4-Hard Truths

Auto-generated transcript:Salam alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Alhamdulillah, Rabbil Alameen. Wa salatu wa salam ala al-sharafi al-anbiya ibn Musaleen Muhammad Rasulullah. Sallallahu alayhi wa ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallam tasliman kathiran kathira. So, amma baadu, my brothers and sisters, Jazakallah khairun to all of you, especially the brothers from UMass for taking the time and trouble to come and see me before I go to India. May Allah bless you and keep you in His special care and concern. Some of you are freshmen and some of you are seniors. And I don't know by the time I return, you would have graduated and gone. May Allah Ta'ala keep you safe always in His special care. May Allah Subhana Ta'ala protect you. May Allah help you in ways that you cannot imagine. May Allah Subhana Ta'ala open doors for you from places where you can't imagine. May Allah Subhana Ta'ala protect you from all evil. That which you know and that which you don't know. May Allah Ta'ala make it easy for you. May Allah grant you your wishes, your goals, your aspirations with khair and barakah and maafiyah. I want to share with you four, what I call my four hard truths. And I call them hard truths because these are painful to accept to face, but they are true. I used to go to a gym in Hyderabad called Talwarkots. In that gym, there was a huge scene to floor poster which had a picture of a very, over-muscled, big, huge man. And the slogan said, shut up and train. And I think that's a very good, very good rule to follow for yourself. To shut up and train. Meaning, to focus on our life goals. You're here at the university. And remember that you're here for one reason only. There is no other reason. You're not here for the clubs. You're not here even for the MSAs. You're not here for absolutely any reason other than to get the best possible grades that you can get. Absolutely the best possible grades that you can get. Because you're here for the best possible reasons. And the best possible reasons are doing it. Because what you do in these three, four years that you're here will determine your future for the rest of your life, more or less. So therefore, it makes absolutely zero sense to spend this time focusing on anything other than your studies. Now, once you have finished with your studies for the day, for the week, for the month, and then you have spare time, by all means, spend that spare time doing another six. And in that, I would put your MSAs as the top priority because to learn your deem and to do something good for people, this must be your top priority. Do spend time also on your physical education, on being on physical fitness. You must be known for the best food among all American universities. And usually that also means that it should be known for the... its capability to fatten you the fastest. Because all best food translates into enormous number of calories. So you want to be in a situation where by all means, enjoy the food, but make sure that you burn it off. So hit the gym, have a beautiful campus, go running, go walking. 10,000 steps per day. Make this into an absolutely invaluable rule. 10,000 steps per day. And those 10,000 steps must be done at one stretch. It's not throughout the day. So the routine that I always recommend for people to follow is number one, wake up one hour or one and a half hour before the time for fajr starts. And then make sure that you pray tahajjud. Make tahajjud firm on yourself. And once you've prayed tahajjud, then read one juz, one zibar of Quran. And depending on your speed of reading, if you can't finish the whole juz, read as much as you can. And then go and pray salatul fajr by jama'ah. Go to the masjid, go to the masjid, make sure that you pray salatul fajr by jama'ah. And when you finish praying salatul fajr, then you sit there in the place where you prayed, and make this. And make zikr until the time for ishra comes. And then pray two rakat and two rakat, four rakat, but in twos. The saba of that, the reward of that is an accepted hajj and an accepted umrah. Then you hit the road and get in your 10,000 steps. Do your five mile walk or run or whatever you like. Walking is best. Running is hard on the knees. And you won't feel it now, but you will feel it when you get to Mahil. So ideally walk. But if you feel like a run, go for a run. But do that. Then come back, have a shower and start your day or the rest of your day. Your day started already when you book off for tahajjud. And it started with almost two hours of, two hours or more of the worship of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And then you did 10,000 steps. And then you had a shower. So that's the most beautiful way of starting a day and running a day. And then you have your breakfast and then your glasses and whatnot, water. You follow the schedule, and believe me, you will remember me long after I'm dead. Because this schedule will make you the most productive human being on the face of the earth. Absolutely, without a doubt. Because you have the help of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala right in your life. And you ask for it every day at a time when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is asking, is there anyone who needs my help? And you're saying, Ya Rabb, labbaik, I'm here. Now, to come to the four truths. First one, pain fuels success. No pain, no gain. Now this is very, very, very important. No pain, no gain. See, I tell people, many times we seem to be caught up in this thing of, you know, this is the modern world, old rules don't apply and so on. Now please, forget this. This is all complete rubbish. It's like saying that it's a new world, so therefore gravity does not apply. There are certain fundamental laws of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. They don't change, no matter what happens. What you are seeing is technology, at a very peripheral level. At a very peripheral level, at the, you know, just the face of it. And we tend to get very impressed with the technology. But we need to ask ourselves, who made that technology? And the answer is, some human being, some person. And then the question is, who made that person? And the answer is, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So if you are impressed with the technology, you are impressed with the product of the product. And not even one product. Product of the product. The produce of the product is the technology. You are impressed, but think of and be impressed with the power of the creator, Jalla Shanam. That is truly worth being impressed with. So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala made the fundamental laws. And the first of those fundamental laws is, no pain, no gain. No pain, no gain. So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala made the fundamental laws. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala said, for the human being, there is nothing except what he works for. We see this around the world. People even resent. They say, see such and such a person or so and so. People, they talk about groups. They own all the wealth. They own all the media. They dominate this, they dominate that. Ask yourself one simple question. Who stopped you from doing the same? Who stopped you from loving the world? Who stopped you from dominating the world? Who stopped you from doing X, Y or Z? Nobody. You just didn't do it. You decided to do something else. So why do you resent someone who is dominating, whatever they are dominating? So determine for yourself what it is you want from life and go and get it, you will get it. Dreams want to be caught. Don't get fooled by that. Dreams want to be caught. But if you leave the dream as a dream, it's a dream. Nothing will happen. You have to wake up and go catch that dream. And that takes pain. That takes effort. That takes sacrifice. That takes investment in yourself. That takes denying yourself certain things which would be nice to have. But you're doing that because what you are aiming for is much nicer to have. So no pain, no gain. Pain fuels success. Number two. Nobody owes you anything. Nobody owes you anything. Now this is a big thing to understand because today we seem to be living in a generation which seems to operate on the principle that the world owes them everything. If they don't get something, it's always somebody else's fault. Believe me, you can cry till the cows come home. Nothing will change unless you decide to change it. Nobody owes you anything. Nobody cares what excuses you have. Nobody gives excuses. So you've got two kinds of people in the world. Those who do things and those who tell you why they couldn't do them. Now it's not as if those who do things are always successful. They're not. Sometimes they're successful, sometimes they're not. But even when they are not successful, they are people who will then look at it. They won't blame anybody. They will say, I'm not successful. And then they go and do what it takes to become successful. They don't give excuses. For example, if you tell me I will be here at 8 o'clock and I'm sitting here waiting, there's no phone call, there's no information, you don't turn up, and you come by 8.30, of course, you will, believe me, you will never find me there at 8.30 because I would have gone a long time ago. But in case you have some people who are more, you know, tolerant than I am, so the guy sitting there at 8.30, now you come at 8.30, and from 8.30 to 9 o'clock, you're telling him the story of why you could not come at 8 o'clock. So, first of all, you waste my time by coming late. Secondly, you want to waste some more of my time by telling me some soft story. I'm not interested. I am not interested. Nobody is interested. People do not care about excuses. Nobody cares about excuses. People only care about one thing, and that is, what value do you bring to the table? What value do you bring to them? People will pay for that value. They don't pay you for excuses. They do not pay you for effort. So don't waste anybody's time by telling them how hard you're working. Nobody gives her, nobody gives anything for how hard you're working. Right?