Nobody

I think most people today at one point in their life are scared of being a nobody. The thought of living an entire life being unknown, leaving little to no trace behind of your name except to your family and friends who will mourn you for a short time before moving on can be at the very least unsettling. The thought that when everything is stripped away, there might not have been much to you after all.

Maybe that's why we live our lives chasing achievements that we believe give us significance in the eyes of men: money, followers, connections, experiences.

We build up this image of ourselves and spend every ounce of ourselves to maintain it. Whether this is completely inherently wrong, that I am still figuring out.
But a question that may be uncomfortable to deal with that many of us ignore is:

"Who am I underneath all of it?"

Strip away your degree, the achievements, the money, the followers. Strip yourself of everything worldly and ask yourself,

"What is left?"

I think that's when the idea of having substance as an individual kicks in.

Because you can be important without being substantial. You can know how to speak without your words being meaningful. You can have opinions without principles. You can have thousands, even millions follow your life without having much depth to your existence. However the reality is that today's world applauds appearance to the point where being seen is mistaken for being somebody. Constantly encouraged to build a personal brand before cultivating your character.

And I think that's where the problem begins. If you spend your entire life proving to others that you are somebody, you will never actually end up being somebody.

You become a living showcase. Your degree, career, money, followers. Everything the world tells you gives you value is all on the surface to be displayed, but in reality beneath the display, you become a hollow shell, decorated with worldly achievements.

When your sense of worth becomes dependent on other people, then you will always crave the approval of others even if it slowly starts to chip away at your soul. Because there will always be someone else to impress, a record to break. There will always be someone who has something that you don't. You spend your entire life proving your worth to people who never had the ability to give it to you in the first place.

So what does it actually mean to have substance?

I don't think substance means being well spoken, intelligent or even particularly interesting. Those can exist without having much depth behind them. To me substance is something that exists within you independent of how people perceive you. There are principles you hold onto when no one is there to enforce them, convictions you have not borrowed from what's trending or popular, and a character that remains consistent regardless of who you are around.

Substance is built in the parts of your life that cannot be displayed. It is the knowledge you pursue when there is no certificate waiting at the end of it. It is the ability to sit alone with your thoughts without needing constant validation. It is knowing what you believe, why you believe it, and sticking by it even when doing so is difficult. It is having enough depth within yourself that you don't need to perform for others to feel like you have value.

Being unknown isn't as frightening as we make it out to be. You could live your entire life without becoming famous, never attaining a large following. The furthest your name reaches is a distant relative across the world. Yet your life may be more significant than someone whose name everyone knew.

There are people who have passed whose names are barely remembered by their families, their deeds never documented, their stories never told. They lived and passed unknown to the world. But their names were known to Allah, their stories witnessed in full, recorded for eternity yet ignored by the world.

If substance is what remains when everything visible is stripped away, then the point was never to be seen by everyone or to have your worth proven by them.

It was to live a life worthy of being known by the One who is always watching, that is how you truly become somebody.