A Directionless Direction

 Assalamu Alaykum,

It was a late Sunday night and I had arrived at yet another hotel in a new city in the UAE for work. After I closed my laptop at 10:00pm I wandered aimlessly through the hotel lobby, seeking peace, seeking a sign of how I ended up in this exact place at this exact time.

Recently I have experienced a lot of changes in my personal and professional life and I suddenly felt slightly lost in life. Lost in terms of where I was, lost in my relationships and lost in my own purpose in life. We’ve all had this feeling at some point or another.

I ended up falling onto a couch, perfectly positioned in the waiting area in the lobby, for an individual to sit down and reflect on life. I looked up for a sign and saw something that completely changed my entire perspective.

If you zoom into the art in the frame above you will notice that whilst all of the individual parts are moving aimlessly in different directions, at the same time they are all circulating around one key focal point.

This concept made me reflect on how I personally view direction in my life. There are periods of time in our lives where we are circulating and moving close to the center and there are periods of time where we are circulating and moving far away from the center.

But perhaps the most important point is that whether you are close to the center or at the edge, you are still circulating around the same constant focal point that you always have been. I call this, a Directionless Direction.

So what exactly is a Directionless Direction and how do we deal with it?

There are times in life, guaranteed, where we do feel directionless. We are in a career or job, a relationship or project, a place or a situation, where we are fraught with wonder on why we are in this particular scenario. And ultimately we long to be somewhere else.

This leads us to feel that we are far away from God, and not heading in the right direction. However rather than thinking about our life in linear paths parallel to each other, think of it as a circumambulation. A circumambulation around Allah.

And of course, as long as we are still circumambulating around the same focal point, Allah Himself, that is all that truly matters.

THIS WEEK: If you are feeling directionless or dissatisfied of where you are in life, ask yourself if your position and your direction is still revolving around Allah.