Faith is not hoping something might happen one day. It’s knowing, in the quiet place inside you, that it already has. That God has written your provision, your path, your openings—long before you ever asked. So walk as one who has already received.

Acting accordingly doesn’t mean pretending. It means alignment. It means carrying yourself with the ease of someone who is held. It means showing up without desperation, without fear, without the smallness that comes from imagining life depends on your effort alone.

If you believe He has given, let your actions match your certainty. Take the next step with the steadiness of someone who knows they are walking toward what already belongs to them. The world will call this confidence. Your heart will know it’s surrender.

It’s easy to think you know someone based on how they’re showing up in a moment. Their mood. Their tone. Their habits. But most of that is temporary. None of it is the whole person.

When you react quickly, you’re usually reacting to the surface. Try to slow down and look past the obvious traits — the ones you admire and the ones that bother you. They come and go. What matters more is who someone is underneath.

Seeing people clearly doesn’t mean excusing behaviour. It means not reducing a person to a bad moment or overvaluing a good one. It means holding a wider view.

This kind of clarity takes patience. It asks you to listen more than you speak and stay curious when it would be easier to label.

The more you practice seeing others this way, the more spacious things feel inside.

Expectations are subtle. They don’t announce themselves. They slip in quietly and before you realize it, your peace is no longer in your hands. It’s waiting on someone else’s words, their reaction, their acknowledgment. That’s always a fragile place to live.

Expectations tie your peace to people. Intention ties it back to God.

Intention brings you back home. The Prophet was clear: actions are judged by intentions. Not by how they land. Not by whether they’re noticed or returned in kind. That single teaching untangles so much.

Do the good because it is right. Do it because you were placed in that moment for a reason. Once it’s done, release it. What people say, feel, or give back is not yours to manage or measure.

Expectations give your peace away. Intention reclaims it. God already saw you.

Your power lives in the things that are truly yours. Your state. Your focus. Your energy. The meaning you bring into each moment. These are the levers that shape your day and, over time, your life.

You are responsible for your growth, your integrity, and how you show up for the people you love. You are responsible for the tone of your emotional home: choosing faith when fear presses in, and acting in line with the values you claim to hold.

Outcomes are not yours. Timelines are not yours. Other people’s choices and paths are not yours. Life will keep unfolding in ways you cannot script. The more you can live with that—not fight it, not fear it—the more open life becomes.

Your work is the inner work. Take the right next action, then bow to whatever comes. Each time you try to control what isn’t yours, you drift. Each time you return to what you can actually hold, your state, you find your footing again.

Begin again from here.

“Baba…” Maryam said it with that look she gets when she thinks she’s figured something out. Calm, matter-of-fact, a little proud of herself. “Today is Opposite Day.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant at first. Then she pointed out that Saniha and the girls were heading off for winter break while I was staying behind. Usually it’s me packing a bag, heading to the airport, calling home from somewhere else. This time, they all left me.

I woke up to the house being quiet. It felt strange in that way silence does when you’re not used to it. Mornings like this show me how much of my energy comes from them being here. So much of my striving, my sense of direction, even my urgency, comes from my family without me noticing.

When they’re not here, the drive softens. It makes it obvious how much their presence keeps my purpose alive. It reminds me they’re my center of gravity, and most of what fuels me starts with them.

Opposite Day will pass. For now, there’s something grounding about seeing this version of my life. It just makes the picture clearer.