About a week passed since I reviewed any Quran, a few weeks passed since I attended Fiqh or Hadith classes and I found myself merely floating by in Arabic class. After the fog passed I had to assess, how far behind was I? And how long would it take me to make up for it?
Excuses are abundant. My absence and subpar studying coincided with Eid and other family gatherings. Though my slacking on Quran memorization is the least excusable since it is the most flexible —outside of my tajweed classes, which I began sleeping through (finally changed the time to an hour later), I could have still practiced on my own in my on time —later in the morning, afternoon, evening, but the days kept passing by and nothing seemed to be done.
Is it a lack of will, lack of discipline, or simple laziness that makes us fall behind in our studies? A few weeks is a bit of a setback but I’ve had months in the past where I’ve barely reviewed anything —maybe even years. There’s a point —and maybe it’s particular to every individual, where it’s been so long you can’t just continue, you have to start over. That can be the worst feeling, learning something you know you once knew but it’s no longer available to retrieve, just a vague memory of familiarity.
Thankfully my classes are all only 1-2 days a week, so with a little willpower I can make it through the recordings that I missed in 1-2 weeks and review the corresponding texts. Reality is, when you fall behind, you just have to get up, brush yourself off, and continue. The quicker the better, but if it’s been so long that you have to start over (though you’ll probably never truly have to start from the very beginning) you just have to have the humility and patience —with yourself and the subject, to begin again. Staring down your lack of progress or weeping over time lost won’t help, just more time that we can’t afford to waste.
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Related:
- Being a student of knowledge, N.1 https://bythefigandtheolive.com/studentofknowledge1/
- Islamic Studies, https://bythefigandtheolive.com/islamicstudies/
- We need our Shuyukh https://bythefigandtheolive.com/we-need-our-shuyukh/
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