Vocation

Recently I was having my typical existential crisis on what I should do post-graduation. The obvious choice is wait for a reply from the Peace Corps, but they like to play the waiting game. My fiancé thought it would be a good idea to look for possible career opportunities I may be interested, as I do not want to attend Law School immediately after I receive my Bachelor’s degree. She decided to help me explore these options after we visited her parents in New York this past weekend.

On the bus ride home we decided to spend about 45 minutes searching on career choices that may be relevant to my degree and interesting to me. We searched through NGOs, research companies, the UN,the government, and  think tanks. Overall it did nothing for me. The purpose of it was to just get me thinking of what I want to do. I want to be a lawyer and a business owner. I want to be a good person and a family man.

As we spoke on the bus we eventually started talking about the Middle East and stories relating to the Quran and the Bible and the morals driven from them. She stopped me and said “If you know so much about this stuff, why don’t you just do something relating to that.” This was on Monday. It is now Wednesday and I’ve been pensive about what I can do relating to that. I don’t think I want to be an Imam because of the pressure or a professor because of the cost and amount of time it takes to go through the academia route. But I do want lead. I’ve been looking at places I can take courses in fiqh and Hadith and other Islamic topics to receive some sort of certification without a heavy sacrifice. I want to help people who know me better understand the faith and feel confident in asking questions and I want to feel confident answering questions. whether or not my kids decide to practice in adulthood (If I am blessed to have them in the future), I want them to grow up knowing about my faith in the household and to never be scared of other muslims or non-muslims that may judge them. I don’t think I’ll be an Imam, but I do want to help the American Ummah have more political representation and show that we want to live in a peaceful world.

Ultimately I just want to help my community.