Hussain Makke

The best work you can do is the work that inspires you when you look back at it. Inspired, you create more work that inspires the future you to create even more inspiring work. If this sounds pompous, you already do it, just with guilt and shame. You do shameful things to escape the shame of the last shameful thing. I'd choose the cycle of inspiring yourself over the infinite cycle of guilt tripping yourself any day.

When you give yourself no alternative and risk it all. When you burn all the ships because you already decided that you’re not going back. That is not merely a leap of faith. That is a leap that you will need every ounce of courage you can muster in order to succeed in making. When you throw caution to the wind and believe completely in the decision you have made, willing to take it with you to the grave. It’s when any other choice is simply unacceptable to you, so you’d choose death over remaining where you are. So you take the leap without the rope.

Is Halloween Haram?

By the time you graduate high school or college, you would have spent 80% or more of the total hours you will ever spend with your parents before they die. Cherish what you have left, make up for lost time, forgive their wrongs, and give them whatever love you can.

Some people just built different

Naruto & Islam: Part 2. Gaara

Ambition and shame are two sides of the same coin. Some people try to become something they're proud of because they're ashamed of who they currently are. Achieving money, success, & respect feels good because it offers relief from this shame. But every time we need to achieve something to feel worthy, we reinforce the belief that we're not worthy without it. Shame fuels ambition. Ambition promises worthiness. Achievement offers temporary relief. Rinse & repeat. But you don't need to stop wanting more... You need to change what's driving you. Are you building something meaningful, or trying to prove you're someone worth being? You can either spend your life trying to prove you're enough, or build a life from the belief that you already are.

Why does Surat al‑Ikhlas open with 'Huwa' before it ever says Allah? Because there's a station before any name. The nameless station. And it changes how you read the whole surah... This is a short clip taken from last night's Tafsir Circle that we held on Substack. The full lesson goes much deeper and is now online for those who wish to catch up.

Understand the capacities of the people around you. Protect yourself from the dormant ambitions of those you love, but also protect them from what neither of you is yet aware of. Be conscious, be kind, be forgiving, but above all, be wise. Wisdom will save your soul. ‘Love your beloved moderately, for perhaps one day he may become one you dislike. And dislike the one you dislike moderately, for perhaps one day he may become your beloved.’ - Imam Ali (a)

Look inwards. What you often resent in other people is a reflection of what you unknowingly hold inside yourself.

The way you face each day remains a choice, no matter what has happened.

You're not responsible for the whole world. You're responsible for your corner of it. Clean the ground you stand on.

'You built castles in the air. That's where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.' - Thoreau People say 'castles in the air' to make you feel stupid for dreaming big. But no. The castle is meant to be in the air. If your dream already fits comfortably on the ground then it's not much of a dream. The foundations are what no one sees to clap for. The early mornings. The studying. The years of building while people tell you you're wasting your life. You may even have doubted yourself once or twice. But you don't bring the dream down to the ground. You build the ground up to meet it.