Thirty Two




Today is 09 August 2026.

I am writing this on my 32nd birthday.

Saying that number out loud, 32 years, feels very strange. Not in a bad way. Quite the opposite. It makes me feel more grateful, and somehow puts me into a deeply meditative state.

You start asking yourself, where did all these 32 years go? What did I do with them? Am I satisfied with myself at this age? Could I have done better? Or maybe, could I have ended up much worse?

In the end, I find myself saying Alhamdolilah for simply reaching the point where I can say I am 32 years old, while Alhamdolilah, I am healthy in my body, I have countless blessings that cannot be counted or measured, and every experience I have been through has shaped me into the person I am today.

I cannot help but keep saying Alhamdolilah and thank Allah for everything I have been through.

Sometimes, when I say that I am already 32 and look at myself and realize that I still have not reached some of my biggest goals, I can feel a little frustrated.

But immediately, there is a voice in my head that screams:

Your goals are not your achievements.

And because my goals are, in some cases, almost ridiculously big, the achievements I have made can look small in my own eyes. Yet those same achievements are huge in the eyes of many people, and I sometimes find them asking me, "How did you do that?"

That voice always brings me back down to earth, and I say Alhamdolilah.

So, what did I learn throughout these 32 years?

In my previous post, I talked about the system I use to learn skills. So when it comes to skills, whether hard skills or soft skills, Alhamdolilah, I guess I have built quite a stack by now.

But I think the biggest, best, and most important lesson I have learned throughout these 32 years, especially during the past 5 years, is the spiritual awakening that came into my life.

I understood that our religion is the light through which we are supposed to see life.

In this ugly world, where materialism rules, where the goal seems to be to squeeze every last drop of your energy, your last breath, and your last drop of blood out of you, we end up developing all kinds of lenses through which we see life.

And most of those lenses are materialistic.

I will speak about myself first before speaking about anyone else.

When I was deeply immersed in this materialistic life, I had a tremendous spiritual emptiness. I did not even know that this emptiness was something I had from the beginning.

To fill it, I was always convinced that the next thing I bought would make the feeling disappear. So I bought things. Then bought more things. And every time, I ended up in exactly the same place.

Something was still missing.

I lived like that for most of my life, until I reached 28.

That was when I found my first real answer to the problem.

I realized that the spiritual emptiness inside me could never be filled by anything expensive that I bought, or by any activity, regardless of what it was.

It could only be healed through getting closer to Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala.

When I reflected on it properly, was probably the most beautiful birthday I have experienced. It was the birthday of 28.

Because that was when I discovered that life is about more than just hustle culture.

And there is something even more important than all of that.

Spiritual health.

Spiritual health is the medicine for everything.

When it is healed, everything else starts falling into place.

When I was focused on my huge material goals, I was constantly living with frustration. I always wanted more. Nothing was ever enough. I was constantly fighting, constantly trying to become more productive, constantly feeling like I needed to do more.

And the result of that, as I mentioned in previous posts, was severe burnout.

But when Allah blessed me with the ability to see life for what it really is, I understood that the lens through which I should see life is not material success.

The real question is whether my soul is clean in the way my Creator wants it to be.

Am I building my Akhirah?

Or am I simply busy building my Dunya?

Unfortunately, I spent most of these 32 years unaware of this spiritual reality.

But as they say, it is never too late.

Better late than never.

So Alhamdolilah, I think the biggest lesson I have learned is this one.

Now that I am 32, I am trying my best to understand this reality properly and to keep this lens open at all times.

The lens through which I should always see life.

This is what I talked about in my Ramadan 2026 post, the practice of Tazkiyat Al Nafs.

It is such a beautiful and important practice that I believe everyone should keep doing regularly, so that their soul remains clean and they do not end up falling into the same spiritual emptiness that, unfortunately, so many people are living with.

I do not know if I would be satisfied with myself if I had continued focusing only on worldly and material matters.

But I believe the foundation of everything, including material success, has to be spiritual success.

I definitely do not want to become materially successful while carrying that same spiritual emptiness inside me.

I have already lived that life.

And it was miserable.

Now, Alhamdolilah, I have discovered this reality, and I want to build everything else on top of it.

Whatever material success Allah has destined for me, I want it to be built upon spiritual success, so that, by the permission of Allah Subhanah wa Ta'ala, I can win both this life and the Akhirah.

Alhamdolilah.

32 years old.

More mature.

Closer to Allah.

And more true to myself.

Allahumma lakal hamd.

Fully ready for what is next, InshaAllah.

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