Aaisha’s Ramadaan diaries, Day 15: On time and procrastination

Day 15: Time and procrastination

There’s something about being stuck in the dark that makes me SUPER contemplative (I mean the literal dark, not the figurative one. If you keep things from me I will not be contemplative. I will be offended. Also, I mean besides the shower. The shower is also a good space for many thoughts to ruminate.) Anyway, I’m not saying this to romanticise power outages, which we were struck with at 5am on Tuesday morning, in the middle of sehri (the morning meal), while Jo’burg was a fantastic six degrees Celsius. I’m saying it because I always find that with little else available to distract me, I always end up having a chance to just sit and think.

And I was freaking out slightly. Because the main thing I could think of was how we’re halfway through Ramadan today and I’m not sure whether I can fully account for where the time has gone to. All I could think of was Surah Asr, which is only three verses long, and which WARNS us about how the temporal elements of this life have a tendency to take over. The first line is so extremely powerful, roughly translated to “Indeed, mankind is in loss.” How is that for food for thought.

I’ve tried to take stock of everything that I initially set out and planned to do at the start of this month and as much as these things are on my radar, I haven’t been able to work as steadily as I hoped I would. This is however not uncharacteristic of me – unfortunately – but one thing that I really hoped I would be able to do this month is work on changing that as well. Is it possible? I’m starting to have serious doubts about whether it is.

Too much of the time, we take time for granted. I know for myself how great my abilities to procrastinate are – I forever think that I will have more time, and I’ll get things done on time so it will work out. It’s really the worst and I think I remember reading somewhere that procrastination is actually a sin – which I can totally understand, because time is a resource, and all you’re doing when you procrastinate is wasting it. Going forward I want to try and keep that in front of my mind (forget the back). I REALLY NEED TO KEEP MYSELF ACCOUNTABLE FOR THAT ONE THOUGH. SPARE DUAS PLS.

Speaking of things we take for granted – I am also realising how much more grateful I should be for my relatively good health! Thanks to the change of season I’ve got a lovely post-nasal drip to contend with, and it’s a small thing but it’s made me think about how lucky I am to not have to deal with any major chronic health issues. May God grant healing and speedy recoveries to everyone dealing with any kind of illness while fasting – you know what you’re going through, and may you be rewarded for it. God knows best.

PS: still looking for people to join my reading group with me. Just to talk about theory things and stuff related to gender in general. Pretty please get in touch xxx

This is a special Ramadaan series by our fave Muslim reporter, Aaisha Dadi Patel. For Day 14’s musings, click here.Â