'Fasting has enabled me to focus more on life'

In my life, I have never really planned ahead to any great depth.

It seems to me the deeper I go into Ramadan the more reflective I become about myself and how that relates to everything around me. I believe that this is the time that we connect the most with our spiritual self, to reflect on who we really are and how to reconnect. It is to look at the opportunity of taking back what is important to us.
I am the type of person who normally keeps to just myself. My life has played out in such a way that I got comfortable with my own thoughts. This has been as relationships and friendships have come and gone, or that situations have taken me to places I did not expect to be in. Throughout it all, I had learned to deal with these things on my own, by my own reasoning and logic. I got into a headspace where everything changes and there is no constant in one's own life.
In my life, I have never really planned ahead to any great depth. As such, I have ended up traveling the world and working in different places, without any rhyme or reason. It just happens with an opportunity that presents in front of me. It does lead me with my thoughts about how much of life is determined by things outside our control or what it is that we can do to influence our own life.
Today, I am finding myself in the place where I did not expect it to be, with people around me that I did not expect to be with. I have been presented with a real opportunity here to really connect to something; something that is beyond just me. I have started to form a relationship to Allah, to understand the meaning of things, the reasons of how things play out in life. From my Quran reading and lessons at the centre, I understand that life is something more special than just passing through.
As I think about this now while writing this piece for the newspaper, I am becoming increasingly aware through these articles the changes that are happening in my life. The fasting has enabled me to focus more on life, not only my life and goals, but also that of those around me, perhaps those that are less fortunate. This time does allow us the opportunity to think what it could be like if we were less fortunate than the position we are currently in. Maybe this can give us an appreciation of what we do have rather than constantly thinking about the next thing we can afford or the next thing of non-importance on our lists. I now value more what I do have, the connection with those close to me, and what Allah has blessed me to have. Through these moments in Ramadan I find that my appreciation of Islam, the Muslim way of life, and my connection to Allah becomes more and more important to me, and for that I am grateful.
saman@khaleejtimes.com
(AS TOLD TO SAMAN HAZIQ) 
Darren Streete is a 39-year-old British national who came to the UAE two and a half years back. He works as an HR manager with a company in Dubai and embraced Islam in December 2017 at the Islamic Information Center, Satwa)
 

• UAE
• Ramadan 2021
• Dubai