The Journal #4: Will Tomorrow Even Come?

An extract from my diary, January 2nd:

It would be easy for me to reduce the vibrant zephyr of a new year into an insignificance, simply by stating the obvious truth, that as Muslims we must seek continual improvement, regardless of the borders drawn by the western almanac, but I think this could be a grand opportunity missed. As Muslims who have been raised within the confines of the western, three hundred and sixty five day, Gregorian calendar, the nature of New Year's and its affixes of resolution and reinvention are clearly hollow and symbolic, little beyond an opportunity for excessive gluttony, drinking and subsequent guilt manifesting as a 'January-health-kick!'. Perhaps we Muslims, in our typically prolific fashion, can find amongst the thorny brambles of this symbolic holiday the fruits of a more productive year, ripe for the picking.

Twenty new years have passed before I thought this time of year could be of anything meaningful. Yes, I enjoyed the New Year's Eve traditions of staying up late, flipping over Monopoly boards and watching the increasingly disappointing London fireworks show on the BBC. I thought January 1st obviously meant nothing of substance, trifle if not a demarcated continuity set up by either some colonial apparatus or corporate desire for labour efficacy. Now, I think it's time to shift the perspective.

We operate within the parameters of this structure and therefore is it so wrong to seize the spirit of this revivalist attitude and look at each new day or month or year as an opportunity to retry better than before? If we release our fingers from fists of apathy, we can then allow the pure air of revival to cool our palms. Each day is wonderful and novel and freighted with potential, so who are we if we don't take advantage of the new year God has given us. Yes, the idea of New Year's day and a list of resolutions are trivial but stepping into 2026 with a similar attitude to that of moving to a new school or city can be beneficial, its an opportunity to recast the clay on the potter's wheel that is life. Redefine who you are, establish the goals you wish to achieve; use the concept of a 'new' year like an igniting flame kickstarting you into action. Let the new year be an excuse to shed the baggage of last year's inadequacies and shortcomings.

February 2nd.

A month later, the punch of new years drifting further away and those tired platitudes of revival and renewal long quieting in the dust. Is it so hard to admit that what I wrote at the beginning of January is quintessentially symptomatic of the laziest and most heinous part of our human condition?

Is it so that the sun rises and runs away, hiding from the darkness of night, time after time for millions of years and we declare with such certainty that it will happen again? I think News Years is just an excuse, clutching at the straws of hope that a new day will come so we can try and make a change. A new sun can rise so we can fornicate behind its trellises and emerge again with the desire to change, yet we make the choice time after time, with the hopeful and abetted certainty of a new day to rehabilitate and atone. The nature of western life makes us think the new year is when we start to fulfil our goals and before that we can just fill our bellies and dance the night away and forget, under those stars that have burnt for millions of years with the asserted certainty they will burn a million more.

But when we awake from our groaning slumbers and we see the sun no longer rising from the east and our skin tanned with a cardinal hue, and our soil dry and inhospitable, then will we realise the promised tomorrow will never come and a new day will never break and a new dawn will never crack for us to lay in our beds with briny tears streaming down our temples and onto our pillows and the raising of our hands weeping, "Ya Rabb, forgive me for today was not the way I want to spend my last day on Earth. Ya Rabb give me another, awaken me from my slumber tomorrow and I promise I will be better". We do it each night, hoping for the next day to ruin and repeat. Maybe we live to see a new day after every night, for twenty thousand nights, but that day when the lights never turn back on, and our bodies are forever buried in the sheets and a new day is never laid for us to unravel ourselves on, we will wish that our bodies were never fashioned and our souls were never introduced.

That day of insurmountable regret has me shaking over this keyboard as I type and I don't know if today's blog, the first of 2026, is what you expected but this is a weight that's been on my mind recently and I didn't quite know how else to say it.

The endeavours of the 'new day', that we promise to ourselves will be better than the last, are not promised. At best we're hopeful. The new day should be a breath of relief and a mandate for change. When I wrote the first section of this blog right at the beginning of the new year, I thought 'this year I'll do it', 'this year will be different' and that is a positive mindset to want to change but I realised we have to fulfil our goals and make those changes without a single care for what anyone says. Write the blog, release the video, book the tickets, buy the book, hug her, forgive him, challenge yourself, laugh a lot, start the course, pick up the Quran, wake up for Fajr - just don't waste a single day. I really want to live today like I'd be happy if it was my last; I want the experiences, I want the joy, I want the peace, I'm not going to miss a Salah, I'm going to finish memorising that surah, I'm going to tell my Mum I love her.

Quit relying on the hope that tomorrow will come, cause you never know if it will.

Faithfully, Issa.