How To Quit A Habit

Lately I've been successfully quiting some bad habits of mine and I'm really glad I did. What habit?

Well, if you ask my high school or studienkolleg friends, they would probably tell you that I'm a hardcire fan of Kpop. Let me tell you this, it was an addiction that I even wonder if I need a miracle to stop the addiction. But no! I don't think I received any miracle for this case.

So how to do it?

Tell your friends, or even announce it

It may sound cliche but you do need friends to support you quiting your bad habit. Let them know your intention, believe me, they will be a great help for you when you're at your lowest point, when you nearly give up. It will be also a self reminder for you. After declaring your plan to so many people, your self esteem will force you to stick to the plan.

Toss those stuffs away

When your habit is about a certain thing that you can't get rid of, you have to force yourself to throw it all away. Remember, nothing remains! We as humans can actually adapt so well with our circumstances. So if you're forced to live without it, you'll adapt no matter what!

In my case I deleted all Kpop songs on my phone and laptop. Songs, videos, pictures,movies and even my youtube and facebook subscriptions. If you want to quit smoking, throw all your cigarettes in the trash bin and don't leave a single cent for buying a new one. If you are a shopaholic, break your credit card into pieces! It will be so frustrating at first, but you need to be strong and carry on. Your friends will make sure you're not looking back.

Find a replacement

Quiting one habit means you have an empty slot in your life. Somehow you have to find something to fill that hole, to prevent the old thing from coming back. The substitution doesn't have to be your new habit. You need it just until you're fully adapted living without your old habit. Don't worry, it won't be hard to break a temporal habit. A habit you get in a short time doesn't take long to break it.

When I quit my job as a kpop fan I felt a little empty without watching dramas or listening to kpop songs. Then I decided to try watching american tv series, and I have to say, living without kpop is not that bad! Sometimes we have to go outside and have a taste of the grass on the other side.

You want to stop drinking coffee?  Then find something else to drink -something healthier of course- for instance try to drink tea instead. Watch out the amount you're going to take, less is better, to prevent another habit coming into existence.

No compromising

You have to be harsh to yourself to quit a habit perfectly. There's no giving up. It may feel extremely hard and takes ages to completely break your habit, but you need time. In the course of time your brain will slowly forget the certain path you had been walking on. Patience, that's the big thing.

A bit babbling before Ramadhan 2015

Photo from Pinterest and greenstar16.tumblr.com 

Disclaimer:
I have no intention to lecture someone about religion or stuffs. I'm aware that I'm short of knowledge. I'm writing this post because I feel the need to speak out my plan to the world so that will be my reminder if I'm going back to the old me. I found out that it really works to tell someone about what you're planning to do. A real example: I told my mom about my resolutions "how to stay educated without school" and I did it for a week and then I forgot it at all HAHA. And then a couple weeks ago my mom posted a status at facebook saying "does my daughter even remember her how-to-stay-educated-without-school- program?". After that I feel really ashamed of me and now I'm really doing it!

Anyway, it's 5 days left until Ramadhan and I'm looking forward to it because it will be my first time spending the whole month (and Idul Fitri as well) in Germany! WHOA!

Last year I flied back home to be with my dear family, so I don't really know how it feels like.

Sadly I have to say, I had no improvement at all since last Ramadhan. What a shame, right? I'm believing that Ramadhan gives us a great chance to upgrade our faith to the next level. But I've failed for 18 years in my life. Now I really want to make a promise with myself that I HAVE TO progress my own life in term of my devotion to God. He gives soooo many great things that I even wonder, what have I done to deserve it? Allah is so merciful.

All the time I was thinking, "you've done a great job Nada, your life is so perfect and you are doing nothing wrong". But no! Even when you think your life is as easy as a newly born baby, it doesn't mean you are not lacking something. It doesn't mean praying 5 times a day is enough.

Let's do some math.
I believe that we should have a balance for life. We have to spare 50% of our time to think about our afterlife. Remember: it has to be 50:50 to be balanced, isn't it?

We've been always busy with our job, school, college, or anything else. We have 24 hours a day.

We are trying so hard to get a good score in math exam so we might spend up to 10 hours studying, 6 hours sleeping, 3 hours for entertainment, and the rest 5 hours are for eating, talking with friends/boyfriend/girlfriend/anyone,and for praying. As if it's not shameful enough, it doesn't even take 10 minutes for each prayer! What a greedy human!

Some people will probably think, so you're saying we have to pray 12 hours a day to be fair to God?

Well,of course NOT.

The first point is, God already has literally everything so whether we pray or not, he "doesn't really care". Doing prayer, following His instructions,it's all for our own good. 

Just imagine this world as a computer. God is the one who designed it and we humans are the laptop user. God gave us books that leads us how to use the computer. When we don't follow the instructions well, our computer is technically getting broken day by day. Your computer is ruined not because The Designer hate you! It's just how the computer works!

My second point is, I'm not saying praying 12 hours a day is necessary. Actually, Allah, The Designer of everything, has arranged it perfectly that every single breath we take can also do US a favor. It means, we could do something both for our life on earth and afterlife. How cool it is! As long as we always set up our mind to Allah, everything's gonna be alright. 

Somehow it sounds so simple yet easy. 

Now perhaps some voice will raise again and say something like : It's really easy! I always think God all the time! Well, ladies and gentlemen....can I ask you, are you 100% sure?

Are you sure you're studying biology for God's sake, not for being a doctor and having big income?

Are you sure you choose to eat some lasagna because God will love it,not because the restaurant looks fancy and you haven't tried it yet?

Are you sure you bought a fancy watch for 500$ because the money worth it, while you're thinking million times to donate for an orphan girl?

Or...

are you sure you're praying wholeheartedly every single day only because you're following God's instruction, not because you want to get accepted in an university?

Now if you're going to scold me, please hold your horses, 

I'm that kind of person too!

Yes, humans make mistakes. It's okay if you're making mistakes, because who aren't? But the problem is: we keep doing the same mistakes all the time, aware that it is a mistake,do nothing to fix it and blame our state being human (who never be perfect and always make mistakes). Dammit, sometimes we don't think logically at all. 

Finding out that I'm such a low quality human (especially for aspect of piety), I have to progress. I may progress my study quickly, but in case of faith.... I have to try to change. I don't want to let this Ramadhan go away without any refinement. A quick reminder for myself: Hijrah does need PROCESS, but it needs PROGRESS too.
Just few simple questions to recheck my mind:

what am I doing?

for whom am I doing it? 

why am I doing it?

is it necessary to do it?

is it worth my precious time?

is it helping me to prepare a sudden death?

Guys, I'm literally getting goosebumps just writing it >.<

so here is my to do list!
1. Pray on time
2. Read Qur'an regularly (it doesn't have to be much,but regularly,every day)

3. Always say Bismillah for every activity I do
4. Don't waste too much time only for entertainment
5. Memorize an ayah a day, just 1!

Photo from fingularity.tumblr.com

So...

I've realized it now, how much I envy other people...

I envy :

those people who never care about their appearance

those girls who feel satisfied enough having only 2 pairs of shoes

those teenagers who can prefer reading Qur'an instead of instagram feed

those volks who can't tell the name of celebrities but they can tell you thousand stories about Prophet Muhammad PBUH and his Sahabas

those people who never rush their prayer

those people who don't feel the burden to wake up at night to pray

those people who feel guilty instantly for a lightest sin

those people who can help other people easily, eventhough they're needing the same help,

Yeah, I envy them. So freaking much.