I was born and raised in southern California. Growing up I wasn't close to God. My parents forced me to learn arabic and read the quran which I did. When my parents were trying to be strict muslims and making sure I was praying and reading the quran I was not happy. My grades in school were low and I just felt like my life was not my life, and thus, not under my control. My parents finally stopped taking me to arabic courses due to conflicting schedules when I was 14. At the age of 14 I was speaking five languages, English, Bangla, Hindi, Arabic, and Spanish. My grades were utter shit by now. Had D's in two classes. A failure in my eyes and a huge disappointment to my parents.
Then something happened the week before I was going to take finals in school for the first semester. An awakening of sorts. I realized that this is my life and I should be in control of what I do and can't do. For so long I let my parents and religion come in the way of what I want for myself. And let's not kid ourselves, Islam is a very restricted religion. Religion kept me from being who I am and what to be, it simply kept me unhappy. I realized this and got to work. I didn't have arabic class to worry about and I decided I can't pray five times a day in this time of my life. My youth.
I passed my finals and managed to turn those D's into C-'s. A passing grade. But I wasn't done yet. I finished first semester with a 2.6 GPA. Pretty bad still, but passed all my classes. One semester later it was 3.4. One year later is 3.6. By junior year I had a 4.3 GPA. When applying to colleges, my cumulative GPA was 3.9 and my SAT was 1470/1600. Placing me in the top 2% of the nation.
After junior year (11th grade), my mom found out from my aunt who isn't very religious that I ate outside meats and fast food when she bought me fast food and asked what I wanted. Up until then my mom thought I only ate halal meat. My aunt didn't care. My mom told me that she thought I was eating halal all this time. She wasn't upset just surprised. Keep in mind she's aware that I was doing well in school and everyone spoke highly of me. Eating non-halal meats didn't change me for worse. She let it be.
During my sophomore year (10th grade), I smoked weed for the first time and didn't smoke it for another six months. Also around this time I had my first alcoholic drink. But didn't drink it often and would drink every 6-8 months or so. By junior year I was smoking weed every month or so. Grades were perfect 4.0 GPA still. I just felt relaxed and complete with my thoughts. I applied to numerous colleges, and I currently attend one of the best public universities in the nation. All this while being a non-practicing muslim. I abstain from eating pork and still do.
It felt good. Going to one of the top colleges in the world completely on my own merit while my peers who were muslim with strict parents couldn't meet standards for admission and had to turn to community college. I moved away from my parents and to college campus. For the first time in my life I felt truly free and my life was really mine.
I rushed and pledged a social fraternity. Fraternities are notorious for drinking and partying, and mine wasn't any different. I drank beer and hard alcohol almost every weekend. I was having fun. My grades were still great and I considered my education to be a priority over partying. I still smoked weed every week or so. I'm not addicted or anything as sometimes I simply stopped drinking or smoking weeks at a time because I just didn't want to or wasn't in the mood to do so. I've also snort cocaine once or twice and had pre-marital sex numerous of times with different partners (4 different girls) by the time I turned 19.
Obviously I won't do drugs or drink heavily when I graduate from college and start a job. But this is college.
Through all this, I remained a morally good person. However, I am not a good muslim. I donate when I can, help others, and respect others. I am the most successful I've ever been, and I am the farthest from practicing Islam. Just got offered a position in a lab as a research assistant. I'm not sure when if at all I am going to reintroduce Islam into my life. Islam restricted me. Would have turned me into a failure had I decided not to take control of my life.
I'm curious as to how I appear to muslims?
tl;dr: Once I separated myself from religion, and started living my life how I want, my life has been a lot better and successful. Although that includes a lot of sinning in Islam. What's your opinion of me?
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