Education: The And/Or mentality

One of my unique possessions is having an AND mentality. I want to raise a family with the freedom of an "independent" woman (yes, I still have that). I want to be submissive while being a leader. I want to be FREE inside of a very disciplined lifestyle. I am a phat girl in a thin frame. I want to eat desserts and have a flat stomach!

Too many people are caught with it's one way or the other mentality. I can be a nerd with no common sense. I can be grown with a childish spirit. I can love the men and hate the relationship. Who says we can't have both? One of the best articles written about entrepreneurship/people, https://medium.com/…/the-hidden-sign-that-you-have-a-poor-p…, wrote "Successful people value the process and the work itself over the outcome, the party, the accolades, and the money. In some way, they value the pain. It’s a better pain to build a business out of their art than say, the pain one gets from passing a kidney stone. The pain from doing their work and failing over and over again is meaningful pain, and always worth going through.

They don’t try to avoid discomfort and uncertainty because frankly, avoiding these things is not what makes a great freakin’ wealthy life. There are things in your own life, whether you’ve identified them or not, that are worth the pain, that you’d be willing to go through a ton of suffering for, and still come out the other side with a vaguely goofy smile on your face. If you don’t know what these things are, hoping that money will solve your “purpose” problem is pretty darned unlikely to succeed. You’ll never have enough money.

Value What You’re Willing To Do For The Money, Not The Money Itself

Let me repeat that. If you’re not sure of what you like about money other than pleasure and avoidance of pain, look at what you’re willing to do for the money — as in, the work itself. That is what you really value.If the work you’re willing to do is sleep around until you nail a wealthy spouse, you’re in the world’s oldest profession. If you’re willing to study to get multiple school degrees for the money, you’re a professional student or scholar. You value ideas over execution. If you’re willing to withstand failure and humiliation over and over again while trying to build a product or service, you’re an entrepreneur. If you’re willing to practice your instrument every day for hours on end and face the possibility of rejection during a performance, you’re a musician. Basically, you are what you’re willing to do for your money. The money will never change that.

Now don’t get me wrong. Not all values are equal. Some values are healthier for reinforcing self-worth and confidence than others and therefore better values. Your job is to pick the ones that reinforce the quality of life you’re trying to build, and pick them well. But please, stop going around thinking that what you want is the money. You’ll only attract people whose highest value is to take it from you.

Try this 10 minute exercise
Sit down with a pen and piece of paper tonight, and think about what you might be willing to take some major pain for. It doesn’t have to be what you do for a living, or even anything you believe you do well yet. It doesn’t even have to be one thing. It could be multiple things.
Ask yourself what you do already or have done in the past that you’re pretty sure no amount of suffering could keep you from doing if you gave yourself permission. Improvement in doing would be enough to keep doing it. Keep the money ‘what-ifs’ out of your mental equation. Baby steps. If you’re hopeful that money will be the solution to all of your problems, you’re already screwed. You’re misguided about what your actual problems are. It all comes down to you. What do you value? What are you willing to practice?"

That is why Islam was a good fit with my internal value system. As I have matured, there are less and less things I will do for money. I would NEVER get married for money In sha Allah. Like most Americans, I picked a professional career that made me unhappy for money. (Money.com, http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/22/pf/hate-your-job/index.html wrote "more than half of U.S. adults identify as being unhappy at work.")
I won't settle on my ambitions for money. I won't even work for money.

I want to do the things that make me happy. It makes me happy to serve. Islam makes it very simple. My life is to serve Allah t'ala. I even had the audacity to tell him NO (That was NOT smart!). The situations I found myself in all pointed towards using my blessings to change education but I was too caught up in the moment to SEE. Once I could focus, meditate and stand still I saw the path while still saying NO, I am NOT doing that.

I want the pain and the pleasure. The pain of practicing hours and hours and more hours writing books (and getting better each time). The pain of going deep inside to find out why I am running away. The pain of starting business after business until I get it right In sha Allah. The pain of working with people more than the pain of working with computers. I LIKE the pain and the pleasure.

Everything belongs to Allah including both wealth and poverty. The decisions I have made allowed me to see BOTH blessings. I was spiritually poor while being in the financial middle class. I decided to become spiritually wealthy so I could no longer care about objects. Being spiritually wealthy was a value for me that I put off embracing for way too long because of FEAR.

I allowed FEAR to paralyze me until I started to LIVE a life outside of the cubicle of corporate America. Once I tasted some freedom, I wanted even more. I wanted so much more freedom that I FINALLY submitted to the discipline 4 years after embracing Islam. I want my children to start off spiritually wealthy with a mindset of discipline so they can build a wealthy community with masjids, schools, recreation centers and families In sha Allah. Now I compromise. I can eat my pie once a week for a treat while I work daily on having a flat stomach in sha Allah. Both things are possible for the believer.