Tuesday, September 7, 2010

The story of Hope and Fate

What we are always told in life, is to hope for the best and expect the worst.. or something to that effect. But we are never warned that, hopes, the unrealistic ones, can be extremely devastating. These hopes have the power to let you sink to the bottom, to eventually leave you hopeless. You start wondering where you are, how did you get there, what went wrong, what did you do wrong, what did you do to deserve this.

We are never told to know when to stop hoping, when to give up entirely. And this is something that can never be told because it is one of those things you learn after bitter experiences. You learn when it is time to stop hoping. This should be the time when you've done all you could to stop something bad from happening, in fact you have done more than you even imagined yourself doing. This is the time when you have given more than you could, more than you were capable of giving. This is the time when you realize that your efforts are going in vain. And if it's not just a personal experience, then your efforts might be given a wrong meaning, a reflection of a thought that never entered your mind. And this is the time when you should stop. All the time you were trying to bring improvement in the state of affairs, you were hoping that things would eventually turn out well, and that you'll forget all of this or at least mark it and put it in the 'Fun and Learning' cabinet of your memories storage. But as it doesn't turn out that way, this is the time when you give up just on the efforts, this is the time when you have to sit back and leave everything on Allah. Allah asks us to make efforts but also to trust Him and to believe that whatever He gives to us is the best for us, no matter if it doesn't seem that way at the time. So this is the time when you keep hoping, but this is also the time when you stop fighting. You leave everything on Allah, and you don't even so much as move a finger to improve the situation. You just let it be. At this point, again, things could go in both ways, they could either be in your favor, or they could either push you to the edge, to the line which separates you from 'living your life' and 'just going through it'.

If all goes well, then you are happy, then all the decision you made seem to be the right ones, all hopes that you had seem to be realistic.

But if this is not the case, then you are quite far away from the happy-folk's land, all the decisions you took seem to be the wrong ones, all hopes seem to be unrealistic. And this is exactly the time, when you should stop hoping that things would ever be the same again. You should always hope that somewhere along the way you'll be able to buy a home in that happy-folk's land, but you should stop hoping that things would go your way at the moment. If they haven't until now, then hoping that they ever would is equivalent to pushing yourself to the edge and then not even wanting to be rescued. If you have left everything on Allah, then accept whatever he sends your way, because whatever he sends would eventually turn out to be the best. The things that you didn't get in spite of working hard, praying hard and hoping hard, are the things which are not good for you, which are not meant for you to have. There are somethings which have to be accepted as fate. But at this point, you should know that at least in the future you'll be saved from the torture of thinking 'I could have done something', because you know that you did all you could have done, and you know that you gave even more of yourself than you should have and than you could have.

I might have not been able to make my point clear through this post. I might not have been able to do justice. But I guess this is something you have to go through to understand, to really understand. And unfortunately, we all go through it at some point in our life. :)

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Very well written. It starts with a some what despairing feeling and ends up showing to all of us a lot of light, showing us where we may have gone wrong and what to do when all that can go wrong has gone wrong.

I would like to keep things short and simple,just like the post "Main ney iraadoon ke nakami se Allah ko Pehchana. (Hazrat Ali (may Allah be Pleased with Him))". Short, simple and effective.

Intricate said...

@Muhammad Ammad Saleem..
Thanks a lot Ammad. :)

And this is very true. I guess it is when you fail, and when you realize that so much is out of your hands that you understand the true power of Allah. And you realize that He is the only one to be trusted. :)

Unknown said...

Nice post. I think you are write, at some point in our lives, eventually we face such situations in which we find ourselves no where.

What I believe is that, these ups and downs are part of life and helps us to get closer to ALLAH.

Success is the blend of Hard Work and Luck. We should do our part honestly and then leave the end results on Almighty. It will keep the life simple and tension free :)

Intricate said...

@Muhammad
Thanks.
Yes these ups and down do help us get closer to Allah. They remind us that with Him lies the power to change things. :)

Yousuf said...

Well written larki...

There comes a stage when its just not happening for you. You really should take it easy or leave it on God at that stage and that gives you internal peace and self satisfaction for that is the most important thing in life rather than any tangible or emotionally valuable possession.

BUT
A man shall never stop hoping.. Hope is the basic ingredient of life.. Hope and try again and again till the last breath.. thats what life is, thats whats the beauty of life really..

p.s: Watch this movie. The Shawshank Redemption

Intricate said...

@Yousuf..
Thanks a lot Yousuf :D

Yes, sometimes we should just leave everything on Allah and just sit quietly and pray to Him for doing the best for you because it is only Allah who knows what really is best for us.
But I was talking about unrealistic hopes that we should let go of. :)