When Heroes Become Mortal…

Assalaamu Alaikum people,

Lady 1: What’s that in the sky?
Guy 1: It’s a bird!
Kid 1: It’s a plane!
Lady 2: No! It’s uhh…some…person…walking…to Subway.

We all have heroes. Known to us formally as our mentors, they come in forms as diverse as the roles that they fulfill. We know some of our heroes personally and others we dream of knowing personally. In any event, one thing we all do to our heroes is put them on a pedestal – often to our own disappointment.

Remember when you realized that your parents were not perfect? It was such a huge shock to see their flaws. It made you question a lot of things, some sillier than others like whether or not they could protect you from the bogeyman.

Recently, I saw my Superman under the glow of his own kryptonite. It was hard to watch; one might say that it pained me more than it did him: I was in denial, I was hurt, and I was angry. Be it Shaykh X, Brother R, or Sister M the feeling is the same.

I’ll keep my Superman’s identity safe, the person lives in Arabia – you wouldn’t know the person even if I told you. But the more I thought of their shortcomings the more I realized that I was to blame. I placed unrealistic expectations on that person and created a person that I wanted to exist, a person to believe in.

In any event, having a hero is much akin to a child having a safety blanket. It provides comfort and protection but does not let one face their own ‘boogeymen’ and it is healthy to a point. There comes a time, though, where we need leave our blankies behind, check underneath our beds, and come to terms with things.

I was not ready to give up having a hero, so I looked for another one. While I was looking for my hero I noticed something I never expected: I was a hero, my younger brothers’ hero. I knew they looked up to me but I guess realized that it could be the same admiration that I had for my heroes.

It all happened when the toilet overflowed and…well, I’ll save you the details, but to my brother I saved him from drowning in our bathroom (he’s 7, to him this was a sure death). When he emerged unharmed he called me “Spiderman al-hammam,” roughly translated to Bathroom Spiderman, which to a 7 year old is a lofty compliment. Knowing all the flaws that I posses it made me rethink heroism.

This all brings me to my Z3 for the post:

1. Heros are real.
   • There are inspirational people all around us, draw on their strengths and successes.
   • DO NOT embellish their personality.
   • Of course, Prophet Muhammad (S) is our greatest hero as Muslims – no way you can go wrong with him as your number 1.
2. You may be a hero already.
   • Careful! You never know who’s looking up to you (in some cases, literally).
   • If you find someone who does look up to you, make sure to share with them who you are. That does not mean showing them all your flaws but do not embellishing your own characteristics or achievements.
   • Be the hero you want to look up to.
3. Be your own hero!
   • Why not? This allows you to customize what your strengths are and gives you the ability to fix character flaws. You’re in the driver’s seat.
   • Just make sure you don’t tell anyone that you are your own hero. . .especially not at a job interview!

Keep your eyes in the sky but don’t forget the hero behind the mirror.

Salaam.Z.

Perspective

First off – Eid Mubarak to everyone! I hope yall had a good eid, got to see family and friends, ate good food and reflected on the passing of yet another Ramadan. Only 11 more months until next Ramadan! InshaAllah. Meanwhile, don’t forget to fast 6 days of Shawwal and remember that even though Ramadan is over, God is still everywhere. (Funny how I should even say that, but sometimes it seems like some people just … forget? May God help and guide us all.)

So yes ….Perspective. In drawing class, we have to start out with these one-point perspective line drawings of hallways. No one is a big fan of them, unless they’ve done them before. As I sat in a hallway designed by Frank Gehry (of the Guggenheim Museum), students passing by made remarks like “good luck, you’re gonna hate this!” It wasn’t your average hallway and I wondered what Gehry was high on when he designed this particular slanted hallway. I began to dread this assignment and wished I had chosen a more simple hallway.

When you walk through a hallway, its just an area connecting two other main areas. You almost never notice shadows or how the light streams in – if there are even any windows. But this hallway, I realized, Gehry had totally imagined the sunlight streaming in through the glass wall/windows overlooking the courtyard, and the shadows around the oddly placed rectangular lights lining down the hallway. I just had to figure out what was dark and what was not. Sounds like an easy task, right?

In the end of my first draft (because a piece of artwork is never complete) I had a lot of gray. As if the hallway hadn’t been walked in over years and 3 inches of gray dust covered everything. I was focusing on lines too much and not paying attention to the depth, but just filling it up with gray graphite. I had spent some time sitting down in the hallway, but after a while it got uncomfortable and I decided a picture taken with the built in camera on my laptop would suffice. Thats where I made my first mistake. I claimed to see a perspective but was only looking at a pixelated picture of it – simply because it was easier. I was not looking at the real thing anymore, I couldn’t get up and look at the hallway from a different angle, I couldn’t accurately know where the sunlight and shadows were anymore. As I walked through that same hallway everyday afterwards, I would notice nooks and crannies light never reached.

I was now susceptible to the slightest shadow and noticed how the light hit every wall and corner in every other random room I walked in. My friends became worried about me as I exclaimed randomly when I saw really cool shadows. My perspective has now changed – because I was forced to examine it and look for something I would not usually see.

Sometimes we claim to see the other side of things, but when it really comes down to it, we have no clue until we go and walk in someone else’s shoes. Not buy shoes that look like someone else’s shoes, but actually borrow someone else’s shoes and walk more than a mile in them.

We often begin thoughts with “Well, in my point of view” and we really want others to understand where we’re coming from but often forget that in order for them to understand, we have to understand them first – and that takes effort, and not just watching tv – which often offers a pixelated and distorted perspective for our viewing pleasure.

So the next time when you don’t understand something or someone, study and think the issue and look at it from a different perspective, from a different eye level. It may help you leave your bubble and give you a new outlook and experience with life – something that is worth it.

wasalams
-nora

Consistency. The Mark of Greatness.

Assalaamu alaikum,

Ramadan is almost over?! AH! Where did this month go? It is amazing how on the 5th day my stomach is rumbling and I’m thinking “ohh boy 25 more days.” But now it is the opposite, when I’m full my stomach actually hurts! This is the first Ramadan where I lost weight. Maybe I’m doing something right……or I’m too tired for sahoor!

You might be thinking what does Ramadan have to do with consistency? Well, everything! Imagine what you’ve done in the past month. On the simplest terms we did not eat until a designated time. Digging deeper, what we did is reformed old habits and created new habits. That, ladies and gentlemen, is consistency – changing habits.

Imagine what you may be very consistent at: procrastination, hanging out with friends, watching TV, facebooking?! These are all things we are consistent at because they are our habits. I found out that I have a habit for pretty much everything, I did not even realize it until I started thinking about this post. For example, every time I get to a computer after not being on one for a while I do the following:

1. Check my gmail.
2. Check facebook.
3. Check MT stuff.
4. Get to my task at hand.

Looks familiar? Well, the MT part might not. The point is I do this consistently without thinking. Changing this, or any, routine (a set of habits) is hard because we have to let go of old habits. It is uncomfortable because instead of just ‘doing’ we have to ‘think’, then ‘do’.  In effect, you have to stop being who you are currently and be who you want to be.

This is just like Ramadan, at first it is tough because we can not just go to lunch, take our coffee break, pop in our gum, or any other food habit we have. After we think about what we are going to get at lunch or the morning coffee break we remember it is Ramadan – doh. But near the Eid those new habits are formed and strong, making lunch easier to forget.

Think about this. Researchers say that it takes from 3-4 weeks to establish a new habit. Ramadan is 4 weeks. Just enough time to create new habits…I do not know if this is related or just a coincidence. If you are curious you have to ask someone who knows aka not me.

I know that this post is titled consistency and I have harped on about habits this whole time. I did that because if I talked about consistency you might be consistent for a week, two weeks top. After that period of time you will go back to your old habitsbecause, well, you will forget this blog post. But if you change your habits in the next 3 to 4 weeks, then you will still get the benefits of this post. See my plan? Now if I could only make one of you habits to come back and buy shirts without thinking about it…think man, think!

Remember greatness, and by extension consistency, are tested by time. Warren Buffet is not famous for making one big wise investment, but many smaller investments over a long period of time….. I can’t think of other modern day example – but they are plenty (actually, post some if any pop in your head). On the ultimate level Prophet Muhammed (S) provides the best example of consistency in his relations with people, devotions, and other good deeds.

I end with something I will, consistently (inshAllah), do. It is called Z3 and will be 3 simple steps that you can do to extract actionable benefit from a post.

1. Evaluate your current habits.
   • What habits actually hurt you?
   • What habits would help you?
2. Implement ONE habit that you want to change.
   • Let’s be real, one habit will be hard enough. The small success of changing one habit will help you change bigger and harder habits.
   • Plan it out – when will you start and when will your desired habit be your habit?
3. Get support.
   • Tell your friends and family what you’re doing, get their buy-in so they can cheer you on.
   • Avoid people or environments that trigger your bad habits. Change is good, but hard.
   • Make dua that Allah makes the difficult easy for you.

That’s all the Z3 you’ll get. As always if you need help just contact us (aziz@muslimtees.com), we’ll help you with you plan. We have seen it only takes you 3-4 short weeks to change your habits. The benefits however, will last a lifetime.

Salaam. Z.

Ramadan, Business and Malcolm X

  So yeaaa. the other blog is gone, and the new blog is here! wooohooo. www.muslimtees.wordpress.com: Take a sharpie and write it on your wall! (disclaimer: if mama and baba get mad at you, dont point fingers at me:-) )

Like explained earlier, we were experiencing technical difficulties. Moving the blog was easier than reformatting the whole thing. The blog got a facelift, and I think it looks much nicer now.

 

So what’s been new? For one thing, the last ten days have/are going to start tomorrow inshaAllah. That’s super exciting for me because it means we get to do Qiyam/Tahajjud every night, up until Eid. My community recently was blessed to purchase a new campus that has a huge musallah area, a good sound system and adequate heating and cooling, along with a nice area for the sisters. That’s pretty much all that matters for a masjid, imho.

So this Ramadan is in fact a new one, but it’s the same old deen vs dunya charades that seems to go on. As for MT, we’ve all be crazy busy leading our lives and also making sure we’re still on top of the game.

 

One can get through a Ramadan without going to taraweeh, without reading Quran, without getting up for suhur and still fast for 30 days, pray 5 times a day, give the obligatory charity, etc. But then it would be like fasting for any month, just going hungry - without a change (shoutout to www.fastathon.com!).

Same thing with a business. We could easily print t-shirts, describe them without photos, and use really tacky fonts and colors. But we don’t, because that would be a terrible display of marketing skills. We would obviously not value the relationship with the customer, nor would we be displaying our products at the best. But because we believe so much in our products, we want only the best to display our products.

Sounds easy in a business analogy but for some reason, when we talk about ourselves, we don’t seem to have enough faith in ourselves to give the best we can, especially in a time like Ramadan. We can count our blessings for days and days but we often count misfortunes more. And it’s easy to give reasons, but do we really ever have an excuse?

And of course this goes to myself first and foremost. I think I often get the gist of things after I go through them. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:  

“There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.” 
- Malcolm X (al Hajj Malik al Shahbazz)

Sometimes, that’s the easiest thing – to just move everything into a new place, start all over again. But if we took the time to dig a little and find the lesson that the seed has sown, we’d be more grateful, more content with our lives. Rather than treating each failure as a dead end, we would be treating each failure as a stepping stone towards success. And regarding success, I don’t like to measure it with the end product. Success is more the effort, ambition, patience and endurance that one is rewarded with during a struggle.

 

So yea, that was my five dollar philosophy for today. Don’t forget to make tons of du’aa – for the MT crew, as well as the Muslims worldwide.

wasalams

-nora