Why We Never Have Enough Time

Why We Never Have Enough Time

Opening Praise and Testimony

"Indeed, all praise is due to Allah. We praise Him and seek His help and forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from the evil of our souls and the wickedness of our deeds. Whoever Allah guides, no one can misguide; and whoever He sends astray, no one can guide. I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah alone, without any partners, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger. To proceed:"

The Reality of Phone Usage

How many times do you think you touch your phone in a day? How many times do you touch your phone in a day? Recent research says that the average American touches his or her phone in a day 2,716 times. 2,716 times we touch our phones. That's the average.

The top 10% touch their phones over 5,000 times a day. Apple came out just a couple of years ago actually. It's probably more now. A couple of years ago they came out with some stats. And this is of course before all the fingerprinting and fingerprint ways to open up your phone. What's some of the other ways? Facial recognition and all kinds.

This is before all of that. Before all of that, of course they have stats. Because they know how many times you unlock your phone. They know how many times because every time you unlock your phone it sends the information to them. So they said an average iPhone user unlocks his or her phone 80 times a day. 80 times a day.

That's 3 times an hour if you don't sleep. That's if you don't sleep. Now if you calculate that of course everyone has to sleep. That's going to be like 5 times an hour. Every single hour we unlock our phones 5 times. That's the average iPhone user. The average. So where am I getting to? What we're doing, what I'm going to be speaking about today of course is time. Time. The value of time.

Two Precious Blessings

The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), he said,

(Sahih al-Bukhari 6412)

"Two things, two blessings (نِعْمَتَانِ) these are blessings. Two blessings that people are (مَغْبُونٌ)"

(مَغْبُونٌ) means that they don't know the true value of it and they end up wasting. Wasting these things. These two things are (الصِّحَةُ وَالْفَرَاغُ) - health and free time. Health and free time. In fact these two blessings, these two blessings are so important that you will not be able to enjoy any other blessing if you don't have these two blessings. You can have the most delicious food in front of you. But if you're sick, it will not taste good.

Living in the Information Age

Subhanallah, even to bed, even to bed. So one thing, don't bring it in your bedroom. This also, we are living in the information age. We are living in the information age. Everything is at our fingertips.

There's so much information but there's so little knowledge. There's so much information but there's so little, there's so much widespread ignorance. Why is that the case? Well, because people no longer study the deen.

They can't even go to the masjid to sit with the scholars and learn in a structured way. People just want, forget about three minute videos. Nowadays that's why you have, what do you call it? Not Instagram, what's the other one? Snapchat, right?

Snapchat is like 15 seconds, right? And even 15 seconds, they pass up some of that stuff. They can't, 15 seconds is too long so you skip some of them, right? Like everybody is in a hurry. And everybody wants quick and even when it comes to the deen, so sometimes people listen to a lecture here and there on YouTube and they think they know everything. They think they know everything.

And sometimes they read articles, but believe it or not, sometimes you read, some people don't even read those articles. Instead of reading those articles, they just read the headline and then they go straight to the comment section. You know why? Because that's where all the drama is.

And you know they did not read the article because of the comment. Like the comment shows that they didn't read the article because they don't even want to read the article, they just want drama. That's how it is nowadays.

Balancing Rights and Priorities

So, we have to make sure that there's a time of course for ourselves, but we have to prioritize things correctly. And the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), he said

(Sahih al-Bukhari 5199)

"Surely your Lord has a right upon you.

- And your family has a right upon you.

- And you yourself also have a time for yourself. You should have time for yourself also.

So in a day, you should prioritize things. There's a time in which you spend in ibadah. And of course there's a time in which you go to work and take care of your family and so forth. And there's a time also for yourself.

A time for yourself to do things to give you more energy and strength and rejuvenate. And so, spend your time wisely. A Muslim never kills time.

Never Kill Time

Why? Because when you're killing time, you're killing yourself. Spend your time wisely. If it is beneficial, then do it.

If it is not beneficial, any time spent in the disobedience of Allah is a waste of time, and it's harmful for you, and it will be against you on the day of judgment. And any time that's not beneficial, and it doesn't benefit you, nor does it harm you, then try to spend your time in something that's more beneficial for you.

The Dress Color Distraction

I woke up one day, and you know, as they say, the internet blew up. The internet literally exploded. Why? Everyone was talking about something. Everybody was talking about something. What were they talking about? One morning, I turned on the TV, the morning news, and they were talking about it. I went to the car, and they were talking about it, on the radio. And everybody was talking about it.

And even my wife, she comes to me and she says, Honey, what color is this dress? She says, what color is this dress? I said, la ilaha illallah muhammadur rasulullah. The world has nothing else to do except to figure out what color this dress is. Right? You know, the answer to that is in the sunnah.

Leaving What Doesn't Concern You

Our deen has the answer for everything. Do you know what the answer to that is? The answer to that, we have a hadith. The Prophet (peace be upon him), he said

(Sunan al-Tirmidhi 2317)

- Of the excellence of a person's Islam is that he leaves that which doesn't concern him.

That means who cares? If it doesn't concern you, just ignore it. There are so many things we spend time doing that will not benefit us and does not benefit us in this life nor in the hereafter.

Daily Self-Accountability

So, every single day, before you go to sleep, I want you to calculate and check back how did you spend that day? How did you benefit? How did you benefit from that day? And how did you make use of that day? And if you didn't make use of that day, if you didn't spend your time properly, then plan to do a better job tomorrow.

"Hold yourself accountable before you will be held accountable because your feet will not move until you answer to Allah for every second of your life.

Closing Supplication

We ask Allah (سُبْحَانَهُ وَتَعَالَى) to teach us that which benefits us and benefit us from that which He has taught us.