Wassatiyah/Minimalist/Keserderhanaan

As a Muslim, the concept of Wassatiyah should be practiced in our life. It means simplicity and balance, it doesn’t mean you can’t posses material and wealth but it focuses on how you should consume and manage it according to your own needs and affordability. Can you afford it? Is it necessary? In western world, the word ‘Minimalist’ more or less shares the same meaning as Wassatiyah (in material possession perspective) or in Malay ‘Kesederhanaan’.

Materialism and wealth are no doubt have consumed many nowadays. In pursuit of ‘happiness’ as people would equate to materialism and wealth, they are willing to do anything in order to achieve their life’s goal. But do materialism and wealth really define happiness? I guess some people would know that this is not really the case. The two richest guys in the world are willing to donate almost all of their wealth for philanthropic causes as they realize there are better things to do than materialism and wealth alone. You see, when they reach at the top, most people will realize that this is not the happiness as what they have equated earlier. They soon started to realize that family, friends, etc are what really define happiness. And these are the things people overlook as most of us posses this precious gift from God easily, and not like materialism and wealth where it’s hard to come by. Almighty God is fair to all human beings where the source of happiness is abundant and easily possessed by everyone. But being a greedy, a human nature source of evil, we will only appreciate this source of happiness when we are down or in some cases, when we have achieved what we perceive first as source of happiness but realize later it’s not. So I guess I need to remind myself first and foremost and all of you that, don’t overlook that precious gifts that God granted to all of us. 

However, I’m certainly not suggesting we should be laid back and happy on what we already have. That’s the wonderful thing about Wassatiyah concept. We need to be smart and intelligent on how to balance your life well. For instance, we have 24 hours a day, the intelligent and smart thing to do in order to balance your life would be something like this: (1) 8 hours a day to work productively (I mean really productive and innovative to achieve maximum result), (2) 8 hours a day for family/friends/religious purpose/health/etc, and (3) 8 hours a day for sleep & rest. But many people would sacrifice (2) for (1) as they perceive (1) would yield more wealth as they weigh in higher and skewed towards materialism and wealth. This is what exactly happens today and a norm phenomena. Going work at 7am and come back around 10pm is a norm. So prioritizing is a key here and again, it’s up to individual priority to interpret the concept of Wassatiyah/Minimalist/Kesederhanaan wisely.