Stay Sharp!

[ummtaalib]

Stay Sharp!

 

By Muhammad Arshad

 

They say that a fool lives to eat and a wise person eats to live. But then the question remains: for what purpose does the wise person live? Living is not an end by itself. There has to be a purpose for to live for. So what is this purpose?

 

Most who reflect or think about life in any detail will consider and ponder about this. If the purpose of life is to become wealthy, obviously there would be no purpose after becoming wealthy. How could wealth then be considered as the aim of life?

 

Once upon a time, a strong woodcutter got a job with a timber merchant. The pay was good, so he determined to do his best.

His boss gave him an axe. The first day he brought 18 trees. He tried harder, but only managed 15 the second day. The third day saw him bring only 10.

 

Day by day the amount decreased. The woodcutter thought he was losing his strength and went to the boss and apologized.

 

"When last did you sharpen your axe?" asked the timber merchant. "Sharpen? I had no time for that. I was very busy trying to cut trees," replied the woodcutter.

 

Our lives are like this. We get so busy that we don’t take time to sharpen our axe. Everyone is busier, but less happy than ever. Why? We have forgotten how to “stay sharp”.

 

There’s nothing wrong with activity and hard work. No doubt we have to work hard but in doing so the primary objectives must not be ignored! Indeed we should not get so busy that we neglect the truly important matters like taking time worship Allah Ta’ala and serve His Deen in the way shown to us by The Noble Messenger Muhammad (peace be upon him), fulfilling our obligations to family and community etc.

 

“The purpose of life is to live a life of purpose, for life without a purpose is like a body without a soul”

 

So take time to reflect for if we don’t sharpen our axes, we will become dull and lose our effectiveness!

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