What is at the center....?

What we place at the center of our lives determines what go on around it. True or False?

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The Sun is at the center of the universe and all other planets revolves around it. Likewise, whatever we place at the center of our life - other activities will inadvertently be influenced by it.

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All parents must have gone through a period in their lives when everything from their sleeping time to their social activities seems to be revolving around the baby of the house. For example, going out has to be delayed due to a baby's sleeping time.

At one stage of my life, pleasure was at the center of my life. During that time, I seek pleasurable activities - some were actitivities which I would not have approved my children to even try.

At another time, my life priorities and decisions were centered around my career. My wife's career has to take a back seat then, and my children changed schools and left their friends behind. Fortunately for me, wife and children were supportive.

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I believe in the saying, "What our mind can conceive, we can achieve". Steven Covey in his Seven Habits book talked about - everything are created twice! The first creation being in our mind, and the second creation being the physical or real creation.

Hence, I believe in having a personal vision - a kind of a picture of what I want to achieve in life at a given time.

For a long time until recent past, the picture of my personal vision has been that of 'material' things. In my mind I created wealth - houses in our names, dollars in our bank accounts, and other things symbolic of success such as car, holidays, gadgets.....etc.

For a long time, I thought what I wanted was 'to be wealthy!!'

I was wrong.

What I failed to recognize was the 'real center' - by answering the question, "why do I want wealth?"

At the core of my life pursuits has in fact been 'family'. I pursue those material things in order to provide for my family.

Therefore, it is very important to really get to the bottom of my inner self and finding 'the center' of my life. What is it I am placing there - And what is it I really want to place there. I can almost hear people whispering, "But of course it must be Religion...!" That is true. But it is an over simplistic answer. For first we must answer what 'is' there before we can move to what 'should' be there.

Hopefully, I am making the right 'move' in doing a self-assessment of my own 'center' at this time - and in realizing that what I real want to be at the center of my life is indeed 'Islam' and not wealth or family.

Therefore my virtuos circle is to be surrounded with activities which identify me as a muslim and which enhances my quality of life as a muslim and prepare me to die as a muslim.

A balanced circle of success, I have been told has to be surrounded by activities which improve our life in six areas:

- Spiritual; which for me is faith in Islam.

- Family; not limited to our immediate family.

- Health; That of ours and our loved ones

- Career; An ideal situation is when a career is designed around a life, and not the other way round.

- Social; networking and increasing our circle of influences, pursuing specific hobbies etc

- Wealth / Financial

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What we place at the center will influence how type of activities and how much time we allocate in pursuit of all the six elements!

For example, a situation where we are caught in a traffic jam can result in different outcome depending on what is at the center of our life.

If we places 'career' at the center - we may be using the time making many business phone calls. However, if we are centered around family - we will be using the time to call our wife and childen. We may even call the bakery nearby our house and ask them to deliver a cake with a message, "Caught in a jam - and I was thinking of you!"

On the other hand, if Islam is at the center - the person caught in the jam may call our family and ask them not to wait for him for the 'jemaah prayer' but to go ahead and pray. He would stop at the next safe place to perform his own prayer. He uses the time to listen to Quran CD.

And guess what? All of the above can be done from the same situation. The difference is, by having Islam at the center of our life - we will be doing those actions 'dengan kerana Allah'.

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The thing at the center of our life will definitely influences our actions - consciously or subconsciously.

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Wallah Hu Aklam!