Put the Same Effort! and More!

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Probably unknown to many, alhamdulillah that Allah Al-Sitteer, the one that conceals, conceals what I have been obsessed with from most people, except when I wronged myself and expose my own sins to the others. I would not go into details, but let just say here that I was way too obsessed with entertainment, music and fandom to be exact. 

I know now that I really shouldn’t be doing what I have done, to the point of effort that I have put in. Especially when I have not put an ounce of effort to fulfil my obligations as an abd’ that time. The times that I will never get back, and the effects of sin that lingers, is now something that has become that flint that got stuck in the flesh. It hurts and it’s agonizingly bad. 

I wrote this in a reflection of an episode of Juz 30 for 30 that I listened to (in Ramadhan btw - this post has been sitting in my draft for so long and for what haha) where they discussed Juz 4 with the theme of True Success and the Rope of Allah. When Dr Tamara Gray tells the story about Ikramah, it just struck me. All of his past sin was forgiven by Allah when he accepted Islam but that wasn’t enough for him. He then proceeded to put in as much effort and more in Islam as he did when he was fighting against Islam, but now for Islam.

It has stricken me that I have spent way too much time and effort on worldly matters, especially entertainment, to the point, it has stolen the time I should have spent to worship Allah. Countless time I have delayed my solah when I actually can pray it on time but somehow "I've got no time" or "I'm busy, let's perform it one hour later". Worst, I put them off because I was too "busy" watching drama. Busy.Watching.Drama. Busy.Watching.Some.Kpop Group. Time is one thing, but remembering the effort that I used to put into fangirling, all the money... ya Allah, forgive me and let me not do that again. Allow me to put the same effort and more into exalting You, ya Rabb.

Putting this link under so that I can rewatch this whenever I re-read this reflection, insyaAllah. 

103:1 - 103:3 (Al-Asr) إِلَّا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَعَمِلُوا۟ ٱلصَّـٰلِحَـٰتِ وَتَوَاصَوْا۟ بِٱلْحَقِّ وَتَوَاصَوْا۟ بِٱلصَّبْرِ.وَٱلْعَصْر. إِنَّ ٱلْإِنسَـٰنَ لَفِى خُسْرٍ

By the ˹passage of˺ time! Surely humanity is in ˹grave˺ loss, except those who have faith, do good, and urge each other to the truth, and urge each other to perseverance. — Dr. Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran.

A Stressfull Week

I haven't been having this much stress due to work for such a long time already. I have been working at my current workplace for just a bit more than 6 months now. Usually it's just quiet days, even if there's many tasks, it is still manageable. Probably due to the fact that I have no mass production mode pressure yet. Honestly, it was a breeze 90% of the time.

But this week really got me so stressed out that I have to resort to morning coffee. I have been living without morning coffee for so long already but due to a case happening involving my operators, I broke my morning coffee "fasting". 

I have been thinking about the incident for the whole week and I still can't get over it. I have never felt so useless and incompetent at work before but they have made me felt just that. The fact that I was near them when the fight happen and I didn't manage to stop them. And the very fact that, part of the reason why the fight stemmed was due to my work arrangement. 

I have been getting the feeling that they didn't really regard me as their supervisor and the respect wasn't there but honestly, I don't care much. As long as they did their job, I am cool. But I guess, I am wrong. I need to do more. I am aware that respect is earned so I'll have to put more work into it. 

As I am writing this, I am just having flashback of not only the incident but also all the talks surrounding it and ughhhh I hate it so much like seriously. Dah la kerja lain pun banyak, and then they add MSG like this, it's really has been one hell of a week. Hopefully next week is better insyaAllah. 

We Really Don't Know Things

Bismillahirrahmannirrahim. 

Not so recently I went to a school junior's wedding and I went there with a senior whom I have always adored in my school years because of how kind she is; and her Quran recitation is super sweet btw!

When chatting with her on our journey to the wedding venue, I realized that we really don't know things and we can't predict life. And no matter how we try to be careful in what we choose to do, we might in end up in situation that is so bewildering. A life that was calm and beautiful might took a sudden downturn and went south and we might feel like we are drowning in all the overwhelming feelings that burst as the situation just unroll. 

We also might think that we have got all our bases covered, we have prepared things for our life to the "flowery" path, but really, life isn't all that pretty and we have been told by Allah this. This is the life of test, a place where we will get tested with either things that we have, or we don't have. Things that are abundant, or things that is absent in our life. And those who will taste the sweetness of rewards in the hereafter is those who always remember Him despite everything that comes our way.

Talking to her also make me realize that, we really don't know what people are going through behind the smiles that they gave. People might seem okay, people might seem happy, but we don't know that behind that façade, hide a hurt soul. And because we really don't know things, it is also the reason why we need to be nice and be kind to people for your kindness might be the thing that give the light for them for the day or the very reason for them to feel that life is worth it, no matter what might happen in life. 

It also makes me reflect of my life, and how I have lived and felt it when she asked me this "What are you living for now? What gives you joy?". For a moment, I was silent. I was struck by the fact that I am blessed. He has tested me and He has given me relief. He gave me grief, but there was abundance of love that held my life together. Our day to day life might not be beautiful or happy all the time, so is sadness, we don't feel it all the time... Sometimes we go about our day not feeling anything, and just went on to do our routines as usual. But even at that, how can we say that we have not tasted Allah's mercy everyday, to every second of our life. 

We have a lot to be grateful for, there will not be enough Alhamdulillah to utter if it's actually wajib for us to do that for every blessing that we get everyday even if we don't feel particularly happy on the day. We have a lot to raise our hands in dua for, and for that, may Allah always call us to Him and take us in his Rahmah. 

May Allah gives my beloved sister the happiness that she is searching for, may she find relief. And may Allah mends the broken and replaced the lost with something that so good that it brings her not only happiness on this Earth, but also be the means for her to get Jannah in the hereafter. She will not read this, (and no one is reading this anyway), but I love you sister, lillahitaala. You deserves good things, and may you find the solace that you need, insyaAllah. 

Keon Listen to: Podcasts for Woman

This year, one of my resolutions is to reduce my hours listening to music and increase both listening hours to Quranic recitation, Dhikr & Salawat and podcasts with good content. I have been listening to many podcasts and I wanted to document some of those that I love. For below list, mainly for the ladies.

The Aida Azlin Show

Unswtnd + Unfltrd

Voice Hug

The Sumi Show

Head Over Heels

Girls That Invest

My Eyes Turned Green

I recently listened to these podcast episodes. In the #50 Jealousy episode, they touched mostly on jealousy in different forms of relationships and in the #42 FOMO episode, they talk about FOMO stemming from social media. While the theme of these two episodes is different, they touched on jealousy, envy. 
My favorite part of both has to be when the hosts contemplate where their jealousy comes from because when they talked about that, it made me investigate where mine is coming from. While they were discussing this, they discussed a few factors.

         

Jealousy that come from ingratitude
There’s jealousy or worse, envy that comes from our own ingratitude. When we failed to be grateful to Allah for all the blessings that He has bestowed upon us. And that’s why when we see what He has given to others, the envy comes. If there’s a cure that I can think of is to do a lot of tasbih and tahmid. Say Subhanallah, say Alhamdulillah. And we also need to realize that Allah’s ‘package’ for everyone of His servants is different and every ‘item’ in the ‘package’  is for what’s best for us. We need to have a thankful heart that is always saying tahmid to him for all of the bounty that He has provided us with. I felt this creeping up way too much when I scrolled through Instagram, I felt jealous seeing other people's lives that look good in my life especially when they got something that I wished for. But I forgot that Allah has given me so much improvement in mine compared to previously and I failed to be grateful for His present for me. Ya Allah forgive my ingratitude. It is a bit drastic, but I end up uninstalling Instagram altogether because of this (also it’s because I mindlessly scroll way too much so I need to cut my social  media time). Alhamdulillah, it has made my heart more at peace and more focused on the goodness of my own life that He has given to me. 

Jealousy that come from arrogance, superiority, entitlement

You know when we feel like we are better than someone but they got better things? And they are happier? That’s when our heart is really ‘sick’. Arrogance is the sickness of the heart that is dangerous because with it, we will not enter Jannah. 

وعن عبد الله بن مسعود رضي الله عنه عن النبى صلى الله عليه وسلم قال‏: ‏ “لا يدخل الجنة من كان في قلبه مثقال ذرة من كبر” فقال رجل” إن الرجل يحب أن يكون ثوبه حسناً ونعله حسناً‏؟‏ قال‏: ‏ “إن الله جميل يحب الجمال الكبر بطر الحق وغمط الناس” ‏(‏‏(‏رواه مسلم‏)‏‏)‏‏.‏

'Abdullah bin Mas'ud (May Allah be pleased with him) reported: The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "He who has, in his heart, an ant's weight of arrogance will not enter Jannah." Someone said: "A man likes to wear beautiful clothes and shoes?" Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said, "Allah is Beautiful, He loves beauty. Arrogance means ridiculing and rejecting the Truth and despising people." [Muslim].

Riyad as-Salihin 611

https://sunnah.com/riyadussalihin:611

Honestly, I am so afraid of this. I don't know how did I let my heart to grow sick from this but whenever I realize this sickness is in me, I can only turn to Him and seek for His forgiveness and for Him to remove ANY of this wretched feeling in my heart. I am no better than anyone else, I sinned a lot and without Allah veiling it, I'll be looking and smelling rotten from it. And I also realized that, when we have arrogance, we will have this sense of entitlement that when we see what other people achieve, we get the sense of "Eh hey, I deserved that too" when you don't really know what the the other people had to go through to be where they are now. For this one, I seek refuge with Allah from the arrogance of my own filthy heart, ya Allah, please remove this sickness from my heart. 

Jealousy that come from low self esteem

I also realized that feeling jealous also come from low self esteem. We saw people achieving great feat and we stayed at where we are and we started feeling jealous because we don't own up our own life. Again, it's because we didn't feel grateful with we have and we felt that we are 'small' because we don't get those shiny, extravagant, lively life that people are living. It's really important that we learn to appreciate our own self and how far we have become instead of putting ourselves down comparing our lives with others and end up feeling jealous. We are where we are for reason and we must make the best of it. And we also need to realize that on social media, we only see good things. Very rarely people showcase their weaknesses, their Achilles heel, their vulnerability for people to see (and for good reason as well, because if you want to show that, show it to the Almighty because he is al Jabbar). We see good things and our knowledge is limited on that and Allah know what they have went through and what effort they have put it to get what they get.

To summarize this, to not be jealous of others, you really need to be grateful with what you have and realize that you are already given to you what is good for you. And this is where I will end this reflection from pondering about jealousy after listening to these two episode.