Have a meaningful Vaisakhi 2024

How do you learn best? What is your learning style?

The word sikhi means student, seeker or learner. A sikhi is committed to learning and growing. It is a lifelong journey. Today, we call it continuous learning.

However, to learn effectively and efficiently we must first be aware of the way we learn best. Unfortunately, many don’t. Furthermore, we live in a world that tends to educate using a ‘one mode fits all’ approach.

For example, are you a reader or a listener? If you are a reader, you likely absorb and process information more effectively through reading. If you are a listener, you understand and remember information better when you hear it spoken aloud.

It is of utmost important to ask, “How do I learn best?”. Some learn by writing, others by doing, while another by hearing themselves talk. If you learn by writing, school would have been an agony as it predominantly uses the reading and listening method.

You can take a step further by asking if you work and learn best with people or alone. Do you learn better under stress or do you need a structured and predictable environment? Will you learn better in a large or smaller organization? Big or small groups? What is best for you?

A simple way to start knowing how best you learn is to consider the 4 predominant learning styles: Visual, Auditory, Reading/Writing, and Kinaesthetic.

If you learn best using patterns, shapes, and other visual aids instead of written or spoken words, your best way to learn is Visual. If text-based input and output – reading and writing in all of its forms is your cup of tea, Read/Write. If you are the Auditory type, you will benefit most from lectures, group discussions, and other avenues that involve talking things through. You are a Kinaesthetic learner if you learn best via concrete personal experience like carrying out physical activities to practise applying new knowledge, simulations, recreating experiments and work-based learning.

Let us all be a better sikhi by knowing how best we learn.

Peace, anas

Have a Meaningful AIDILFITRI 2024

 Have a Meaningful AIDILFITRI

“Benih yang baik, jatuh ke laut menjadi pulau” – Malay proverb

A seed (benih) is packed with potential. But it would not grow into its potential without absorbing and making full use of resources from the outside – like sunlight, water, and nutrients. A seed left in a bottle for years will remain a seed. Good seeds can go bad if they are kept too long.

Similarly, you and I – we too are like seeds, packed with potential. However, like seeds, we can only grow if we make full use of opportunities that lay outside of us - making full use of resources outside of our own. Staying idle stunts us. Idle for too long, we become a deadwood or marginal.

Today, we are faced with a worrying trend where many in the 20’s and early 30’s are choosing to stay idle or jump in and out of work while “waiting for that perfect job”. They are unlikely to reach their potential as one needs to stay at a job for some time to develop marketable skills. The discipline to stay at one job for a period of time, aligning one’s goal with the company’s goal, is a crucial requirement for success.

Many do odd jobs thinking it is a smart move as it brings easy and good money. Odd jobs, done beyond a reasonable period, will soon be considered as a main profession, and work history. These young people will fall into the part-timer’s category of the work force.

It is essential that we convince them to take a job. A real full-time job that provides external resources that they can absorb and grow like a good seed. To nurture the skills required to succeed like discipline, self-motivation, time management, money sense, communication, problem-solving, leadership etc. and functional skills specific to a job role.

Be a good seed – as only, “benih yang baik”, when it falls into the vast sea, can grow into an island.

Have a Meaningful AIDILFITRI

Maaf Zahir & Batin

Salam, anas

HOW TO BE A GOOD-HEARTED MATURE MALAYSIAN – Learning from the sock incident.

You and I, let us be a good-hearted mature Malaysian. The next time we chance upon a potentially sensitive issue, like pair of socks with the word Allah printed on it, we work hard to contain the issue making sure it does not blow up, hurting many, and spread nationally especially via social media.

We must have good faith that other fellow Malaysians are good-hearted and mature too. We do not do such things to hurt others, wantonly and purposely. We have good hearts, respect and care for each other. With a heart that is good, we would first assume that it would be very likely be an honest mistake. We do not need to allow it to snowball into a national issue.

Our standard operating procedure should be, upon discovering such coincidences or accidents in any operations, is to speedily contact the person in charge so that the organization can nip it in the bud. A mature Malaysian knows well that no business will do such things deliberately knowing for sure that they will lose their customers.

While we all wish for the ideal situation where no mistakes occurs and quality control is airtight, humans will continue to make mistakes. We must have a safety mechanism - by being a good-hearted mature Malaysian. We know how to make things better, not worse.

We confine religion and traditions as unity platforms. To bring us together. To unite. These we spread like wild fire. Let it snowball not just nationally, but we show the world that our religion and traditions are our foundations of unity.

As a good-hearted mature Malaysian, we guard our religion and traditions from becoming tools that create animosity. But these start with a good heart. We need to nurture our hearts. As the Prophet said,

“There is a piece of flesh in the body if it becomes good (reformed) the whole body becomes good but if it gets spoilt the whole body gets spoilt and that is the heart” - Sahih al-Bukhari.

Peace, anas.