Remember your Deadline and Complete your Essay

We’ve all heard of Parkinson’s law — an old adage which says that your work expands to fill the available time. Meaning if you have two hours to complete something, you’ll take two hours, whereas if you have ten hours to complete the same thing, it’ll end up taking ten hours.

This is a natural occurrence that we can probably all anecdotally relate to at least once in our lives. This seems to be especially relevant when you have an urgent essay, due!

Essentially, it is saying if you have a shorter deadline to do something, it brings about urgency, efficiency and focus to ensure you achieve your goal quicker.

Less, therefore is more.

What does this mean, then, for our lives?

Sure, we don’t set ourselves deadlines for our goals, that’s one way of looking at it.

But in the grand scheme of things, we often let our lives pass us by, without this urgency, efficiency and focus because we don’t really know our own ‘deadline’ — quite literally. So we think we have plenty of time available to get around to ‘completing our essay’, so to speak — i.e. to finally do what we were put here to do and to fulfil our enormous potential.

Sadly though, many of us never get there, due to distraction, due to a lack of awareness, due to never getting around to our true purpose in life.

This is why the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said:

“Remember frequently death, the thing that cuts off pleasures.” (At-Tirmidhi, 2307)

Death IS our deadline.

There’s no coming back from death. It cuts through all the noise and excuses.

If we knew we only had 1 year, 5 years or even 10 years left — would we continue to do what we are currently doing?

And if the answer was yes, would we do it with the same level of intensity?

Due to his provocative rhetoric, the great Malcolm X knew his time was probably going to be short-lived. That certainly didn’t stop him. He was acutely aware of death.

“I tell you, I’m a man who believes that I died 20 years ago and I live like a man who is dead already. I have no fear whatsoever of anybody or anything.” — Malcolm X

As such — he had a driven, fierce and intense sense of purpose in everything he did:

“Anything I do today, I regard as urgent.” — Malcolm X

This is known in many religious traditions as a ‘spiritual death’ — a highly rewarding, inward experience where you enter into a deep sense of meaning about your purpose and as a result the sensory, material nature of the world doesn’t have the same alluring impact on you.

Remembering death often was even a regular practice of Steve Jobs:

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.

Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” — Steve Jobs.

To end, I simply have two questions for you to reflect upon:

How often do you remember your ‘deadline’?

And how well are you progressing on your ‘essay’?

If this is something you’d like some help with, feel free to book a call with me here: https://calendly.com/famjad/know-purpose

NB: I have to say, this is a really well put together series by Yaqeen Institute that I’ve been enjoying this Ramadan, which really helps you to think of death more: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ02IYL5pmhGG5s70g0I5Uf3AY7kmMESl