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Applying_Kaizen_to_mid_life_crisis

Applying_Kaizen_to_mid_life_crisis

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 Auto-generated transcript:In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. My dear brothers and sisters, people go through what is called a midlife crisis. And this happens for two reasons. One is that when you are young and you have your life goals, most of them are more or less straightforward and clear, which is to get a job, to get a good job, to get some career progress and so on. So people work for that. And they achieve various levels of success. But once they reach a particular level, they would have achieved most of whatever they set out to achieve. Some things they get, some things they don't get. And also as you grow older, your overall energy also becomes less. And you reach a plateau, you reach a point and then it's, you are climbing to a point and then it becomes flat. And then there is a loss of energy, loss of enthusiasm. There's a sense of loss of purpose. You don't know what to do with yourself. Also, most of the material goals of life get achieved. If you have been, living your life in a reasonably sensible way, then achieving material goals is not such a big thing. So you will achieve whatever material goals there are. So then there's a loss of purpose. So that's one midlife crisis or reason for it. Another one is that you set out to achieve goals and these are good grand goals, big goals. And you find as you go, you go along that despite your best efforts and so on, you are not able to achieve them or not able to achieve them entirely as you envisaged or as you thought you would like to achieve them. So these are the two reasons why people at, usually happens to people in their 40s and maybe later actually, maybe in the 50s or so, but can happen at any time. I've seen people with very fast track, even in their 30s, facing this wall, they don't know what to do. Whatever they thought they wanted to achieve, they achieved, came very early. And then they are at a loss. Now what to do? The issue is therefore what to do with your life because it's, you feel various people I've spoken to, one person said, I think my life has come to an end. But you are still living. So how is it at an end? And you can't say, go jump over, jump off a cliff or something. Life is ended. That we can't do. So what to do with your life? And sometimes it becomes a serious matter because there is a serious loss of purpose in life. And, you know, you are sort of at a completely loose end. You don't know what to do with yourself. Now, the key thing, therefore, to understand is what does Islam tell us. Now Islam tells us to relook and realign the purpose of our lives. And that realignment should be done not only when you are at a midlife crisis, at that time, of course, but even otherwise. And that realignment has to be done according to the purpose of life. And that purpose of life, Allah SWT mentioned, where He said, وَمَا خَلَقْتُ الْجِنَّ وَالْإِنسَ إِلَّا لِيَعْبُدُونَ Allah said, we have not created the jinn and the human beings for anything other than our worship. So the purpose of life is to worship Allah SWT to a level that He is pleased with us. Because worship is not just worship. Worship is at some standard. So what is that standard? The standard is the rida of Allah. Now, if you keep that life goal as a purpose, then there is no question of any midlife crisis or any other kind of crisis because this is a continuous improvement goal. What the Japanese call kaizen. In manufacturing, there is the concept, quality concept of kaizen. So, kai is continuous, zen is good. So, continuous, improvement. And the principle of kaizen is that small things add up to a big thing. So small changes add up to a big change. So in this, if you apply the principles of kaizen to the life goal in Islam, which is the rida of Allah SWT, so you have the goal to say, is Allah SWT pleased with me? And Allah created me for His purpose, for this particular purpose, which is His ibadah. Today, what has happened, somebody was asking me,
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