In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

Today, Muslims everywhere begin the month of Ramadan. The significance of this month is marked largely by the ritual of fasting from dawn to dusk, refraining from comforts of every kind like food, drink, cigarettes, and others. Personally, it is for me a new kind of Ramadan.

Like many other Muslims, I’ve practised this obligation for years, training myself to stand hunger and thirst, so that at the end of the day, I get to feast a good meal for a day intended to seek God’s pleasure. For most of us, it has become routine, and observe the month, hopefully with an increased piety and leave harmful or addictive habits that could serve to destroy the purity of one’s body.

I don’t consider myself a good servant of God. Certainly everyone have committed sins, whether intended or otherwise. And so this month of Ramadan gives me an opportunity to earn penance for my misdeeds. Tonight however, was the first time in years I felt so ashamed as I spent my solitude in silence worshipping God.

I have been trying to find my nirvana the past year, trying to find a balance in my being, and the past 354 nights never felt so uneasy like this one. As I recited my prayers, I finally felt aware of how far away I am to God and how my equilibrium is far from existing. I cannot decide the word to use here; I feel enlightened to my situation, but at the same time, I’m not enlightened in the nirvanic sense of the word.

There is no doubt that perhaps there must be others like me who may have tried to be good Muslims in their life, but are not really religious or properly practising. I do not pretend to be religious, and that is why I try so hard to compensate my lack of practise to serve God in other ways, like building iAlif.com, or managing the Khutbah facebook page as these are mediums that I know I’m good at and know that I cannot be shy to earn Allah’s pleasure. I’ve always thought, so what if I’m not a poster boy for Islam? Good work is not just reserved for good people. God gave us the opportunity to take advantage of our talents to serve Him. And technology is my talent.

Today, I feel my soul feels cleaner, washed down by the tears of recompense, knowing that God still loves me to make me feel aware that I have not been that person I know I could become: patient, hardworking, motivated. No, not successful millionaire with car and condo. Anyone can be a millionaire, buy a car and own a condo. But qualities like patience, hard work and being motivated takes a lot of effort. It is easy for someone to get angry at the slightest peeve. I’m sure people who dislike me for whatever reason can simply get angry at me for nothing. And that displays a lack of restraint and patience. Patience is not something humans are good at. In this day and age, humans get easily bored, upset, or dissatisfied because of the breakneck speeds life takes. We expect service to be quick, if not, we get upset, complain and then turn out unhappy. We expect people to give way to us. We expect people to respect us. We expect a lot of things.

I get upset a lot. In fact, I get upset every single day. And perhaps that vibe of negativity is passed on to some people around me, leading to the general dislike for my demeanour. All that, from a few minutes of talking or not talking to me, and they don’t even know me. Not even to know how I like them because they’re who they are.

So from today, I will start out my day patient, calm, and therefore at ease and happy.

To be hardworking is not easy to maintain. People get bouts of laziness from time to time, and in a tech world, we get lazy a lot. Humans tend to get lazy with time. Why do you think we invent things? We continuously strive to reduce human effort and are nearing that reality to get technology to do everything for us. The point of technology, is to do more productive things and reduce the mundane, yet important things, in our daily life. For example, every day, we take the elevator to the car park to go to work. We no longer walk down the stairs. And therefore, we don’t get energized by increasing our heart rate to get ready for a day of good work to feed our families. Humans will do anything to reduce effort. Even socialising. We’ve come to the point where we Facebook to meet people and add friends without leaving a simple, “hello, my name is Jack and I like making new friends. I work here and like this hobby. how about you?”. no. we don’t bother. We click “add friend”, and a stranger enters your notification screen, and some of us ignore without bothering to say “hi Jack. thanks for adding me. I like making friends, but I don’t know you, and I think it’s just good manners to give an introduction”.

Like seriously, do you go to a social setting, like a cafe for example, and “poke” someone to greet them without uttering a single word? Are we really that lazy?

So from today, I decide to be more healthy and put in hard work to my day, so that I feel energised and ready. In fact, now I will intend to observe my 5 daily recharges as often as I can, because sitting in the office chair all day does no good for your body.

Motivation is something I feel lacking. I no longer have anything to look forward to. I ran out of challenges. I’ve succeeded in being my own boss. I’m suddenly aware that I need a challenge everyday. I initially asked for God to help me in my life. But then I remembered a verse from the Qur’an that humans need to help themselves first. So I asked God to help me to always be reminded of Him so that I can always be motivated. Because we forget about God most of the time. We go through our day, and we pray on time, and maybe some, when its convenient. And then we comply to the ritual because it’s an obligation. But do we remember God when we pray? Or are we reciting those Quranic verses in a language we don’t understand, and think about what are we going to do later for dinner or after work? We might pray, but we might not necessarily have God in mind.

So from today, I decide to be self-motivated. To look for a challenge, big or small. So I feel accomplished, and have done something meaningful in my life. Like public speaking. I am naturally an introvert therefore I have poor social skills. I am not always easy to get along. In fact I’m certain a few people will testify I get on their nerves. So if I keep myself motivated, I get to be excited, and enjoy life just a little bit more, and meet people and hopefully make new friends, and good ones and always be able to strengthen sillaturahim by saying hello once in a while. I try to remind myself that. Say hello. Perhaps now, I will remind myself to smile as well.

These are my 3 Ramadan goals to return to innocence, and hopefully attain nirvana. They are not easy. Try being patient, hardworking and motivated consistently for years. It’s easy to earn a million and buy a condo. Even if you lose money and lose your condo, it will take years for that to happen. But it takes a second to lose patience, a few days to get lazy, and it takes a few weeks to be unmotivated.

May you be reminded that God loves you too.

Jakarta Contrasts. A picture showing the rich-poor divide of Indonesia. Original picture by John and Mel Kats.

Bismillah hir Rahman nir Rahim. In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

Life isn’t easy and the past couple of months were probably the most difficult I’ve ever had to endure. It wasn’t too long ago in December 2009 when I had taken a week’s break for an all-guy’s holiday to Jakarta and Bandung. It was my 3rd trip to Jakarta in my lifetime and a lot of things have changed ever since President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono took over.

There were a lot of things that awed me about Indonesia. Particularly how despite some segments of the population live in abject poverty, they do not seem to feel pathetic about their lives. There was once when my friends and I were trying to find a museum in Jakarta, and we passed this middle-aged lady, dressed in batik sarong, a worn out kebaya, carrying a basket of goods on her back, walking barefooted on the concrete pavement, and when we approached her to ask for directions, she gave this pleasant smile, and politely pointed us the right way.

This was probably one of the most life-changing points in my life, despite how insignificant a person giving you directions seem to be. But how does one tolerate life’s harshness and still afford to smile and lend a hand to lost tourists from one of the most wealthiest nations in the world?

I realised that you cannot change where you were born, to which family, and in what kind of social status. Millions of people were born and still do, into abject poverty, but they did not allow their lives to be empty. This woman, worked. And you can see from her wrinkled face, soiled feet and iron fists that she made a harsh, meagre living to make ends meet in a city that is progressing ever rapidly.

Poverty does not mean hopelessness. We were all born poor, without a dollar in earnings. The difference between me and this woman was that I had the opportunity to an education to alleviate myself from the cycle of poverty and the opportunity to find work in white collar activities, behind a desk in an air-conditioned room in one of Singapore’s impressive skyscrapers, and parents who weren’t too poor to finance my life before I could hold my own.

But I don’t smile as willingly. And I must contemplate if wealth makes people unhappy?

The former colonial building of the VOC. Now Muzium Fatahillah. Jakarta History Musuem.

When we left the musuem, we stopped by a street vendor manned by ladies with containers of water to quench the thirsts of the mid-day heat. Handing over the 50,000 Rupiah made their day as it was not long that they opened their stall.

No. The mighty dollar has never made people unhappy. It is when we make too much or try so hard to make so much that we may feel this sense of incompleteness. That it’s really never enough.

Living in Singapore, I realised why we are so unhappy. For some of us, we make enough to cover our own costs of living. Everything here is about money. You want a house? It costs S$350,000 for a simple 4 room apartment. A young couple has to put down 10% before getting one, and demand is high but supply isn’t always enough. For those Singaporeans who simply don’t have the qualifications to earn a basic of S$1,800, they need to put in overtime work to ensure they have money for other costs, like food, transport, conveyancing charges, mobile phone, electricity and utility bills and the few children you’re raising which you hope will not turn out like you.

We work so hard, for $1,800 a month, only to see most of it disappear into these costs. That’s why we’re unhappy.

Will costs go down? When has it ever gone down? The one thing consistent about Singapore is that the cost of everything goes up! And everyone’s trying so hard to outdo everyone else in winning the rat race. The problem is, even if you win the rat race, you’re still a rat. And how can you be happy when you realised that you’ve become the vermin that people despise and love to hate?

The first step of being happy, is stop racing. Get out of the rat race. Singapore is a land of many opportunities and that Singaporean dream of being successful and a high standard of living has brought many immigrants to our shores and joining the rat race.

Stop racing, get your soul checked. Understand what makes you happy. Is it the good life? Or is it a good life?

If it’s the latter, good for you. You’ve quit the rat race and joined what some scientists are concerned as being an almost extinct species – the Human race.

When we are human, we will recognise that everyone is entitled to a good life. As long as we have enough to go around. Capitalism has grown our economy, but eroded our dignity. We need to balance our economic capacity with the capacity to love and care.

Some business gurus will teach you that the money you take from other people is your right. I beg to differ. The money you earned is but a placebo to make yourself feel whole. Without money, you feel empty. And it seems that whatever you earn is hardly enough.

When we stop feeling pathetic about ourselves. When we stop looking at poverty as a disease to be avoided and not solved. When we share, and give. The amount of love we receive in return far outweighs the amount of money we will ever earn. Because love, unlike everything else in this world, can never be bought.

May your life be filled with a wealth of love. Amiin.

See larger image 365 Nirvana Here and Now: Living Every Moment in Enlightenment (Hardcover) By (author) Josh Baran List Price: $19.95 USD New From: $12.95 In Stock Used from: $0.43 In Stock