Developing Focus

Issue 72 September 2010

Our response to a difficulty or a problem can be to seek a distraction. Even with Ramadan, we may seek activity, even sleep, so that we do not have to feel the hunger or the thirst. However, one can only really gain the full significance of the month by developing focus on the hunger and thirst and examining what it is trying to teach us. Without doing so we may only get, as the hadith says, “...nothing except hunger and thirst, and many people who pray at night get nothing from it except wakefulness.” (Darimi) We should develop focus in every aspect of our lives in order to extract the fullest benefits.

32. Do a little bit more than you feel like doing or think you can do.

33. Remove distractions as much as possible. Identify what is a negative drain on your focus and remove it. The removal may not need to be permanent; just until it does not distract you as much.

34. Keep the objectives of your action in mind. If you are reading Qur’an set your objective for that Qur’an reading session first.

35. Enlist the support of others to help you stay focused, bearing in mind the Prophetic saying on choosing friends, “A good friend and a bad friend are like a perfume-seller and a blacksmith: The perfume-seller might give you some perfume as a gift, or you might buy some from him, or at least you might smell its fragrance. As for the blacksmith, he might singe your clothes, and at the very least you will breathe in the fumes of the furnace. (Bukhari and Muslim)

36. The breaking of the fast is a reward for the fasting person in this world, with other reward in the Hereafter. Grant yourself positive rewards when you have maintained your focus and achieved your set goal.

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