Written in November 2025
I’ve always hated change. When my parents decided to move abroad when I was twelve, I cried for months, could not adapt and ultimately forced their hand to move us back home to familiar and comfortable London. When I started university, I imported my entire bedroom and creatures of comfort, I maintained the exact same routines and rituals that became a cladding for my days: early morning yoga and breakfast rituals, evening reading, long showers and early nights. I built rhythms as early as possible so that I would not feel the discomfort of growing.
But you cannot grow when you’re comfortable. And change flies at you anyway. When everything changes around you, those external signposts, routines and metrics that you pin your identity to also fall away. Who are you without them? It is hard to know who you’re to become. I am in a period of hibernation and taking stock. A season between the concluded before and the murky next, the blurry in-between where things have run their course, served just a period of my life. But you cannot hold onto everything, and stability is ultimately stifling. My discomfort with change is undoubtedly chained by my fear of failure and unwavering perfectionism. For so long, I’ve thrown myself into things, devoted myself to everything but my own personal hobbies, desires. I haven’t quite yet learnt how to choose myself.
This in between stage is the hardest yet. We don’t want to admit to ourselves that we are flawed, that we are imperfect, but Allah has created us so. This stage of being not who I was but also not who I am becoming feels stagnant, and on the surface feels like I’m doing nothing much at all. But internally, I am constantly evaluating thought processes and mindsets that once seemed natural and inherent but now no longer fit who I want to be. My roots are growing, strengthening. And that’s uncomfortable. Every moment of peace feels like a threat because I’m no longer striving towards a measurable, success-oriented goalpost. The only things I am working towards and for are for myself.
A friend recently asked me why I love Hamlet so much. I think out of all of Shakespeare’s tragedies, Hamlet is the one character who fatally cannot handle change, cannot handle the movement of life resuming around him. He is, as Taylor Swift may say, “still at the restaurant”, unable to act.
But he is liberated from the decision and the fear of making the wrong choice, by turning to an idea of fate that is scarily similar to Qadr.
“There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.” (Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 1)
And yeah, Shakespeare was kinda right. Just “let be”, as Hamlet finally concludes. Trust that it will fall into place. Keep it pushing.
As an overthinker and an overplanner, not having a plan is like being in free-fall with no clear sense of where the ground lies. But our internal sonar systems as humans are inherently faulty. Our estimations of how far we are from the next high or the next dip is based on corrupted data, based on what we believe to be predictable patterns and logical stages. Allah’s divine plan works beyond our metrics and measurements.
The best thing about a transitory phase is that it is just that; transitory. Nothing lasts forever, and I am actually quite excited to see who I am to be, and what this next stage will unfurl.
I hope you’ve enjoyed my words <3
