"Believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.” ― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet"
Two books are on my bedside these days, the celebrated "A suitable boy" by Vikram Seth and the famous "Age of Innocence" . These two have long been on my bucket list and amidst the never ending rishta talk that has engulfed us since we graduated , I often laugh to myself on how very appropriate it is to be going through these two magnificent pieces of literature at a time like this, pun intended.
Ah! Have you jumped onto this bandwagon already?
Are you the one with the reins?
Are you a passerby?
Or are you merely a pebble on the rocky road?
Or do you simply not care at all?
It's natural to crave human relatibilty.
Or is it not?
Read on ..
As humans we are designed to seek to be loved but somewhere in that process some of us become prone to losing our own sense of self worth.
As teenagers raging with pubertal hormones,if any living , breathing being develops the least amount of feelings for you, that alone is often enough to give one's ego a major boost.
But as you grow older you realize how fickle and transient that feeling is and that setting yourself up to seek approval from the opposite sex alone is basically like setting really really low standards for yourself !
Self-fulfillment is the key.
(No guys! No! ewww not that!)
Be whole
One of the commonest mistakes we make in life is looking for some other person to complete us. To fill our void, we move from person to person, resulting in a series of unfulfilling relationships and disappointments. So before you entrust the burden of your own personal fulfillment on another, ensure that you are in a good place yourself.
To believe that another can provide you with what you must seek on your own is to delude yourself dangerously.
Yes! a partner can add sweet dimensions to your life !
Yes! a partner can feel like that missing puzzle piece!
( Yes, you! If you are reading this lol)
But to expect another to build you up from scratch - disaster.
So enter another's life when you know you will add to their life and not take away from it.
And similarly, allow another ONLY to enter your life when you know they will add to it.
Warna stay single and stay happy!
Invest in who will be with you your whole life - YOURSELF
Your teens and your early twenties are the times you must, must , must invest in yourself.
Find out what you love, what you itch for, who you want to be.
Love and romance will follow in the years to come.
It's bound to!
I promise you.
Yeh waqt guzar jaye ga aisay ya waisey, but it will shape you into the person you are going to become for the rest of your life, so if you can curb the obvious urge, curb it!
I promise you this, you will look back and be happy you didnt "time pass" through these essential years.
Bury the baggage
Stop blaming yourself for the mistakes of the past.
Kaafi logon ko kehtay sunaa hai kay " mujhay tou ab koi acha mil hi nahi sakta " , " I am damaged goods" , " meri tou kismat hi khrab hai" and so on.
Don't let your unrequited love or past mistakes overshadow what is to come!
Good things await.
It is Allah's promise.
"Indeed what is to come will be better for you than what has gone by. Verily your Lord will soon give you so amply that you will be well-pleased" - Surah Duha
Hope for the nothing less than the very best
Mostly people's "what to hope for" depends on their "what shall kill more"?
Would you daydream and set yourself up for imminent hurt if those hopes are not fulfilled or would you rather dread the worst and be pleasantly surprised at the little good life offers to you?
This confused me for a large part of my life till I came upon this particular hadith, mentioned in Sahih al-Bukhari ;
“Allah said, ‘I am to my slave as he thinks of me.’
In other words, Allah can do for us what we think Allah can do for us.
Therefore the one who believes in Allah should be optimistic and hopeful no matter what. Allah will relate to the person the way the person expects Him to.
So “Call upon Allah while being certain of being answered, and know that Allah does not respond to a supplication from the heart of one heedless and occupied by play!"
Getting over the one
One of the hardest things in life, they say, is to get over someone you love very deeply and believe that you just can't live without.
Due to unforeseen circumstances , people don't always end up together.
This is how this life is and yet, it goes on!
Jitna bol lo "tumharey beghair nahi reh sakta" , jab sarr pey parhti hai, one has to cope , one should and one usually does.
( Sadly excluding the 19 young men and women I personally saw either die or spend the rest of their lives in and out of endoscopy rooms after some very jazbati decisions)
I know you dont want to be told this but its all going to work out and all you have to do is trust in Allah's plan.
I know you had plans honey! I know you did!
But Who is the best of Planners?
Him!
So ankhein band, trust in His plan and chaltay jao!
As a friend of mine says
"Kashti mein bethay raho, kashti chalnay do, abhi aur bhi achi cheezain ana baaki hain"
Protect your heart - you only got one
Don't exhaust your emotional reserve
I remember telling post-breakup-grieving friends that
"Pyaar ka kia hai? behta dariya hai! dobara hojaye ga"
But the truth of the matter is the more you chose to indulge yourself in random flirtations, the sooner shall all this lose any meaning for you!
And by the time the person who you are actually going to be spending the rest of your life comes along, you will just be like blkh!
As a teenager, to be honest I often found these restrictions absurd.
But as I grow older I realize that what seemed like restrictions set up by our religion are actually safety measures and when we attempt to trangress these limits set up by Allah we only end up hurting ourselves.
Yes! Emotions are something one has no control over.
You love who you love, uss ka kuch nahi ho sakta! Na hi insaan ki uss mein koi ghalti hai!
But how you channel those feelings is definitely in your control.
To allow it to get to the point from where there is no turning back is sheer stupidity.
I remember dining out with one of my newly married friends and we were discussing the premarital getting-to-know-each-other thing and her husband exclaimed how he didn't even"allow" himself to think about it till their baat pakki .
Now that's smart!
Don't be a coward!
If you feel the feels, I will urge you to see that through and make it happen , no matter what!
Yes women! talk to your dad about it! It is your God given right to marry the one you love.
And man up guys, send a rishta already!
Are you even ready?
Marriage ,as much as I have heard about it, is not just an extravagant wedding.
Relationships cannot possibly be summed up in one hand in hand profile photo.
Like everything else in life, successful relationships require dedication, input and a certain selflessness.
Before you embark on such a journey, or wonder why you are not being put to test as of right now, maybe stop for a minute and think? Are you ready?
Tick-tock
People might tell you that the time is here and now.
But really, whose time?
What timeline?
Your time will come on your time.
No two clocks are the same.
The timing on your very own personal timeline that ,oh puhleez! does not need to be compared with everyone else's!!, is set by Allah.
And He is the best of planners!
So how could your clock ever wind up wrong?
It possibly can't!
Allah's timing is always right.
The question is , Are you doing what you are supposed to be doing in this particular period or wasting your time wondering about a nonexistant flaw in the machinery?
Where will I find the one
Pakistan ka awal tareen masla
At other people's shaadis? At the workplace? At the college? At that event?
Although the above scenarios have worked out perfectly well for a lot of people, I'll still say that the best way to find love is to to stop looking.
Invest your energy in yourself, focus on what you love doing, whatever makes you happy, whatever fulfills you and the right person will walk in at the right time, trust me on that!
And when they do, hopefully they will find you engrossed in what ignites your passion and they will love you for who you are and there shall be no need for any pretences.
STOP LOOKING people! Lurve will come to you.
How do you know for sure?
Oh you will know!
In case you don't, Istikhara to the rescue!
And that is better than any pros n cons list you could ever come up with.
Ask Allah to guide you and once you get the green signal , go for it!
(P.S As is commonly mispercieved , the green signal does not HAVE to be a dream, it could be anything! from things going forwards smoothly to a certain calm in the heart)
DO NOT SUCCUMBDO NOT, and I repeat this a million times, DO NOT GIVE IN TO PEER PRESSURE!
I know society has been tuned to percieve marriage as a milestone but you and I both know it's not!
So do not settle!
Do not give in!!
Do your thang and go for it only when you feel the feels!
The best supplication
I picked up this dua from a story that is truly life transforming.
It transformed Hazrat Musa's life and as utopian as it may sound, I truly feels like it has blessed my life in unimaginable ways too.
So this story is about Musa [AS] , before he was given prophet hood.
Hazrat Musa accidently killed a man and fled from the Pharoah to the city of Madyan.
Now, he found himself at a well when he arrived at the city of Madyan.
At the well he saw a group of men watering their flocks, and two women were standing behind waiting for their turn since they could not jostle with the men for position. Seeing this injustice he took the flock of the women and watered them on their behalf amongst the men.
After he was finished, Musa [AS] went to a shade and made this beautiful dua,
Rabbi innee lima anzalta ilayya min khayrin faqeerun
“O My Lord! Truly am I in (desperate) need of any good that You bestow on me!”
[Surah Qasas:24]
Immediately aferwards, Musa [AS] was asked by one of the two sisters to come meet their old father who wanted to reward Musa [AS] for watering the flock of his daughters by marrying him to one of his daughters, and that too on the request of his daughter.
I heard this story in one of Nauman Ali Khan's lectures and it just struck me as deeply profound.
I mean Musa [AS] asked Allah that he is in desperate need of any khair to come from Allah, and Allah gave him a house, a family and a job all in one go!
Believe it or not, this dua has worked miracles for me and although this is really personal for me, I'll share this in the hope that if you are reading this and standing at that particular crossroad in life; that this shall enlightnen you with a flicker of hope as it enlightened me.
Sooo I remember being in a really uncertain place in my life last year.
It was a time in my life when I had lost all courage and willpower to venture forth into what awaited after the safe havens of college life.
So there I was , being bombarded by aunties ; uncertain about whether I'll pursue housejob or sit down for steps ; not sure if I even wanted to get hitched any time soon ; completely utterly confused and not only about these wordly matters but other things too ;and I remember I just had this one dua on my tongue all the time.
I didn't want to settle for someone I wasn't excited to spend the rest of my life with and at the same time I felt I was being ungrateful every time I refused. I wasn't sure if I was going to go ahead with my housejob and I was certain I was never going to get an internship in the ward I wanted to be in as I was too low on the list for it.
But I remember praying incessantly.
Now you might call it mere coincidence or if you may, you might call it a miracle but it was at the exact same day last year that I finally met the guy who is soon to become my husband InshaAllah aaaand bagged the internship I wanted.
Job tick!
Life partner tick! (InshaAllah)
How could I possibly not relate that to Hazrat Musa's story!?
Say MashaAllah!
Know your centre
Most important of all, whether you are married, engaged, single or whatever, keep that status in one of the many quadrants of the human heart and not at the centre.
Let the centre be occupied by Who shall truly never leave your side!
Let me end this with a quote;
“It takes three to make love, not two: you, your spouse, and God. Without God people only succeed in bringing out the worst in one another. Lovers who have nothing else to do but love each other soon find there is nothing else. Without a central loyalty life is unfinished.” ― Fulton J. Sheen, Lessons from Cana and Calvary
Two books are on my bedside these days, the celebrated "A suitable boy" by Vikram Seth and the famous "Age of Innocence" . These two have long been on my bucket list and amidst the never ending rishta talk that has engulfed us since we graduated , I often laugh to myself on how very appropriate it is to be going through these two magnificent pieces of literature at a time like this, pun intended.
Ah! Have you jumped onto this bandwagon already?
Are you the one with the reins?
Are you a passerby?
Or are you merely a pebble on the rocky road?
Or do you simply not care at all?
It's natural to crave human relatibilty.
Or is it not?
Read on ..
As humans we are designed to seek to be loved but somewhere in that process some of us become prone to losing our own sense of self worth.
As teenagers raging with pubertal hormones,if any living , breathing being develops the least amount of feelings for you, that alone is often enough to give one's ego a major boost.
But as you grow older you realize how fickle and transient that feeling is and that setting yourself up to seek approval from the opposite sex alone is basically like setting really really low standards for yourself !
Self-fulfillment is the key.
(No guys! No! ewww not that!)
Be whole
One of the commonest mistakes we make in life is looking for some other person to complete us. To fill our void, we move from person to person, resulting in a series of unfulfilling relationships and disappointments. So before you entrust the burden of your own personal fulfillment on another, ensure that you are in a good place yourself.
To believe that another can provide you with what you must seek on your own is to delude yourself dangerously.
Yes! a partner can add sweet dimensions to your life !
Yes! a partner can feel like that missing puzzle piece!
( Yes, you! If you are reading this lol)
But to expect another to build you up from scratch - disaster.
So enter another's life when you know you will add to their life and not take away from it.
And similarly, allow another ONLY to enter your life when you know they will add to it.
Warna stay single and stay happy!
Invest in who will be with you your whole life - YOURSELF
Your teens and your early twenties are the times you must, must , must invest in yourself.
Find out what you love, what you itch for, who you want to be.
Love and romance will follow in the years to come.
It's bound to!
I promise you.
Yeh waqt guzar jaye ga aisay ya waisey, but it will shape you into the person you are going to become for the rest of your life, so if you can curb the obvious urge, curb it!
I promise you this, you will look back and be happy you didnt "time pass" through these essential years.
Bury the baggage
Stop blaming yourself for the mistakes of the past.
Kaafi logon ko kehtay sunaa hai kay " mujhay tou ab koi acha mil hi nahi sakta " , " I am damaged goods" , " meri tou kismat hi khrab hai" and so on.
Don't let your unrequited love or past mistakes overshadow what is to come!
Good things await.
It is Allah's promise.
"Indeed what is to come will be better for you than what has gone by. Verily your Lord will soon give you so amply that you will be well-pleased" - Surah Duha
Hope for the nothing less than the very best
Mostly people's "what to hope for" depends on their "what shall kill more"?
Would you daydream and set yourself up for imminent hurt if those hopes are not fulfilled or would you rather dread the worst and be pleasantly surprised at the little good life offers to you?
This confused me for a large part of my life till I came upon this particular hadith, mentioned in Sahih al-Bukhari ;
“Allah said, ‘I am to my slave as he thinks of me.’
In other words, Allah can do for us what we think Allah can do for us.
Therefore the one who believes in Allah should be optimistic and hopeful no matter what. Allah will relate to the person the way the person expects Him to.
So “Call upon Allah while being certain of being answered, and know that Allah does not respond to a supplication from the heart of one heedless and occupied by play!"
Getting over the one
One of the hardest things in life, they say, is to get over someone you love very deeply and believe that you just can't live without.
Due to unforeseen circumstances , people don't always end up together.
This is how this life is and yet, it goes on!
Jitna bol lo "tumharey beghair nahi reh sakta" , jab sarr pey parhti hai, one has to cope , one should and one usually does.
( Sadly excluding the 19 young men and women I personally saw either die or spend the rest of their lives in and out of endoscopy rooms after some very jazbati decisions)
I know you dont want to be told this but its all going to work out and all you have to do is trust in Allah's plan.
I know you had plans honey! I know you did!
But Who is the best of Planners?
Him!
So ankhein band, trust in His plan and chaltay jao!
As a friend of mine says
"Kashti mein bethay raho, kashti chalnay do, abhi aur bhi achi cheezain ana baaki hain"
Protect your heart - you only got one
Don't exhaust your emotional reserve
I remember telling post-breakup-grieving friends that
"Pyaar ka kia hai? behta dariya hai! dobara hojaye ga"
But the truth of the matter is the more you chose to indulge yourself in random flirtations, the sooner shall all this lose any meaning for you!
And by the time the person who you are actually going to be spending the rest of your life comes along, you will just be like blkh!
As a teenager, to be honest I often found these restrictions absurd.
But as I grow older I realize that what seemed like restrictions set up by our religion are actually safety measures and when we attempt to trangress these limits set up by Allah we only end up hurting ourselves.
Yes! Emotions are something one has no control over.
You love who you love, uss ka kuch nahi ho sakta! Na hi insaan ki uss mein koi ghalti hai!
But how you channel those feelings is definitely in your control.
To allow it to get to the point from where there is no turning back is sheer stupidity.
I remember dining out with one of my newly married friends and we were discussing the premarital getting-to-know-each-other thing and her husband exclaimed how he didn't even"allow" himself to think about it till their baat pakki .
Now that's smart!
Don't be a coward!
If you feel the feels, I will urge you to see that through and make it happen , no matter what!
Yes women! talk to your dad about it! It is your God given right to marry the one you love.
And man up guys, send a rishta already!
Are you even ready?
Marriage ,as much as I have heard about it, is not just an extravagant wedding.
Relationships cannot possibly be summed up in one hand in hand profile photo.
Like everything else in life, successful relationships require dedication, input and a certain selflessness.
Before you embark on such a journey, or wonder why you are not being put to test as of right now, maybe stop for a minute and think? Are you ready?
Tick-tock
People might tell you that the time is here and now.
But really, whose time?
What timeline?
Your time will come on your time.
No two clocks are the same.
The timing on your very own personal timeline that ,oh puhleez! does not need to be compared with everyone else's!!, is set by Allah.
And He is the best of planners!
So how could your clock ever wind up wrong?
It possibly can't!
Allah's timing is always right.
The question is , Are you doing what you are supposed to be doing in this particular period or wasting your time wondering about a nonexistant flaw in the machinery?
Where will I find the one
Pakistan ka awal tareen masla
At other people's shaadis? At the workplace? At the college? At that event?
Although the above scenarios have worked out perfectly well for a lot of people, I'll still say that the best way to find love is to to stop looking.
Invest your energy in yourself, focus on what you love doing, whatever makes you happy, whatever fulfills you and the right person will walk in at the right time, trust me on that!
And when they do, hopefully they will find you engrossed in what ignites your passion and they will love you for who you are and there shall be no need for any pretences.
STOP LOOKING people! Lurve will come to you.
How do you know for sure?
Oh you will know!
In case you don't, Istikhara to the rescue!
And that is better than any pros n cons list you could ever come up with.
Ask Allah to guide you and once you get the green signal , go for it!
(P.S As is commonly mispercieved , the green signal does not HAVE to be a dream, it could be anything! from things going forwards smoothly to a certain calm in the heart)
DO NOT SUCCUMBDO NOT, and I repeat this a million times, DO NOT GIVE IN TO PEER PRESSURE!
So do not settle!
Do not give in!!
Do your thang and go for it only when you feel the feels!
The best supplication
I picked up this dua from a story that is truly life transforming.
It transformed Hazrat Musa's life and as utopian as it may sound, I truly feels like it has blessed my life in unimaginable ways too.
So this story is about Musa [AS] , before he was given prophet hood.
Hazrat Musa accidently killed a man and fled from the Pharoah to the city of Madyan.
Now, he found himself at a well when he arrived at the city of Madyan.
At the well he saw a group of men watering their flocks, and two women were standing behind waiting for their turn since they could not jostle with the men for position. Seeing this injustice he took the flock of the women and watered them on their behalf amongst the men.
After he was finished, Musa [AS] went to a shade and made this beautiful dua,
Rabbi innee lima anzalta ilayya min khayrin faqeerun
“O My Lord! Truly am I in (desperate) need of any good that You bestow on me!”
[Surah Qasas:24]
Immediately aferwards, Musa [AS] was asked by one of the two sisters to come meet their old father who wanted to reward Musa [AS] for watering the flock of his daughters by marrying him to one of his daughters, and that too on the request of his daughter.
I heard this story in one of Nauman Ali Khan's lectures and it just struck me as deeply profound.
I mean Musa [AS] asked Allah that he is in desperate need of any khair to come from Allah, and Allah gave him a house, a family and a job all in one go!
Believe it or not, this dua has worked miracles for me and although this is really personal for me, I'll share this in the hope that if you are reading this and standing at that particular crossroad in life; that this shall enlightnen you with a flicker of hope as it enlightened me.
Sooo I remember being in a really uncertain place in my life last year.
It was a time in my life when I had lost all courage and willpower to venture forth into what awaited after the safe havens of college life.
So there I was , being bombarded by aunties ; uncertain about whether I'll pursue housejob or sit down for steps ; not sure if I even wanted to get hitched any time soon ; completely utterly confused and not only about these wordly matters but other things too ;and I remember I just had this one dua on my tongue all the time.
I didn't want to settle for someone I wasn't excited to spend the rest of my life with and at the same time I felt I was being ungrateful every time I refused. I wasn't sure if I was going to go ahead with my housejob and I was certain I was never going to get an internship in the ward I wanted to be in as I was too low on the list for it.
But I remember praying incessantly.
Now you might call it mere coincidence or if you may, you might call it a miracle but it was at the exact same day last year that I finally met the guy who is soon to become my husband InshaAllah aaaand bagged the internship I wanted.
Job tick!
Life partner tick! (InshaAllah)
How could I possibly not relate that to Hazrat Musa's story!?
Say MashaAllah!
Know your centre
Most important of all, whether you are married, engaged, single or whatever, keep that status in one of the many quadrants of the human heart and not at the centre.
Let the centre be occupied by Who shall truly never leave your side!
Let me end this with a quote;
“It takes three to make love, not two: you, your spouse, and God. Without God people only succeed in bringing out the worst in one another. Lovers who have nothing else to do but love each other soon find there is nothing else. Without a central loyalty life is unfinished.” ― Fulton J. Sheen, Lessons from Cana and Calvary
