read, listen to lectures, and discuss what we covered daily after reflecting upon it. Pondering over the material we learned and then making efforts to implement it into our daily lives may be challenging, but it’s worth pursuing.
Breaking ground
Home can be anywhere and the cliched statement that home is where the heart is is true for me. Right now, home is a three bedroom apartment in the heart of the Gulf Arab States. Our first economic goal is to acquire land in South East Asia and build our life-long home upon it. Having our own house will allow us to finally put down roots. Neither of us can continue to live as life-long expats, raising our children in a place that they (unfortunately) will never be able to call home. In order to do that, a large portion of our incomes must be set aside each month for the next half decade. It’s a necessary and worthy sacrifice to make toward our family’s future. Like our home now, I envision our future home retaining our minimalist present setting, so much so that if a burglar were to enter, they wouldn’t know what to take from us.
The time in-between
Along the journey towards our main goals, I intend on making sure that we’re able to connect with import places during our vacation time. One of the most important places that I would love to visit is Istanbul. The last seat of power of the last caliphate our planet has seen, Istanbul is an important place for me to try and connect with our not-so-distant past in order to help calibrate our approach to the world ahead. From what I’ve seen and heard, Istanbul still contains its majesty of old and I believe it’s important for every Muslim to witness what was left behind by those who were better than us. Although the state has gone, the spiritual legacy of the Ottomans is still alive today and I hope that we can connect with that.
There are many other stops along the way, it’s my hope that during any trip, we’re able to find places to improve or heal ourselves. Whether that be in traditional spas or by breathing the fresh air of Mt. Fuji; although we are tourists, I hope that we can move past tourism and have authentic experiences in the places we visit.
For now
As it currently stands, I’ve resolved to write everyday for at least an hour. I will attempt to break my habit of deleting all my work. I’ll keep and publish it, whether it’s good or bad, because if I don’t, I doubt I’ll ever be able to improve my writing ability. If you’ve made it this far, thank you for taking a journey through my thoughts with me. If you have any suggestions, comments, or enquiries, please feel free to write me at tplang85@gmail.com
