# Are We Becoming Too Self-Centered? | Real Talk ft. Tesneem Alkiek

**Author:** Dr. Tesneem Alkiek
**Series:** Real Talk Series
**Published:** 2026-01-14
**YouTube:** https://youtu.be/J5IIEWKWOoc
**URL:** https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/real-talk-series/are-we-becoming-too-self-centered-real-talk-ft-tesneem-alkiek
**Topics:** Allah, Faith, Family & Community, Marriage

## Description
Social media is built to be addictive. It harms our mental health and damages our self-worth. We all know this...but it's still so hard to disconnect. Join Dr. Tesneem Alkiek and host Qaanitah Hunter to explore the dangers (and some of the benefits) that social media adds to our lives and learn...

## Chapters
- 0:00 Introduction: The Mental Health Puzzle
- 0:37 The Workout Class Metaphor
- 2:05 Societal Sentiments and Moral Relativism
- 5:57 Historical Context: From Reformation to Enlightenment
- 9:47 The Impact of Moral Relativism Today
- 13:46 The Power of Forgiveness
- 22:02 Conclusion: Putting God at the Center

## Transcript
**[0:00]** Mental health is what so many of us are struggling with, but where's the solution?

**[0:17]** I think we're making progress, but there's still an important piece of the puzzle that's been missing. And I think we need to talk about it. So Qanit, I don't think I told this to you before, but I'm obsessed with working out.

**[0:41]** It keeps my stress levels down, right? Something I do almost every day. And to do it, I'll watch videos online, whatever, just take workout classes. And I noticed something about workout classes. It's almost like they're a microcosm of society at large.

**[0:59]** Because here it is, you've got this instructor who's just really trying to keep you motivated. Through the gym class, but somehow is giving you life advice. You need to push through. You gotta push through, you gotta do this, whatever. And in the process, they start to use social clichés or whatever, social metaphors to get you past it.

**[1:22]** And so you hear this person come in and be like, Just be you. Anything that doesn't serve you, let it go. I forgot exactly the phrase, right? Anything that doesn't serve you, just walk away from whatever doesn't serve you. Breathe in good air, let out bad air. It's like this redundant repetition of just be you in a way that if anyone makes you uncomfortable,

**[1:46]** if anything challenges you really, just walk away. It's simple, right? We shouldn't do that? It's actually sad. I think that there's a good reason why people find this so valuable. I think a lot of people have been pushed to their extremes, to their limits.

**[2:02]** And they're lost. Well, they've been pushed themselves, so then when someone tells them, Just do whatever makes you happy, it's very incentivizing because some people, they've grown up and all they've known is other people, right? But I think what it really represents at large, right? We're not talking about certain understandings or implications of it.

**[2:19]** What I think it does at large is capture this societal sentiment, which is that do whatever makes you happy, right? And to me, what that captures is this loss of clarity. Because if you and I are not on the same page as to what to do with our lives,

**[2:38]** if you and the neighbor down the street, everyone is sort of doing whatever they want to do, you feel like, what's the point of all of this? Where are we going with this? And I think that's what's scarier to me. It's almost like that phrase where it's like,

**[2:53]** if you don't stand for something, you fall for anything. Ah, yes. And that's a sentiment that I get, right? And it points to a larger problem. It points to what, fancy word, it refers to moral relativism. Because the idea is like, what's good for me is not good for you,

**[3:09]** might not be good for you, and what's good for you might not be good for me, and so let's just do our own thing, right? Yeah. And that to me… And why must I worry about my neighbor down the road? Like, it's my world, it's my life, I'm the center of it. It's that, but it's also representative of the fact that we've lost a clear purpose.

**[3:29]** We've lost Allah at the center of the picture, right? And what happens is that when Allah is at the center, we know that there's a clear set of rules and laws and principles that we need to be following.

**[3:44]** And that provides guidance that not only I follow, but you follow, and every other Muslim follows, and eventually, you know, something we aspire for all of humanity to follow, right? And I think about how despite this emphasis that everyone just be you, walk away from whatever doesn't make you happy,

**[4:01]** and I think to myself like, so are we happier now? Do you get the sense we're happier? Not at all. I think we are way more miserable. And like this focus of like, living your truth, is it an empowering slogan or is it a symptom of societal selfishness?

**[4:17]** I think it's a symptom of a society who's lost, that's very, very lost. Like classically, if you think about it, man, woman, whatever, saw themselves, their identities as creations of Allah, right? So they found that fulfillment, that purpose by worshiping Allah.

**[4:34]** And this goes across, you know, every faith tradition, and not limited to just like a Muslim lifestyle, right? And then modernity hits, and something shifts with modernity. Rather than pursuing Allah, man began to like pursue what, again, makes him happy.

**[4:53]** And there's a whole history to that, and I think it's important to talk about that history. But I want to talk about, want to mention, I think like sort of the ayah, the verse in the Quran that captures really the sentiment. The Quran says, وَلَا تَكُونُوا كَالَّذِينَ نَسُوا اللَّهَ فَأَنسَاهُمْ أَنفُسَهُمْ

**[5:08]** Don't be like those, right? It captures exactly the sentiment we're feeling. Don't be like those who forgot Allah. Allah is no longer at the center of the picture. And He made them, as a result of forgetting Allah, forgetting their purpose, forgetting why they're here, made them forget themselves.

**[5:24]** And I think this is what like those quotes, everything, like everything we're seeing inside, this is exactly what it is. We lost sight of our purpose. So Allah tells us, well, I'll make you lose sight of yourself, who you are. And now we're like, I don't know what to do.

**[5:40]** What is it? Yeah, because logic says, if I am focusing on me and it's all about me, and I, you know, just be you and serve yourself, we should be happier. But we're not. And so many of us are just completely miserable. So one plus one is not adding to two.

**[5:56]** Now what do we do? So I think it's important to acknowledge what's the history behind this, because we didn't just wake up as a society one day and think to ourselves, like, let's just be you, right? There was a whole, like, there's hundreds of years of history that goes into why we think the way we do and why our society is sort of, you know,

**[6:15]** pushing these slogans. Let's rewind all the way to the back, right? Talking about as far back as the Protestant Reformation, the 15th century, we're talking hundreds of years ago. Christianity at the time, especially Western Christianity,

**[6:30]** was dominated by the Catholic Church. Now if you know anything about the Catholic Church, it was very intense on protecting sort of like its hierarchy, the church hierarchy, right? So for you as a Christian, if you want to speak to Allah,

**[6:46]** you do through a church member, right? If you want to access scripture, you're surely not doing it directly. You're going to do it through an intermediary. Everything about the Catholic Church would never, there's no direct access to truth. Now Martin Luther comes around and basically demands, like,

**[7:05]** no, we want direct access to this truth. We don't want this hierarchy. We want to be able to sort of resist this authority and speak for ourselves, right? And that was important. A problem Islam never had, by the way, because we never had that type of hierarchy, and we always had direct access to truth.

**[7:20]** And that ends up sparking this idea of like resistance to a barrier, an authority, and a hierarchy, right? Fast forward a bit later, you get the scientific revolution just about 100 years later. Now people are thinking, well, do we even need Allah?

**[7:36]** Like we actually, because for hundreds of years, remember, people understood the world. They understood, like, even to make sense of science, right? That's why you have Galileo. That's why you have all these figures who are, you know, religious in nature. And they're coming back and saying, like, this is how you understand the world.

**[7:51]** Scripture tells you that. And so scientific revolution comes around, and now it's like for the first time ever, we have a source of knowledge that's not scripture. So you start to scratch your head and think to yourself, well, do we need faith here? Like, what's going on?

**[8:06]** So what's the role of religion anyways? What's the role of religion anyways? 100 years later, not even, you get the Enlightenment. Enlightenment is a big moment in Western European history, right? Where it was like this discovery of the potential of the mind, the potential of reason.

**[8:21]** And that comes in, and now people are thinking, well, the reason, the human mind, they're elevating its status so much so that we can now value, we can now understand, make sense of this world with our mind alone, right? So you see how it's like sort of chipping away one by one by one,

**[8:38]** and then shortly after, you get the rise of liberalism, right? Rise of liberalism, one of the key elements to it is essentially that any type of restriction, any barrier is something that is suffocating, that you want access.

**[8:54]** And so now, I mean, it comes, like, movement after movement, sort of like wave of thinking after wave of thinking, you end up with this idea, you end up with this idea known as moral relativism. That you know what? Allah's out of the picture. I can use my mind or science, and in a postmodern world, that gets even more complicated,

**[9:12]** I can use things external to faith, external to Allah, to be able to dictate what I do with my life, right? And so what ends up happening, oh, and by the way, there's a resistance against any type of meta-narrative, right? The idea that religion can come back and tell me, give me this universal picture of understanding of people,

**[9:33]** because again, every individual is exceptional, and you can't have something that would reflect, like, would be universal to all people, because that disproves exceptionalism, right? So all of this is happening behind the scenes, and so now we get to this idea of moral relativism,

**[9:49]** which says that, you know what? What makes you happy at an individual level should suffice to tell you how to live your life. So I'll make up the rules if it suits me. I'll make up the rules if it suits me, and you cannot project your own set of rules onto others, right?

**[10:06]** So it's be you and don't judge others at the same time. So then how does that show up today? So I think it shows up in 101 ways, but I think there's one important thing that I wanted to share. Allah is no longer at the center. Virtues that we thought, we once held, in fact, as universal, as something that we can aspire to be, to do,

**[10:25]** things that all humans, no matter who, can agree on, like, we now find some of these virtues to be taxing, emotionally taxing on us, disempowering things, again. Like what? So forgiveness, right?

**[10:40]** Let's look at a very, very basic example of, like, let's forgive. I was in New York a few years ago. I'm in New York, and I'm with a friend, okay? And we're there, she's on her spring break, and we're just enjoying the city for the day.

**[10:56]** We go out, we're walking around, we're eating, having a good time. Asr time comes in, and I decide, we decide, of course, to stop at a masjid to pray. I get to the masjid, to the basement, and I'm doing wudu, and there's an auntie or a khala, you know,

**[11:13]** an older lady who's in the bathroom, and as I'm doing wudu, Qanit, I think it's important to just have a disclaimer here. I think I know how to do wudu. I'm a little old enough now, I think that I've... You got it down. I got it down, I think I got it down, right?

**[11:29]** And I'm doing wudu, and this lady, like, I can feel her eyes burning into my back, and I'm like, what's about to happen? I knew something, you know when something's coming, you know, it's right about to happen. Here it comes, right? And I'm like, don't engage, don't engage, I'm doing wudu.

**[11:44]** And as I'm, like, washing my face, and she's like, that's not how you do wudu. And I was like, don't engage, don't engage. And I just, I smiled at her and I nodded my head because I wasn't gonna tell her, like, I know what I'm doing, right? And I continue, and she said, I said you're doing wudu wrong.

**[12:00]** I said, Jazakum Allah khayran for the advice, right? I'm totally trying to avoid the conversation, and that was it. And something burst in her. This is why your generation is ruining the sunnah of the Prophet (ﷺ). The whole generation? My whole generation was destroying all of the sunnah of the Prophet (ﷺ).

**[12:15]** You guys don't respect what the Prophet (ﷺ) used to do, and you're distorting it. What mistake did you make? I was like, did I forget my mouth? Like, what did it, like, did I get my hair? What in the world did I do wrong here? And I was like, don't engage, right? No, I'm not gonna do it, I'm not gonna do it.

**[12:30]** Big up to you. I would have, I would have ranted just right back. It was so tempting, but I told myself, it's really not worth it, right? Yeah. And honestly, what made me, I think, sad about the whole situation, I was like, man, if I was anyone else, I happen to be strong, alhamdulillah,

**[12:46]** like, in my faith, to get past that. This guy, I couldn't help but think of, like, that 16-year-old, the 25-year-old, the person who's never prayed in their life or really was just, like, inspired that moment they saw a masjid to pray and they had that experience. They would be so discouraged. They'd be so discouraged. So I really genuinely felt sad after that moment,

**[13:02]** not for myself, but for, like, the culture that we have, right? I think things need to change, right? I think we need to have, there's a lot of work to do. There will always be work to do, right? But I remember thinking as well,

**[13:17]** what would be the typical reaction I would have had? And I think to myself, like, well, I would have gone to my friend and been like, oh my God, can you believe I experienced this? You would have ranted and raved. Yeah, like, what would you do? How could she have the audacity to do this? And that, like, I never want to go to a masjid again.

**[13:35]** Yeah, but that's all legitimate. It's legitimate, yeah. Why would she shout at you? It's legitimate in the sense that you have the right to be a bit discouraged. It's totally understandable to be discouraged. And then your friend would be like, I'm so sorry you even had to experience this. And that comfort is nice and it's good.

**[13:52]** And I'm not discounting any of that. But what I do think should happen at least some of the times is instead of sort of, like, wallowing in, like, I can't believe this happened to me,

**[14:08]** how would things look different if I just said, you know what, she made a mistake. She might not have recognized it. But I'm gonna choose to forgive and forget, right? Because cognitive theory tells you what? Your thoughts affect your feelings.

**[14:24]** Your feelings affect your behavior. So what you think, if you're coming out of these situations and you're constantly, like, deflated, because it can be deflating, and you're constantly deflating, that's gonna affect your feelings. It's gonna sort of be this cycle of learned pessimism where it's like, of course this would happen.

**[14:40]** This is exactly why I don't want the masjid. Of course, of course. You're validating all of what happened. We have no control over who we meet, what they say to us, what their opinions of us are going to be. So we can't let it affect us. Yeah, and I think that's exactly it. Because again, right,

**[14:55]** if thoughts affect feelings, feelings affect behavior, like, it ends up, again, your mental health is at stake here. And you can't control the negative people in your life. You can't control them,

**[15:10]** but what you can do is the ball is in your court. You can control how you think and reflect and act upon them, right? How you react makes the biggest of differences. Because if you come back and say, like, you know what, I'm gonna forgive in this situation,

**[15:25]** you're coming out stronger in the end because you're not letting it get to you. Rather than saying, like, I can't believe this happened to me again, that feeling doesn't go away. It simmers and it boils over eventually, time and time again. It's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. And then you're just always feeling

**[15:41]** that feeling of being down. Because it's hard, it's hard to hear like that negativity time and time again. What I'm trying to focus on is what we can control. Right. How can we be stronger and walk away better people in situations like this?

**[15:57]** Because you know what, it's not easy. Absolutely not easy. And you can only do it when Allah is at the center of your life. Because in our society today, right, it's like, well, why would you forgive someone? They wronged you, that's your right, therefore, like- Be angry till the day you die. Be angry till the day you die.

**[16:12]** And it's, again, it's like, it takes a toll on you to forgive. Like, that's the mentality. There's no personal incentive for forgiveness if there's no Allah in the picture. Why would I forgive you, right? You need Allah at the picture to do that, right? There's no other reason, good reason.

**[16:29]** And then, again, you're stuck in this negative cycle. Like, I think about the virtue of forgiveness, and I think about a couple stories from the Seerah. Right. Aisha (رضي الله عنها), it's the big scandal, it's a big fitnah, where she's accused of one of the worst things possible,

**[16:45]** right, she's accused of fornication. Now, the scandal rolls out, and there's one person in particular, well, there's multiple people, but there's one person in particular that's of interest to us, who's going around and spreading these rumors, these, literally, these lies against Aisha (رضي الله عنها),

**[17:02]** and it's a cousin of hers, it's a family member of hers. This particular family member of hers, Abu Bakr (رضي الله عنه), was giving him money, right? He was donating to him, it's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was going around spreading lies about his daughter, right? So, post-scandal, what does Abu Bakr (رضي الله عنه) do?

**[17:18]** Abu Bakr (رضي الله عنه), another one who chooses sort of like the most simple of repercussions, which is like, you know what? There's a lot of people who need money, I'm just gonna give it to someone else. Yeah. Ayah in the Quran comes down, وَلْيَعْفُوا وَلْيَصْفَحُوا أَلَا تُحِبُّونَ أَن يَغْفِرَ اللَّهُ لَكُمْ Like, forgive and pardon,

**[17:34]** wouldn't you want Allah to forgive you? Specifically speaking to Abu Bakr (رضي الله عنه) and his action. Because in a moment like that, I would wanna do a lot more than just withhold my money, right? And it would be perfectly legitimized. It'd be perfectly legitimized, like this person did wrongdoing.

**[17:50]** So, aside from, okay, here's disclaimer number 72. We're not talking about cases of harm, right? Justice needs to be pursued in those cases, right? Please, please don't misunderstand me. What I'm saying here is that there are some cases, even very, what we would consider to be severe.

**[18:08]** Yes. That pushing past might be the better option. Because what's the alternative? Because what's the alternative? I mean, in cases of harm, pursue justice, right? But in cases where it's a matter of, of it in turn infecting you, right?

**[18:25]** Affecting your, again, your mental health, the better thing is to forgive, right? And again, of course, in some cases, this can be extremely difficult, which is why, again, you need Allah at the center. Because I have no reason to want to forgive.

**[18:40]** I have no, and I, you know, no worldly reason. But you know what? I have Allah at the center. I'm gonna think big, and I'm gonna think, yeah, well, I'm doing this just for you and nothing else. You know what that reminds me of? Yeah. A companion of the Prophet (ﷺ). Well, the Prophet (ﷺ), is sitting around, got all the companions around him,

**[18:55]** and he says, next person who walks through that door is a man of paradise. Wow. Could you imagine sitting around and being like, who in the world is that? Who got to show up, right? Wow. I wanna know. Man walks in. Fascinating, we don't even know the name, right? Like, this man was so low-key,

**[19:12]** the narration, his name is not even recorded. Like, just a simple, regular man. Right. Second day, it happens. Prophet (ﷺ), same situation, sitting around with his companions. Next person walks in, paradise. Man of paradise. Same exact guy walks in. Same guy from yesterday? Same guy from yesterday.

**[19:28]** Third day, third time, same thing happens. The Prophet (ﷺ), is sitting there with another companion. He's like, what in the world is this guy doing? Abdullah ibn Amr (رضي الله عنه). Yeah, what's your secret? The Prophet (ﷺ), three times has to emphasize that you're a man of paradise. So, Abdullah (رضي الله عنه),

**[19:43]** goes up to this man, he makes up this story to be like, you know, I need a place to stay, can I crash with you? He's like, I gotta see what this guy's doing. Like, he must be praying all night, he must be fasting all day. Like, there's gotta be something for the secret. He stays with him. Three days go by and I was like,

**[19:59]** I could not figure out what this guy was doing. To be a person who's like, guaranteed paradise. Guaranteed paradise, right? He's like, he was sleeping at night, man wasn't fasting, like, what's happening here? And Abdullah (رضي الله عنه), goes up to him and he says, listen, like, in actuality, I'm not really here

**[20:14]** because I needed a place to stay. I just wanted to figure out what you do because the Prophet of Allah (ﷺ), multiple times said, you're a man of paradise. So like, you know, what's your secret? And the man responds and says, me, huh, like, well, did you think about it?

**[20:30]** We're adding some, you know, suspense to the story. He goes, well, you know, well, I guess every night before I go to sleep, I forgive anyone, anyone or everyone that's sort of I've encountered. And he's like, that's it. That's the secret.

**[20:45]** And like, to me, that's like, again, like, think of the Prophet of Allah (ﷺ), who faced the most horrendous of crimes against him. Yes. If he didn't forgive (ﷺ), like, day one, right, things would have looked differently. And it goes back to the point of what you were saying earlier.

**[21:03]** You'd be miserable if you were just carrying all of this baggage with you and you're like, you know what, my uncle did this to me and my other uncle did that to me. And you know what? They threw dirt on me and they call me all sorts of names. Referring to the Prophet of Allah (ﷺ). Yeah, yeah, yeah. If that was his reality,

**[21:21]** like, he wouldn't be able to have done half the things he did in his lifetime because he would have been so bitter. Yeah. And yet he chose to forgive. He chose to forgive. And of course, we know the character of the Prophet (ﷺ) is impeccable, right? And so I think it comes like full circle. This is not to say you forgive everyone,

**[21:37]** you just, again, we're living a life of kumbaya and like everyone's happy. No, no, no. But I think we need to be more intentional and more selective about things that upset us. Right? And also the type of life you want to live. The type of life you want to live, because it's important. Once you have Allah back in that picture,

**[21:52]** it becomes significantly easier to do that. I'm not saying it's easy, but it's definitely not as impossible as it now feels like in our world today. So really what I'm trying to get at is that we have Allah in our lives. We exist to worship Him as He tells us in the Quran.

**[22:09]** I did not create you except to worship Me, to come to know Me. I love you and I want to know you and all of that, right? And through Allah, we have the Quran and Sunnah. And the Quran and Sunnah with the laws and principles that it comes with are not a set of restraints.

**[22:25]** It's clarity. It's guidance. It's purpose. It's a reminder. Like we have something here on earth to do. And a virtue like forgiveness, even when it's hard, it's not about me, it's about Allah right now. So don't do you, do Allah. Don't do you, do Allah.

**[22:40]** I like that, right? But there's that, again, it's like you, then something like forgiveness becomes something aspiring. It makes you feel good. It's confident. It brings you closer to Allah. Or anything, right? Or anything, right? Even your commitment, especially your commitment,

**[22:56]** I'm gonna pray even when everyone thinks it's ridiculous. I'm gonna wear hijab even if people disagree. I'm going to speak the truth in the face of injustice. Because it's not about me. It's not about me. I will risk losing my job. I will risk losing my social status. Because at the end of the day, it's about Allah.

**[23:13]** And that's gonna make you happier. That, I guarantee you, will make you happier. Guarantee is a strong word. That's Allah's promise, not mine. So we got all to gain and nothing to lose. Absolutely. How are you putting Allah at the center of your life? Let us know in the comments.

**[23:33]** you

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