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There was once a boy who one day was feeling bored during lunchtime at school. He decided to have some fun.
He wandered over to the center of the playground and with his hands in his pockets he looked up at the sky with an earnest expression on his face. He did not move from his spot and, as he expected, it was not long before a group of people stood around him also gazing up at the sky. Then more and more people came. They did not talk; they just gazed at the sky. When the group became large in number, the boy wandered away chuckling to himself. No one even noticed that he had left the group.
It was a fine joke to him, but what do you think? Don't you think this story reminds us of how humans tend to simply copy those around them without thinking about what they are doing and what the outcome of their actions are?
We all have bad habits. We all make mistakes. In fact, being prone to make mistakes is part of the human condition. But there is a difference between making mistakes as we proceed on our journey through life — through trial and error, ready to try something new, ready to reach out, ready to try — and committing errors and forming misjudgments, and letting ourselves drift through life imitating those around us and picking up bad habits along the way.
It is easy to acquire a bad habit, but it is much more difficult to give it up!
If we are not careful, if we are not sensitive to the state of our souls, we can get riddled with bad habits. Silly, useless bad habits that slowly but surely destroy us — body, mind, and soul. And for what? For lack of thought? For lack of caring about our own self-development? For lack of love and fear of Allah the Almighty?
Those bad habits that we pick up, without thinking, from the people who are around us, include using harsh language, being disrespectful in the way we speak, dressing indecently, going to places where there is no Islamic behavior, smoking, or even taking drugs and drinking alcohol. These bad habits can even be things that affect the way we think and can influence us to be negative and respond sarcastically, to have a sick sense of humor, to exaggerate in the way we speak, and so much more. There are things that the majority of people, if they hung around good people, would never do! So this is the first thing you should do if you keep company with bad friends — change your friends!
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If you have adopted a bad habit just by being lazy — by doing things like sleeping through Fajr Prayer, not reading Qur'an every day, and not doing good deeds every day — then start! Just do it! Set your clock and make a firm intention that you will get up for Fajr Prayer. Ask Allah the Almighty to help you, then be hopeful. Things like this are just a matter of making new habits to replace the old, bad ones.
Be sure that whatever faces us in our lives, we have the ability and strength to overcome it — the strength, wisdom, and patience we need lies within. When we are close to Allah the Almighty — when we live in obedience and harmony with His rules and boundaries — we learn to identify and access our inner resources.
Bad habits weigh down the soul; sins fill the heart with disturbance and block insight. On the other hand, living a clean, well-planned, and useful life sets the spirit free. This feeling of elevation, tranquility, and inner peace is found when you sit with a caring, pious friend, when you live a healthy, moral lifestyle, when you pray your prayers on time with a heart filled with sincerity and hope, and when you serve mankind by making things easy, forgiving, advising, and assisting — all with an attitude of friendliness, caring, and wisdom.
Every day is a new beginning — a chance to leave off old habits, old friends, old places that are not beneficial or positive in your life and to steer your course in life towards all that uplifts your own heart and the hearts of others.
So when you pray, fast, and read Qur'an, remember to ask Allah the Almighty to give you a subtle awareness of all that surrounds you so that you will never be one of the crowd gazing up at the sky looking at something that is not there.
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