Free Fridays: Before you say yes.

28 November 2025

People think money is the most important currency in the world.

But is it?

Money is subjective - to someone, 100 dollars is a lot. But to you, 100 dollars may not be a lot. And the scary part is money will never be enough. If your aim is to have 50,000 dollars, when you do get there, you might realise hmmm actually I want more. 100,000 dollars is suddenly now the yardstick.

You know what is objective though?

Time.

It just doesn’t stop moving. Waits for no man. You snooze, you lose.

Time isn’t relative to anyone. To someone, 10 minutes is 10 minutes. To you, 10 minutes is 10 minutes. Full stop. A minute we lose is a minute closer to.. our death.

Whoa, that woke you up on this Friday, didn’t it? 😂 #sorry

Truth, tho.

I was reminded of this at a talk I attended this week.

I think it’s such an important reminder because we waste so much time everyday.

I’m writing about time as I wait here in agony – I’ll tell you more about this when I’m ready (circa January) but basically, I’m waiting for my turn on something that I had to do. And get this, I’ve been waiting for six hours. A painful chunk of my time, that I had no choice but to give to this “thing”. And I thought to myself, Wow this is a horrible use of my time that I’ll never get back.

And it reminded me of the Girls Retreat session that we had where we learned about Surah Al-Asr, about Time.

Here’s what the Quran says about time:

“By time. Verily, mankind is in loss. Except those who have faith, and do good deeds, and encourage each other to the truth and encourage each other to patience.”

Literally, Allah swt has told us that by design, this world has been made so attractive that we are all in grave loss. Fun stuff, our phones, endless coffee sessions, concerts, kpop demon hunter movie (🙈)... all made so yummy and irresistible that we will get distracted and fill our time with these.

But reeling us all back in, the ones who are not in loss has been told to us here - four categories: have faith, do good, enjoin each other with the truth and enjoin each other with patience.

Not that we can’t have fun. But all the above categories that we’re all nodding thinking yep yep I do those things, I do good and stuff... ask ourselves if it’s by God’s definition of good, or our self-created definition of good? And ask ourselves is there anything I can improve with how I spend my time?

I did the exercise myself and found that I spent very little time on my deen than I do with going out with friends. Quran reading maybe two pages a day (if I feel like it…) but two hours doomscrolling followed by social stuff, no problem. Oooffff... I’m not being smart here - this human is at a loss for sure! I started re-designing my weekly schedule. I put in non-negotiables with the family and portions for my parents. I anchor praying on time as a block and everything else around them. Some days I completely block any socials because I want Thinking time.

And I no longer say yes to every outing invitation - not with the intention of arrogance, but with sincere fear of using my time wrongly. And it’s hard to say no, btw! We’re raised as good Malays, always respectful and always yes cannn, boleh anytime. 😂

Before we say yes to the next thing, ask ourselves: Will this make me a better person?

If you find yourself gossiping with that friend a lot, probably not worth the coffee. If you find yourself missing prayers with that friend, probably not worth the concert. If it’s constant empty talk, also probably not worth sacrificing your Quran time.

At the retreat our Teacher Safiyya said words that stuck with me regarding the our use of time.

“Check yourself before you wreck yourself.”

We’re given one life. We’re given this currency of time - the one currency we cannot get back, even if we paid. And we will be questioned in the afterlife about how we spent our time. We don’t feel scared yet, because we haven’t seen the questioning yet. But it’ll come.

So yeah, this weekend, let’s all rethink how we spend our time.

Are we protecting it enough? Are we investing well? Are we giving it to the right people first – parents, spouse, family?

Pause before you reply.

Pause before you say yes.

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Before you go…

Let me know you’ve read this. Comment “The 4 categories❤️” on my latest post at @sincerelyvivy.

See you there! :)