Closer to the Year’s End: A Moment to Reflect, Review and Celebrate.

By: Muhammad Shah Daniel

Edited by Harith Syafiee

Being students, we all look forward to the end of the year, it’s either good or bad memories created throughout the journey during this year. (It is a ROLLER COASTER!) We may have experienced a very memorable or bitter moment in it but after all, the end of the year is  closer for everything. This is my time to reflect and conclude my teenager’s era before stepping into my 20s era. There has never been a year like this one and the past few weeks have certainly provided an opportunity for reflection, celebration, and for looking forward to. Therefore, here I am, providing some more intentional opportunities and reflection questions. Here is the list:

1. What did I learn about myself this year?

2. What challenges have I faced these years and how well am I going through those challenges?

3. What or who am I proud of this year?

4. If I could write my younger self a letter, what would I write?

5. What am I excited or sad to leave behind this year?

6. What lessons do I want to take with me as I move to my next era?

Well, I’m certainly in my first year first semester era and I have not finished yet BUT no matter what it is, it is still the conclusion for this great year of 2023. I’m not trying to be cliché here, but we all love to finish a year with a great recap, right? Looking at all the pictures we had taken from 1st January until 31st December, those friends we had made and left, those memories of a trip with family or friends or even on our own etc., these memories are the core of our life which shaped us throughout the end of a year. In a sense of academia, as a university student, one must think about successes and areas that did not work out so well, it is very important to end it on a high note. It is hard when we take some moments to pause time, this action is particularly important in creating an opportunity to hit the reset button in our minds, to be more present, and to fully acknowledge the moments, thoughts, and emotions that are an important part of the end of the academic year.

While I’m writing this, I find it quite funny how I am going to do this writing because everything can’t be all sweet and good memories but am I supposed to write those bitter moments I had? Well, moving forward is the key to success but forgetting those stairs we stepped during our ascending period is a bad way to be a human. Remember, we learn from our mistakes, therefore it is okay to treasure those memories we hated so much deep inside our hearts, maybe the moment we broke up with our significant other, or maybe the moment we failed to get at least 3.0 in a course subject or perhaps the moment we were in a financial breakdown and had to eat Maggi every night (me giggling because I did have this phase).

However, please keep your heads and chins up, creating, guiding, and nurturing memories is an incredible accomplishment that we can sometimes forget is also worth celebrating. Among my readers, there might be one who is negative when reflecting memories, one focuses too much on what went wrong as opposed to what went right. It is much more important to start from a positive place by focusing on the strengths without neglecting the weaknesses. I always acknowledge my weaknesses during my good or bad times as I know that it is where I learn how to grow, besides ensuring what went well and applying them to places where I need to grow, identifying what areas of growth and how I will address those sensitive areas are important too. Instead of picking on several spaces that you can improve on, try to pick one, at most two, and think about ways you can adjust them.  If you focus on every weakness you have, none of your deficit areas will improve.  Find a point of emphasis and build on it. Setting some goals based on the positions where “looking back meets moving forward.”

What are some of the things that you will try next year that will push you out of your comfort zone? It is a powerful move indeed.

Remember, whatever we do will create an impact on ourselves. If it is not impactful, then it is futile. No matter how well you plan, the end of the year is a challenge. Everything is done. Soon, we will all be able to say we made it through this year. That is something worth honouring.

Dr Muhammad Iqbal said: "Divine knowledge must be conceived as a living creative activity to which the objects that appear to exist in their own right are organically related. By conceiving God's knowledge as a kind of reflecting mirror, we no doubt save His foreknowledge of future events, but it is obvious that we do so at the expense of His freedom. The future certainly pre-exists in the organic whole of God's creative life, but it pre-exists as an open possibility, not as a fixed order of events with definite outlines." Inshallah, by following the truth, we will end up in the right place, by Allah’s plan.