Before I sat on a Sufi retreat for close on two years, I was all about productivity. I did not stop properly. I measured my value through movement, momentum and output. If I was not building something, writing something, solving something or chasing the next opportunity, I felt uneasy. Like stillness itself was a waste of time.
When I arrived at the retreat, my mindset was still very much shaped by the modern world. Goals. Achievement. More. I thought the point of life was to acquire things. A better career. More money. A nicer car. A bigger house. More status. More success. The assumption underneath all of it was simple: when I finally get enough, I will finally feel whole.
Then I landed up in an environment built around prayer, meditation, journaling, work and long periods of silence.
At first, it was deeply uncomfortable.
Most people think silence is peaceful. It isn’t, initially. Silence removes distraction. And when distraction disappears, you eventually have to meet yourself. Sitting in the Masjid trying to quiet my mind was one of the hardest things I have ever done. The guilt. Shame. Anger. Apathy. Desire. Pride. Restlessness. All the lower states sitting underneath the surface of my life suddenly had nowhere left to hide.
I realised how much of my busyness had actually been avoidance.
The modern world rewards stimulation. More content. More consumption. More optimisation. More productivity. The phone has become alarm clock, office, entertainment system and emotional sedative all at once. There is almost no space left for reflection anymore.
But your life is not merely commercial.
You are not a machine for productivity.
Human beings need things that cannot be measured neatly on a dashboard. Silence. Gratitude. Humility. Awe. Prayer. Beauty. Service. Without these, something inside us starts drying out, even while everything on the outside appears functional.
And slowly, the silence started changing me.
I began understanding that the goal of life may not be accumulation at all. Because eventually you realise most people are not really chasing the car, the title or the house. They are chasing what they believe those things will give them internally. Peace. Safety. Freedom. Significance. Rest.
As my spiritual teacher, Shaykh Ebrahim Schuitema said:
“No amount of zeros in your paycheque can fill that hole in your chest called insecurity.”
That line stayed with me for years because I realised how much of modern life is built around trying to solve internal problems with external acquisition.
But external achievement cannot permanently stabilise an internal condition.
So the cycle continues endlessly.
The next goal. The next milestone. The next acquisition.
The retreat slowly helped me understand something I could not have understood intellectually. The goal may not be getting more from life. The goal may be becoming more conscious inside your own life. More present. More aware. More grateful. Less reactive. Less fragmented. More human.
Prayer slowed me down. Journaling helped me see my own patterns more clearly. Silence stopped feeling empty and started becoming restorative. I started noticing beauty again. Small things. Light through trees. Wind. A meaningful conversation. A line in a book arriving at exactly the right moment.
And perhaps this is what many people are actually starving for right now.
Not merely success. But coherence.
A sense that their inner world and outer world are no longer fighting each other.
Because you can achieve many things and still feel internally homeless.
I am not suggesting everybody disappear onto a retreat for two years. But I do think many people need to reconnect with parts of themselves buried underneath ambition, pressure, stimulation and endless striving.
Perhaps the real work now is not becoming endlessly productive.
Perhaps it is becoming present enough to hear your own life speaking back to you again.
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