Sanitarium

This question was presented to me in my philosophy class as a way to put my priorities in order. When I first asked myself, I started thinking “party!” But it was not a serious answer. I found myself deflecting from the serious nature of the question, because I was too afraid to learn what my life had become. I feared that I would find out how horrible of a person I was. Before I truly began to think about it myself, I asked some friends what they would do; I got answers life “traveling, living out my dreams, adventuring, etc” When I wondered if any of those things really interested me, I came to realize that the only thing I could think of was “pray, pray, pray!” I thought to myself, how could I just spend 24 straight hours praying? But nothing else came to my mind. So I began to wonder why the prayer came to my mind so fast; at first I thought “Maybe it’s because as a Muslim that is the most important thing.” But it wasn’t…it was because to me it was important. Just then I realized that my heart no longer distinguished between the beliefs of a ‘Muslim’ and the beliefs of ‘Imran Shah’. The funny thing about this to me was that on a daily basis, I’m forgetting a prayer or I’m forgetting to do something else that I should be doing; but this doesn’t mean that Islam is not important to me. I realized that at any moment when I feel happiness, sorrow, fear, guilt, love, pain, anything, I first turn to God. Maybe it’s the structure that I don’t particularly like, I think that the way I truly feel about God is shown through the small supplications that I make throughout the day; when beauty brings to mind “Praise be to God” and pain brings “Please God, help me”, the response of the heart during times of joy and times of adversity is truly what tells you if religion is conformity or reality.
After several hours of thought, I began to wonder, is my mind telling me to pray out of desperation or is my heart telling me to pray our of genuine sincerity? After speaking to a friend, I thought maybe it’s the intention that counts; but what if my mind deceived me? Let’s say I was still alive at 24 hours and 1 minute? 25 hours? Another week? Would I revert to my previous lifestyle? Would nothing change?
I know that no matter how long I think, I will never truly come up with an answer to what my last 24 hours in this world would be spent doing. But I have come to realize that with all the questions I had about whether my prayers of desperation would do anything or not, I would still rather not take a chance. The risk of missing out on any amount of reward to me is not worth an afterlife in which I would know that I could have done better. “…it’s what life is all about; it’s a continual struggle for something better, always.” –James Hetfield.