Tears slide down your cheeks as you ponder over events that are currently the hot topics of your life. You try hard not to feel sorry for your own self. You try your best to be thankful for everything Allah has given you. Because face it – He has given you like a real, real lot. You have it better than most people in this world. So the point is – should you be even feeling the feelings you are feeling? Should you be even discussing this stuff with your family and friends? Should tears even be shining within your eyes?
So then what exactly are you supposed to do? Just shut out those feelings? Or are you supposed to cope with them and channelize them towards a better end? Keep reminding yourself that you have a whole lot of things to be thankful for. That isn’t so hard to do, is it? Well, not if your mind is at peace. But what if there’s this grueling debate going on in your mind every time you seem even a teeny bit ungrateful? You get this nagging voice in your head that when every time you complain or rant out in front of family and friends, says ‘how dare you?’ (And I’m pretty sure it’s with that spooky hissing sound!) Well, you should just try and shut it out too. It’s because it takes you to another extreme. It might just push you over the edge and make you really mad. At whom, you ask? Well, at yourself! For being logical all the time!
So you should be allowed to feel sorry for your own self some time in your life, right? Umm, not exactly. Because once you open that gate, it can lead you to this really dark and depressing valley. It can steer you to recount all the bad incidents that have ever occurred in your life – even the ones that don’t relate to this current bad event in your life! It can get you to a point that you begin to start feeling like a loser – as if you have not achieved anything in your life – which, by the way, is not true. If you’ve ever caused happiness in the life of even just one person around you, your life is most definitely worth living, my friend. So the question that arises is – why? Why does it have to be so simple to sink into this hole of self-pity? It’s because it’s effortless to feel negative. It’s like second nature. Unless, you condition yourself to be positive all the time. So how do you do that?
We’re all regular human beings, we have this natural instinct of being hopeful – even when we’re not exactly in the mood to be optimistic. Your heart would be down in the dumps, you would be ‘basking’ in misery, agonizing yourself over how there’s not even a glimmer of hope in your life. But even then, your heart knows that there’s still hope. It’s hope against hope but it’s there! Because no matter how despondent and dejected you feel, you know your Lord is there. He’s Watching over you, He Knows you’re hurt and He Knows how much. He’s got some good things Planned for you. He doesn’t want you to have them now because it’s not the time. It’s not your time – yet.
So this tiny gleam of confidence, of faith, of positivity – where does this come from? It comes from the very Source your (perceived) misery (a disguised Blessing or trial) has come from – the Almighty. He basically Guides you towards Himself. He Illuminates your path and drives away the darkness that you insist upon embracing, provided that you enact upon that slight sparkle of brightness, on the condition that you convince yourself to hold on to that light and that hope.
So what can you learn from that? It is to direct your expectations. It teaches you to subject all your hopes and pine all your expectations against that One Supreme Being. Your disappointments, failures, tears as well as victories, achievements and happiness are all from Him. Your expectations can either make or break you. They can make you if they’re from Allah but if you keep awaiting fulfillment of your dreams based on your anticipations from any lesser being, be sure that they would end up failing you in one way or another. Even when things slip out of your hands and it seems as if another person is to blame for it – be certain that it is the part of your Lord’s Magnificent Plan for you. You just need to keep faith and keep expecting but down the correct route and in the right direction.
