Bad Habits

[NGONGE]

Bad habits don’t all appear at once. They gradually creep up on one. First you find that you’re mixing with newer, cooler and more exciting friends. You then find that one of those friends is slightly ‘eccentric’ in his/her ways. Finally, with time and constant company, you steadily become as eccentric as that friend. From the nice young man who falls into the wrong crowd and ends up becoming a drug addict, to the sweet girl that gobbles up recreational pills, these habits always have a starting point that, if not arrested at source, will grow and grow until it becomes too late to do anything about.

 

Of a lesser significance, yet no less irritation, are the physical habits that one picks up. Teenagers would dress in accordance to the customs of the ‘clique’. Young girls will adopt trendy facial expressions (usually the sucking of the teeth or a scowl) and, even grown up women will, sometimes, invite one to ‘talk to the hand’! Such are the habits of the riffraff. Still, clever, well brought up and ‘cultured’ people find such vulgar acts fascinating! Why?

Again, one assumes that such habits are progressively acquired and are not the norm.

 

When one speaks, hears or reads about habits, it’s invariably done in the context of ethics and morals. If it’s said that one has a drinking habit, the likelihood is that the speaker is referring to the harmful life style that person leads and the negative impact such a bad habit has on his/her life and morality. He/she is drunk, how could he/she know right from wrong?

 

Likewise, when a parent refers to his/her child developing bad habits. The said child, whilst not becoming a mass murderer or habitual rapist, has probably picked up irritating manners such as endless tantrums, rudeness and stubbornness. Unlike any of the previous examples, when one is faced with such deterioration in a child’s behaviour, one has to lay the finger of blame on the parents - With all the others; it’s really the individual that is to blame.

 

 

Single instances of ‘bad habits’ can be and are, usually, easily ignored and its instigators shunned by society. How many murderers are you friends with? Rapists? Thieves? Troublemakers? Foul-mouthed people?

 

Collective outbreaks of despicable habits are more dangerous on the other hand. These can apply to any area of human existence and would usually be rejected by the more reasonable members of that society. A random example would be the prevalent tradition of plagiarism and abuse of intellectual property in the cyber world. Countless people reject such a bad habit, yet the simpletons carry on. The damage such carelessness and ignorance would cause (if left unchecked) is immeasurable. Who can tell what Faarax wrote and what Plato wrote? Who can stop half-wits from claiming the words of prophets as their own? Who protects your own words?

 

Some of these habits come out of nowhere and spread so quickly that by the time society has decided they’re bad, everyone has already adopted them. An example of these would be weddings and how they change from being mixed weddings, single-sex weddings or no weddings at all to cheap weddings, average weddings and finally, eight star hotel weddings. Like thousands of migrating birds painting a picture on the horizon, these styles of weddings are embraced, dropped and adopted again by almost the whole society (rich and poor)!

 

In each of these cases (and the million others that I chose to omit) one can see a clear pattern, a noticeable decline and a visible turning point when such habits start to take hold. One can also see how (almost all) these habits can cause moral decay and contribute to the bending and infringement on already established ethics and laws.

 

One can’t expect any moral clarity from a society of drunks, or heroine addicts, or even Khat addicts! One, naturally, would think twice before approaching a tongue clicking, teeth sucking and face scowling teenager. One cannot believe the words of a plagiarist.

 

Though all these habits are easily taken on and usually very tempting, this still remains an issue of ethics, rules and principles. These are not as easily acquired as bad habits. These require thinking, ruminating and, at times, a sacrifice or two. However, once these principles, rules and ethics are reached and set in place, one will still have to keep on nurturing them, upholding them and defending them against negligence and the advance of bad habits.

 

Religion is not immune to bad habits. In fact, a religion with creaky foundations is the nucleus of all bad habits; sporadic and patchy knowledge invites bad habits. Nonetheless, many of the worst offenders cite religion as the pantheon of all good habits! Many seem to believe that no good habits existed before the revelation of their own faith! A Christian would quote Jesus, a Jew Moses and (many of our fellow) Muslims habitually bore us with tales of Islamic good deeds. More often than not, these stories are out of context or incomplete. The reason? BAD HABITS.

The problem is not with the stories as such; the problem is with the narrators. Using stories as examples has been used in all divine revelations. The almighty deems the use of stories and tales favorable and noteworthy. Who are we to question the almighty?

The prophets of God have also used stories to illustrate their points and the pious people that followed them used stories about them (the prophets) to illustrate their points too. The telling of stories to encourage goodness and discourage evil has become a habit. However, this was not a bad habit. After all, each story had a moral.

 

The storytellers of today use them to lend weight and piousness to their work but display no morals in the stories they tell. Worse still, the stories are regularly sprinkled with sayings of prophets and verses from holy books, therefore compounding the misdeeds. The good (and godly) habit of storytelling became a very bad habit, hence one’s reluctance to cite a story or verse in support of one’s argument here.

 

Are good habits limited to religious folks? Can non-believers have good habits?

 

Read this verse from a poem written decades before the message of Islam was revealed.

 

تعيرنا انا قليل عديدنا

Ùقلت لها ان الكرام قليل

ما قل من كانت بقاياه مثلنا

شباب تساعي للعلي وكهول

ما ضرنا انا قليل وجارنا

عزيز وجار الاكثرين ذليل

 

She scoffed at our small number.

I said that honourable men are few.

We do not mind our small number when

(as a result) our neighbour is treated well.

This is not so with the neighbour of

those who are large in number.

 

The non-believing poet is eulogising the generosity and good virtues of his tribe. Thus it’s clear that good habits were not an Islamic invention. On the contrary, Islam compliments and complements such good manners (sadly, one was forced to state the obvious here).

 

To stay with the poetic theme, here is Jareer (an Umawi poet) ‘insulting’ one of his archrivals (they were Al Farazdaq & Al Akhtal) with these choice words:

 

ما سرني ان امي من بني اسد

وان لي كل يوم ال٠دينار

قوم اذا استنبح الاضيا٠كلبهم

قالوا لامهم بولي علي النار

 

I would never rejoice if my mother were of Bani Asad

And I was gifted with a daily thousand dinars

These (Bani Asad) are people, that when the appearance of a stranger in their horizon provokes their dog into barking

Would ask their mother to urinate on the fire

 

Here, he’s insulting the bad habits of that rival tribe. They’re not good to their guests (which is why they quickly try to douse the fire so that the guest would not see their tents at night), they’re stingy (not offering the guest any food or place to sleep) and they have no respect for their own mothers (asking her to extinguish the fire with her own urine).

 

There are countless pre-Islamic poems and verses written on the subject of bad habits, mostly disparaging such habits and vilifying their holders. Dishonesty, impertinence, anger, haste, fraudulence, tediousness and a dozen other vile habits are mocked and ridiculed. The old non-believers despised them; the sporadically learned Muslims embrace them! How could one get over such bad habits? Would prayers help? Would choosing good friends do it? How about completely adhering to a faith and following its tenants to the letter, would that do it? Perhaps threats are the best way of stopping the spread of bad habits! Could the perpetual threats of hell and eternal damnation do it? Maybe there is no such thing as bad habits and it’s all relative!

 

 

Do you have bad habits? What is your worst habit?

 

 

If only more heads were scratched rather than beards stroked, if only...

[sheherazade]

Nice read. You've covered so much but a little will be pounced upon.

 

Certain things tick me off and when they do, I get MAD and use BAD language. Naughty me. It's usually sparked off by the same people. U'd think I'd learn. Actually I'm better than I used to be as a result of concious effort. Habits can be dropped.

 

I find bad manners intolerable, I have to say. It mortifies me when people are ill-mannered.

[Valenteenah.]

Sheh, I know what you mean.

 

 

Ngonge,

 

You have been missed. *Gives NG a virtual hug*

 

Do I have bad habits? Sure I do. Loads.

 

My worst habit has to be being completely irresponsible with money. I could go out to buy a sandwich and come back laden with bags full of stuff I could/should do without.

[MR ORGILAQE]

my biggest mistake has been not to go to Hajj when i could have last year

[Valenteenah.]

^ I don't mean to be annoying, but the topic is about bad habits...not mistakes.

[N.O.R.F]

I find bad manners intolerable, I have to say. It mortifies me when people are ill-mannered.

Having good alround manners when in different situations is a good aspect we should all strive for. ie when at the masjid, at home, at work, with freinds etc etc.

 

The only time i have bad manners is on a football pitch but i have been improving on that.

 

Collective outbreaks of despicable habits are more dangerous on the other hand. These can apply to any area of human existence and would usually be rejected by the more reasonable members of that society. A random example would be the prevalent tradition of plagiarism and abuse of intellectual property in the cyber world. Countless people reject such a bad habit, yet the simpletons carry on. The damage such carelessness and ignorance would cause (if left unchecked) is immeasurable. Who can tell what Faarax wrote and what Plato wrote? Who can stop half-wits from claiming the words of prophets as their own? Who protects your own words?

When one is doing a research paper for example there will innevitably be a sentence here and a paragraph there to further illustrate or drive home a certain point/argument. Can this be classed as 'plagiarism'?

 

I have a feeling your refering more towards those who mis-quote to prove their point rather than students doing essays.

[MR ORGILAQE]

I don't mean to be annoying, but the topic is about bad habits...not mistakes.

 

Zephryne i stand corrected bad habits not mistakes right let's see.........hmmmmmmmm

 

 

aaah yees

 

My bad habit is i cannot stop myself from intefering if i see injustice happening anywhere

this get's me into a lot of trouble sometimes

[NGONGE]

Originally posted by Rafalution 25/5/05:

Collective outbreaks of despicable habits are more dangerous on the other hand. These can apply to any area of human existence and would usually be rejected by the more reasonable members of that society. A random example would be the prevalent tradition of plagiarism and abuse of intellectual property in the cyber world. Countless people reject such a bad habit, yet the simpletons carry on. The damage such carelessness and ignorance would cause (if left unchecked) is immeasurable. Who can tell what Faarax wrote and what Plato wrote? Who can stop half-wits from claiming the words of prophets as their own? Who protects your own words?

When one is doing a research paper for example there will innevitably be a sentence here and a paragraph there to further illustrate or drive home a certain point/argument. Can this be classed as 'plagiarism'?

 

I have a feeling your refering more towards those who mis-quote to prove their point rather than students doing essays.

It has been a while since I last had to follow any academic procedures when writing. It is very possible that things have changed nowadays. In my days, we used to provide a bibliography of all the sources used and clearly attribute all quotes and “borrowed†words. Plagiarism is when you post an article, poem or story without acknowledging the original source (some people do it on purpose while others do it because they don’t know any better).

 

OG

Heh. I was expecting you to direct me to all the juicy websites with the Umawi triangle. I’ve been looking for similar websites for months and still can’t find any.

[-Serenity-]

I think they call it research when you plagiarise the work of many. Its not only acceptable, but encouraged. Provided you can string them all together effortlessly and draw your own conclusions. Of course, referencing the work makes it ‘not plagiarised’. There is no point re-inventing the wheel, so one has to obviously use and build on existing framework.

 

As for bad habits, they are more acquired than intrinsic. Collective mentality is the downfall of every great or would have been great person or for that matter society. Individuality (as Muslims and Somalis) is seen in a negative light and thought to be contrary to our culture and way of life. So the bad habits NGONGE mentioned is part and parcel of ‘our way of life’ and would never get extricated anytime soon.

 

p.s. Welcome back NG. The place has been awfully dry without ur 'pearls of wisdom'

[Animal Farm]

A good read to go with my morning coffee – this kind of literature is really wonderful. Ngone, made me. Your post reads like an unmitigated motivational speech, good observations, makes me want to change my bad habits and reevaluate my behavioural patterns. But, I do think many religious folks have bad habits and often times they use the religion to justify them. I think many non-believers have good habits.

 

 

Can this be classed as 'plagiarism'? I think its classified as fair use, especially in today’s world information vital and it could mean life or death, I mean just look at pharmaceutical companies, and patents – I think every technology or idea that could improve humanity should be available for all in the universe, regardless of their financial status or class. I think this is a bad habit fueled by monetary gains – bad habits with inhumane outcomes are worst because their damage is maximized, than say individual habits.

[Goonle]

NGOGE

 

Nice topic uve posted here. There seems to be an ommision in your initial posting however. I would like to u what your habits are. Im sure youre no saint. Another thing is tiying the ability of being ethical to drinking alcohol, smoking weed, or chewing chat. I dont see the connection. I know lots of ethical people that do all three, and on the other hand i know people that dont do any of the three and pray five times a day, but still cheat, steal and lie. Could u elaborate on this issue?

[One.tribe.One.Value]

My bad habit is that I tend to over exaggerate the truth so I don’t hurt people’s feelings, I don't like this about me but i can’t help it. InshaAllah i will work on it.

[Sincere]

When one speaks, hears or reads about habits, it’s invariably done in the context of ethics and morals

In my latter years I have either discarded off or partially harnessed habits that normally would fall under the religiously unethical or immoral scope (my teens is another story

 

I have one habit that doesnt fall under that scope, that I have managed to pinpoint and identify, but yet have still failed to overcome or harness. Procrastination will be my ultimate downfall if it hasnt already. The opportunites that have come by and gone whilst I stood by and did nothing are countless. Numerous opportunities that pertain to love, career, education, financial matters, etc....you name it i blew it

 

Now here's what I have recently stumbled across that I found more disturbing. Procrastination breeds another very dangerous behaviour ....Regret. For if you spend your days remeniscing about the opportunites you screwed up (what if's) because of your nonchalant approach, you will be one dismal character; but alas they go hand in hand, and are inseparable traits. Ahh the irony, if your prone to one, you will inevitabley suffer the other.

 

P.s. Shukran Haji Ngonge, very interesting read.

[Valenteenah.]

First Discreet, now sincere...aren't you great!

 

Procrastination is a killer! And I have an idea of the regrets ur talking about. Case in point: I have been meaning to do my MSc the last couple of years, but I have deferred it yet again this year. At this rate, I prolly won't do it.

[Animal Farm]

If you pick your nose, that's a disgusting habit, eating it even worse - what's the benefit in that? usually bad habits have some good aspects, or pleasure, while causing harm to others. Some habits need to go - silly nomads, buggers are for kids.