Who is the next flight for?

I’ve flown once in my life. The next one isn’t mine.

By Farhan Terubos · 3 October 2026 · 3 min read · Issue #5

We had to leave the house very early in the morning to catch it.

It was my first flight. It is still my only one.

We were flying to an island up in the north of Malaysia, one of the best-known holiday spots in the country. Like anything you do for the very first time, it pulled me in. Everything about it was new and interesting. I have not forgotten it, and I don’t think I ever will.

But here is the strange part.

I didn’t really enjoy the trip itself.

I had been to that island before. The place wasn’t new to me. The only new thing that day was the way we got there.

So what stayed with me from that holiday wasn’t the holiday. It was the getting there.

I have been on a plane once in my whole life. I have never been outside Malaysia. Not once.

When I sit down and make a list of what I actually want from life, a plane ticket for me isn’t at the top.

At the top are my mother and my father. I want to send them for hajj and umrah. And if I ever have the means, I want to put them on a plane and show them a bit of this world.

I don’t treat that as a problem I have. I treat it as a goal I haven’t reached yet. I don’t know when I’ll reach it. I only know I’m going to keep working towards it until I do.

People sometimes ask why I want to be rich. That is my answer. Not to sit on it. Not to have more than the next person. I want to be someone with enough to give, and I want to start with the two people who gave me everything first.

I want to see the world myself too, one day. Different countries. Different cultures. People speaking languages that aren’t Malay or English. I’m not going to pretend I don’t.

But there is an order to it.

Before any of it, I want to feel that what I already have is enough.

In Malay we have a word for that feeling: qana’ah. Being content with what Allah has given you. I actually ask Allah for it. Because without it, I don’t think I could ever be properly grateful. I’d only ever see what I haven’t got yet.

And when I do stop and look back over my 36 years, the list of what I have been given is long. Much longer than one flight.

That one flight taught me something small that turned out to matter more than I expected.

A first time is special because it’s the first time. That feeling only comes once. I had mine. I don’t need to go chasing it again for myself.

What I want now is to put my parents on that plane.

I’ve had my first flight. The next one, I want to give away.

Here’s the part people get wrong about feeling “enough”. They think it will make you stop trying.

It doesn’t. The Prophet didn’t teach us to sit and wait for rezeki to walk in through the door. He taught us to go out and work for it. If you want to eat, the food isn’t going to come to you by itself.

So I want both. Enough in the heart. Effort in the hands.

I would rather be the person who works for something and doesn’t get it, than the person who wishes for it every day and never does anything about it.

One day, I hope it’s my parents leaving the house very early in the morning to catch theirs.

That’s all for this week.
See you next Saturday.

Cheers,
Farhan