The Roundup: 04

In this month: overthinking, pesticides, and dating.

The Roundup is a series where I reflect on the month that passed. The highs and the lows; the messy and the mundane.

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This month was an emotional rollercoaster. The one year anniversary since graduating has been bringing up a lot of thoughts about my future. Although I have significantly more clarity about what direction I want to head in life, I get caught up trying to puzzle together the pieces. I’m frantically trying to grasp onto threads that will rope me into the next chapter, only for them slip away. These constant highs of thinking I’m onto something only for it to slip away, has been taking my moods for a ride. I’ve started to experience a bit of anxiety where my heart starts to beat erratically, keeping me up at night. I'm trying to be more mindful of the night routine that sends me into a spiral.

I read a quote recently, that read “when you find Allah, you find yourself”. It reminded me how my only focus, this time last year was to find Allah and how much tranquility I found in it. I haven’t been putting the same amount of time I was before, by believing I should be career building. But Allah is Ar-Razzaq and anything that brings me towards Him, brings me towards my end goals, even in my career. I want to take the back seat and focus on enjoying the scenery rather than the destination on this road trip. For now, I’m taking a break from applying to jobs and want to spend more time getting closer to Allah again, Insha’Allah.

Alhamdulillah I’ve started my Arabic lessons which are less intimidating than I was anticipating. Ustadh Nouman Ali Khan makes short and sweet videos that make me shout out answers with excitement. He reassured that Allah makes it easy to learn, for those who intend to do it for His sake and so far I’ve been having a good time, Alhamdulillah.

I had also taken a hiatus from reading newsletters since Ramadan and forgot how much I enjoyed reading and commenting on everyone’s writing. I happy to be back and savour all the letters you all have been putting out.

Substack

That being said, one of my favourite pieces this month was Dear TikTok by Faridah. I was absolutely captivated with the storytelling in this piece and related too hard to the dichotomous feelings we get from TikTok and social media in general.

Dear TikTok

Books

I listened to most of the audiobook for How to be Dateable by Julie Krafchick and Yue Xu. Whenever I'm stressed about life, I imagine getting married and how it'll solve all my problems. I picked up this book on a whim in an effort to fast track a wedding. Rationally, I know this won’t solve my problems and this book talked some sense into me. It had a realistic approach to dating and highlighted that it's about the journey of getting to know someone and not the end goal of securing the ring. Half the battle of finding the right partner heading in the same direction as me, is knowing where I’m going first… This book definitely grounded me and resolved that the solution to all my problems right now is working on myself. *sigh*

Podcast

I tried something new and listened to one of Dr. Mike's episodes about corruption in healthcare and food poisoning. This episode discussed pesticide treated produce and their potential harm to the body. The scientist being interviewed advised to be wary of pesticide grown food. Dr. Mike, however, brought up that’s impractical advise since realistic alternatives to pesticide grown foods don’t exist (even ‘organic’ labelled foods have ‘organic’ pesticides). Dr. Mike argued the side effects of these pesticides are not grave enough and to fear monger people out of eating produce. It would result in people eating fast foods and processed foods instead which have much more severe consequences to our health. I liked Dr. Mike’s stance in this episode and that he is does generally call out impractical solutions and highlights nuances in popular science. But there’s also a lot I don’t agree with. His YouTube banner reads “Just do what the doctor ordered”, this brand positioning propagates blind belief and outsourcing our thinking to ‘experts’ with more knowledge rather than being inquisitive ourselves. I could keep yapping about other things I didn’t agree with, but perhaps that’s a discussion for another time.

Thumbnail

I honestly wasn’t the most happy with either of these thumbnails, but after working many iterations, this is the best I came up with. I liked the superfood superstition one more though. I want to try new things and I think that begins with curating better inspo pics. So I’ll be creating a new board on Pinterest to line up some fresh ideas, Insha’Allah.

I hope you enjoyed this reflection and I would love to read about what you guys have been reading, listening to, and doing this month. Take care, and we’ll catch up again next month, Insha’Allah!