Midnight reflection
on overconsumption and my phone addiction
There’s a pandemic of depressed youth. We’re too young to be feeling this way. This isn’t normal. It doesn’t feel normal. Nothing about this generation is.
For a few minutes we put our phones down and while conversing we didn’t even realize when we transitioned into a conversation about Allāh about the day of judgement the grave and salah and in that moment our imaan went back up and we were filled with the fear and awe of Allāh. Our negligence His mercy. Then it was time for maghrib and we got up to pray and after salah we returned to our phones our distractions and in that moment I paused and I said “this is the problem with us we briefly remembered and just as it came quietly without us realizing it it left us again and now we’re back to our routine our distraction” and she nodded in agreement and we both carried on scrolling
~ my cousin and I stuck in the vicious circle of overconsumption
I read somewhere that perhaps the reason for our depression and feeling of disconnection from Allah is our overconsumption. We’re constantly bombarding our minds with irrelevant nonsense. We keep consuming. Like we don’t know how to exist without consuming anymore and it’s toxic and slowly killing our soul. we don’t let our soul breathe we don’t allow ourselves be bored we don’t let our minds remember its Rabb.
I realized how addicted i am to my phone a long time ago and decided to rid my phone of all the apps that kept me glued to my screen. I want control over my mind back. I want to be able to live without my phone for at least 24hrs. I challenged myself once. I wanted to see if I could go a whole day without my phone. I failed. I lasted 11hrs tops. And what struck me was the hold it had on me that need yearning and desire to just make contact with my phone and to see the glowing screen. Even without social media or anyone to talk to. I still craved my dry phone. I just wanted to stare at my screen even if it was at nothing. That was more than a month ago. I haven’t tried it again. But I think I will. I’ll try to regain control. To train my mind. Even if it’s one step at a time until I get there. 11hrs is a long time. It’s almost half a day.
Sometimes i get so distracted by the dunya chasing it overwhelmed by it angered by it carried away by it i forget the existence of the akhira and of death and how none of this actually matter. that my sadness and depression stems from something so irrelevant in the grand scheme of things feels so absurd.
sometimes I pause and I ask myself how I got here and why I do nothing about this sinking feeling. I know what matters yet I allow myself to be distracted by the dunya drowned by it while I complain about the hole in my chest growing bigger. of course I feel empty. I haven’t fed my soul in a while. I’ve abandoned it. I’ve starved it fed it junks.
Why was I created? And why do I sometimes wish not to exist? Is that desire rooted in my own ignorance of my true purpose? Why do I always end up here? And what am I going to do about it?
What if I die today?
i read somewhere that i should be grateful for the ache i feel in my heart in my soul because a dead heart doesn’t ache or reflect.
I pray once I’m done writing this and hitting publish I sit with this feeling and I do something positive about my life. I hope i don’t give in to my distractions. I hope I don’t let myself get carried away again. I pray I work towards being better doing better for myself and my soul.
i think about this tedtalk a lot.