Last week I met up with one of my favorite professors at Georgetown who, oddly enough, I’ve never taken a class with but have gotten to know through friends who have taken his classes and through my work in the Georgetown Muslim Students Association. He himself taught in the Bronx for a couple years. He knew he wanted to teach and dedicated his summers in college to teaching programs and eventually taught full-time on his own without the aid of a program like Teach for America or New York City Teaching Fellows. He said that every decision he makes he always asks himself if he can justify it to God. Every decision.

If, in fact, it is in the moments of decision making that my destiny is shaped, then certainly I should be able to justify such decisions to the Big Guy when I meet Him, whenever that meeting may be. It is this manifestation of taqwa, popularly translated as God-consciousness, which makes me so thankful for my faith. Imam Ali encourages us to prepare for this world as if we’ll live forever, and prepare for the next as if we’ll be gone tomorrow.

Running through my head now are many decisions that I made without thinking about what Imam Ali had to say or the reality that is my temporary life. Some of those decisions I think I would be comfortable justifying, many I wouldn’t be and most are simply neutral. I hope that my decision to teach for America is one of many decisions that I can comfortably justify to God.

But that is just one decision, albeit an important one, of the many I make every day. At first it seems a daunting task, to take a step back and wonder about God and decision X, but upon reflecting on this paradigm and how empowering it can be once ingrained in my thinking, it seems to only make decision-making easier.

In the sin curve that has been my own experience with faith, I find that the times I am most at peace with myself and with my faith are when I remember to try and see God in all things, from what I learn in the classroom to the laughter of my friends. Islam has never been just about the five daily prayers or fasting during Ramadan. On the flip side, I find that the times I am least at peace with myself and with my faith are when I tend to limit Islam to just that, rituals that I have all too often allowed to define this faith.

I discovered this particular weakness of mine through my interaction with my fellow Muslims on Georgetown’s campus. Truly, I cannot imagine my college experience without them. It is because of them that I am able to appreciate Islam and understand that it is so much more than five pillars. It is because of them that I am able to justify spending my four years on a hilltop in Washington, D.C. It is because of them that I am at a highpoint in the aforementioned sin curve.

And it is because of the students that I will be blessed to teach in the next two years that I will be able to justify my first career choice to the Big Guy when He decides it’s my time.