Greetings everyone,
Imagine a world where, if you were caught speaking ill of someone, you had to go to their home and tell them what you said.
I reckon people would speak a lot less and the world would be better for it.
Enjoy today’s newsletter!
Nothing on Earth is in greater need of a length prison sentence than the tongue.
—Ibn Mas’ud (600-653)
✏️ The Case for Being Oneself
It is often said that the world will tell you who you are if you don’t tell the world. I think this phrase speaks to how difficult it is to be oneself — friends, parents, colleagues, and society all have their own idea about how people should behave, and subsequently, what you should be. To be yourself in a world that is constantly telling you to be something else is no easy feat.
The case for being oneself is more than just a identity issue. The values and principles that we choose to live our life with are also being constantly challenged by our surroundings. What we do for a living, how we treat other people, and what we prioritize in life are all extrapolated from our value systems. If we derive our value systems from other people, we will, 1) be succumbed to changes in those values systems; and 2) turn a blindside to our own experience and beliefs.
The righteousness of actions in life are highly dependent on context: the problem with heeding to the world’s advice is that they will never have as much context on a situation as you will. For example, when dealing with a difficult boss, people on the outside telling you what they think are ignorant to the body language, tone of voice, and other data points that are an integral part of the story. Their guidance is based on theory. But theory and application of theory are very rarely perfectly congruent. In being oneself, in trusting your judgement, your moral compass, and your mind, you no longer have to rely on others to tell you whether you are doing the right thing. If you are honest with yourself, you can be the judge of that. If people don’t like you for who you are, it needn’t bother you if you truly believe you are acting in accordance with God.
Trying to fit yourself into ever changing boxes in order to fit in or obtain approval of others is exhausting. Being oneself, if one can trust oneself, makes life easier.
gaudete in domino — rejoice in the Lord
💡 Food for Thought
When you realize your words are actions, your words naturally diminish.
🔗 Sunday Best
The Inner Ring
By CS Lewis
And if in your spare time you consort simply with the people you like, you will again find that you have come unawares to a real inside: that you are indeed snug and safe at the centre of something which, seen from without, would look exactly like an Inner Ring. But the difference is that the secrecy is accidental, and its exclusiveness a by-product, and no one was led thither by the lure of the esoteric: for it is only four or five people who like one another meeting to do things that they like. This is friendship. Aristotle placed it among the virtues. It causes perhaps half of all the happiness in the world, and no Inner Ring can ever have it.
Mimetic Traps
An Essay by Brian Timar
Don’t force yourself to do anything you hate. If you get too good at this, you won’t be able to figure out when to quit.
Enjoy the process of whatever you’re doing — you’ll be happier, and much more likely to practice, which leads to better outcomes.
Make sure your job has clear price signals for success and failure. Be suspicious of roles that compensate you with status or non-financial rewards.
Hold yourself to ambitious absolute standards in morals and productivity — write them down on post-it notes. You have an obligation to use yourself well, your time is valuable, and there are right and wrong ways to spend it.
Maintain a diversity of pursuits — you want to ensure that, no matter how engrossed you become in one, you never forget that the others exist.
Guarding the Tongue
A khutbah by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf
The power of words is a central insight in Islam. Four words spoken sincerely suffice to mark that someone is a believer. Our tongues are a great blessing from our Lord, but their power can set us on the path of good or of harm. In this khutbah, Hamza Yusuf provides important and timeless advice for how to guard ourselves from the pitfalls of excessive and malevolent speech.
In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.
—Eric Hoffer (1898-1983)
Thanks for coming!
AT