American Muslima Writer -Daring to Work Towards Jannah

I had read an interesting book long ago when first saying shahada. "The Complete IDIOT's Guide to Understanding Islam". It has been about 5 years since I picked it up and read it but with all my new thoughts about how to minimilaize I started searching and what I read was interesting and thought provoking: (rough summery -excuse me it's been a while since English class)

"The Three-Fold Journey
All human beings have three levels of self-development though which they must pass durirng their lives:
1. The Animal Self: Basic intincts and desires; food, sex, creature omforts, wealth guide the life.....THink of all the people in the world who do nothing but indulge their whims.....The struggle of the Animal self stage is made harder by the efforts of an evil Jinn named Shaytan.....They do this by playing upon our fears, desires, and emotions.......eventully we will forget our Creator.

2. The Accusing Self: Higher-order questioning of our purpose; When we discard the life-is-a-big-party attitude and begin to pay attnetion to our fitrah, we recieve a flash of insight, a deep thought.....questions come flooding in: Why am I here?..... Happens when I die? Is there a next life?....A person may reflect days, months, years until being motivated to seek spiritual guidance. The person has become ready to look for God. .....looking for the familiar --Christan, Jew, buddism....Islam teaches that a sincere seeker tries to fully satisfy his or her spiritual hunger, the seeker will eventaully move beyond those previosuly revealed (and compromised) religions and into the Islmaic was of life that Allah revealed as His last religious "installment" to the world. After we reach this second stage....we realize we need God....we can try to mold our life according to His universal way. Through a daily regimen of prayer, fasting, reflection, and study and a conciousness of morality our heart becomes more and more at ease.

3. The Restful Self: Transcending worldliness as a focus; ....we may achieve complete peace and tranquility in our heart.....Nothing in this world holds us any longer...not phaed by any tragedy or bounty that may come our way. We realize we will die and return to God and that this whole life is a test for us.....While still maintaining a normal life [job, family, vacations], the person is no longer living only to satisfy himself but realize the higher purpose of life. "

Ok so that is what the book has to say now here is what got me to blog about this:
I was in stage one as an Atheist and searched through the old religions and unsatisfied just as it said above. SO I reached stage one and begining of stage two. I found Islam and am implimenting it as best as I can right now....so middle of stage two. Recently I have begun to enter stage three but am still trying to improve my stage two.... So there is some missing stages and a flaw in this stagement.
I realize the higher purpose and am taking steps to live it yet I'm still stuck in trying to implement. So there must be an inbetween stage called 2.5 where I think a lot of Muslim reach. They are not quite to that blissful forget the troubles of the world stage three yet over stage two.
Here at 2.5 the life becomes harder and Shaytan whispers more cunningly. When doing good deeds can get you in trouble.... "yesss stay up late cleaning your house and doing good for your family...pleassssing your husssband.....getting sssssooooo ssssleepy" Oops did I just miss Fajr cause I fell asleep exhausted from cleaning? We have to prioritize and learn to get things in order. Our spirit is excelling in following fitrah but our bodies are not yet follwoing orders to be obediant.
I'm personally at a point where i can give up my beloved collection of juice glasses [winegoblets] that I've collected since teen years. I see the dust gathering on them and see their pointlessness.... I even reached a state mentally where my stories don't matter and I know they don't matter for my future insha'Allah in Jannah but so far I have followed shaytan and decided to keep them for now though they take up so much room without a file cabinet in place yet....(see more worldly possessions i will forced to buy by keeping things i don't need)..... I can clearly see my mind and heart flowing easily into stage three but why are my actions so sluggish? Why can't I just do what I feel like doing and get rid of tv and get rid of these things I KNOW in my heart that don't benefit me and I know it's just shaytan whisperig to me to not follow good islamic teachings. In this book it also says some kids ages 4 to 7 read their first reading of the qur'an and have their party for it. I was like WHAT my daughter is 3.6yrs and she is just trying to get fatiha down much less reading the whole qur'an...... i'm failing as a parent? I'm leading my children to a life of worldly interests? I prayed and prayed for them to become religious scholors yet how am i helping them achieve this with Disney channel and not speaking arabic? I'm stuck at 2.5 stage of my soul's journey and I don't want to die in this stage uncompleted. I want to make up my missed prayers of the past years and continue to do good in the future and raise my kids to make it easy for their souls to reach stage 3 too.

What stage are you in?