Priorities of life determine the signified direction of a person in which s/he is running. Some spin around the wealth, some strive for fame, some look for authority, some follow wishful desires blindly, and so forth. These are not the wrong choices either, as far as they fulfill the following three conditions:
1) They are not your primary objectives
2) They are achieved though permissible means, and
3) They are consumed/ invested in the permissible fields
When we look into the holy Quran to know what Allah Almighty says about this life, we come across the following verse:
{Every soul shall have a taste of death, and only on the Day of Judgment shall you be paid your full recompense. Only he who is saved far from the Fire and admitted to the Garden will have attained the object (of Life). For the life of this world is but goods and chattels of deception.(Chapter 3 Surah Al e Imran, Verse 185)}
This implies that life is finite and at the same time it is uncertain. We never know when our life bubble bursts into nothing and we get across the inevitable accountability session. Knowingly, life is not infinite; if someone invests all the energies to win this world; it would clearly be unwise. We are therefore urged to be resistant to worldly affairs to meet the requirements level only, as it’s the shadow but not the actual light to be followed.
Thus, it is imperative to consume every minute of life in a right way and in a right direction, before it is unexpectedly over. The ultimate goal should be to appease the Creator anyway to obtain the max reward hereafter, and protect ourselves from the hellfire.
{And each one has a direction towards which he inclines, therefore strive to surpass others in good deeds.(Chapter 2 Surah Al Bakra, Verse 148)}
{O People who Believe! Fear Allah, and seek the means towards Him, and strive in His cause, in the hope of attaining success.(Chapter 5 Surah Al Maida, Verse 35)}
{Indeed, those who have believed and done righteous deeds indeed, We will not allow to be lost the reward of any who did well in deeds.(Chapter 18 Surah Al Kahaf, Verse 30)}
From these verses one can easily determine the right direction, which Allah Almighty expects from mankind, i.e. competing with others in good deeds. For this, persistent divine fear (taqwa) is the first step that may refrain us from all the evil practices. Then comes the righteousness and sincerity, the hallmarks that may lead towards the Allah Almighty. Any righteous deed that is done sincerely for the sake of Allah is more worthy than anything. Now the question arises, what is that success for which we are reminded again and again in the Quran?
{Allah is pleased with them and they are pleased with Him. That is the Greatest success.(Chapter 5 Surah Al Maida, Verse119)}
The utmost accomplishment of a man for which he is sent on earth is only to please his Rab (the creator) throughout his life. The same way a slave is bound to offer TOTAL OBEDIENCE to his master day in and day out. Once the master is happy with his salve, the slave will be in eternal peace and joy. Otherwise, it could be the worst failure/ loss if he offends his Rab and earns everlasting sorrow in return. There is no worth of any worldly achievement (wealth/ fame/ authority), if they could not win Allah’s grace for us on the judgement day.
Contrary to what has been prescribed in our religious scriptures, it is wildly observed, that people waste most of their useful time in doing useless things. We spend years in building our residence/ palace and then spend months to decorate it without knowing the fact whether we will get the chance to live inside or not, we spend days in dress designing and then hours in making over to attend any function that may hardly last for 1-2 hours, we spend hours or even days in preparations of different dishes whose taste may hardly last for few moments, we spend millions of rupees to host certain functions (wedding/ birthday/ anniversary/ official events) that invite Allah’s wrath openly (because of lavishness and practicing non Islamic rituals) and so forth.
These are just the wishful desires, whose following have been strictly prohibited by Allah Almighty. Since they keep us engaged in limited pleasures of world and hence we go astray from the right direction (remembrance of Allah Almighty). Allah Almighty says in the holy Quran,
{(O Muhammad) say to them, “Should We tell you who are the most unsuccessful people and miserable failures in regard to their deeds? They are those, whose endeavours, in the worldly life, had all gone astray from the Right Way but all along they were under the delusion that everything they were doing, was rightly directed: those are the people who rejected the Signs of their Lord and did not believe that they would ever go before Him. Therefore all their deeds were lost, for We will assign no weight to them on the Day of Resurrection.(Chapter 18 Surah Al Kahaf, verses 103 – 105)}
Similarly, we spend years and years (almost half of life) in obtaining graduation/ master/ PHD degrees, but don’t bother to accredit our creator the way we should. On the account of entertainment, we spend weeks/ months in watching worldwide sports contests (Cricket, Olympics, soccer, etc.), spend hours in playing video games though they have no link with the reality, spend hours in watching dramas/ movies and listening music (even considering the fact that story/ wording is based on fiction and imagination), and so forth. To become the centre of attention, we idealize players/ actors/ actresses, irrespective of their religious and moral background.
So where are we heading..? Shouldn’t we have life priorities through which we may invest our energies wisely? Do we have really enough time to waste in pathetic things, which could give us nothing but the least pleasure? Don’t we have any ideal personality to follow for right direction? We must not forget,
{For everything on the earth is extinction. And everlasting is the Entity of your Lord, the Most Majestic and the Most Honourable.(Chapter 55 Surah Al Rahman, Verses 26-27)}
Thereby, our priorities should be to comply with Aswa e Hasna of our beloved prophet Muhammad (PBUH) thoroughly, but not with the non Islamic traditions, compete with others in the matter of goodness and righteous deeds, but not in worldly affairs. Be in the matter of charity, prayers, fasts, worship, social welfare, helping hand, moral goodness, or else forth, the intention/ ultimate goal should only be to please the Allah Almighty, but not the world.
May Allah gives us wisdom to rightly define our life priorities in the right direction…Ameen
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