Tonight I’m writing content on several websites while listening to and viewing random videos from Youtube as usual. One of the videos that played tonight was a story from Cak Nun, or Emha Aninun Nadjib, about how to overcome laziness that eats away at you.

He told us about how students and clerics in the village overcome laziness. The laziness that pulls us away from moving forward or not doing something that we could have done immediately. The method is to use suggestive encouragement, which is called wirid. The wirid used is Yaa Fa’aal. Which is interpreted as Allah is the One who does all the work.

In the story Caknun also conveyed a sentence “Whoever wants to meet and meet face to face with Me (Allah) then work.” In some verses of the Qur’an that I tried to find and related to this is Qs. Al Insyiqaq (84).

“Hai manusia, sesungguhnya kamu telah bekerja dengan sungguh-sungguh menuju Tuhanmu, maka pasti kamu akan menemui-Nya” (QS. 84: 6)

Caknun added, in his explanation that he is also a worker. And he really enjoyed his work in writing, but never thought about the honorarium he would get later. What is meant here is not that we work without wanting to be paid. However, work earnestly and happily for the sake of Allah. And Allah will guarantee our sustenance. This is something that is rarely thought of by people in general. Because of the mindset that we work for money, not for Allah.

I was very shallow in my religious knowledge, and didn’t understand what wirid was and its benefits. However, by hearing the story from Caknun, I began to understand the meaning of ‘work’ in a different light. In fact, I thought, if we can really enjoy and be happy at work, it seems that the laziness or procrastination that is the problem point in the story can be resolved.

A routine, which most of our time in the world will be spent in. May we not be wrong in instilling intentions in our hearts, in living what we call ‘work’.