My body clock has officially flipped. At 2 AM, I am feeling buzzed enough to get some paperwork done while sipping on some mild caffeine and listening to acapella multitracks of Lauren King. I wish there was some good humming multitracks on Youtube - they could have gathered a million views from my clicks alone. Hopefully it will flip back tomorrow (today), because I have a packed schedule that I am hoping I can keep up with, so by the time its 11 pm, I should be dead enough to crave my bed. Anyway, so, I spent one of the laziest day of my life today (yesterday). I just lay in bed all day and watched Friends, occasionally getting up to get food. The problem with this was - I set up my life so that I cannot afford to have too many lazy days. I already had to push back one commitment, and get rid of another, simply because I felt like spending the day watching Friends and eating. Although this works fine for a while, it eventually gets annoying. And you feel like its not worth it, you would rather get up and get some work done. The moral of the story is - signing up for a balanced load of commitments is good for you. :)
I think I am finally working out the secret of having balanced emotions. I am the sort of person whose emotions naturally go haywire. I need a box of tissues to watch romantic comedies and I feel ecstatic when I can see the colours of the rain, so you can imagine what I would be like when actual emotional events take place. This can get slightly annoying (I know, because I get annoyed by other people who are a lot more emotional than I am). But, I am really grateful for my emotions, because, as cliched as it sounds, they do bring colour to my life. The only trick is to use them optimally, which can be done by creating a balance. If you are an emotional person, its quite harmful to just attempt to suppress it all the time and hide behind a mask. It is equally harmful to express every single emotion every single time to every single person in every situation. What you need to do is identify some people that you can share things with. It doesn't have to be one of two people - it can be a whole group of people, with each of whom you share different parts of your life. Then, there are some things that are better unsaid to people, and you share those with Allah, and you make dua for directions, or strength, or whatever else it is you need. The tricky part is to decide which ones are better kept only between you and Allah and which ones are better to be shared. I am yet to figure that out in detail.
The important thing to remember is to choose the levels of people in your life very carefully. I have made the mistake of letting in a wrong person way too many times, as have most other people. But I guess we just have to keep at it, and consciously realise that there are some people that are plain harmful for us that need we need to stop letting in after a certain point. For example, if you know that one of your friends has a problem with backstabbing, don't tell her things that you don't want others to know, even if you are feeling very vulnerable and feel like that person is the only person who will be able to support you, because, frankly, they are not. But that doesn't mean that you completely push them away. You tell them things that are okay to be public, and you never, ever backstab. Because, if they are talking about someone else with you, they will do the same to about you. I learnt this valuable lesson in my final year of high school, when certain information were randomly flying around from mouth to mouth in ways that I had no idea about. This eventually led to huge fractures in the relationship between a few people, who I had eventually lost contact with. Which is a shame, because at one point, I really did feel like we were very good friends. Moral of the story is, create a balance before you realise that its too late to straighten the tilt.
Our lives are so very different. Yet, at the end of the day, we are all sitting the same test - whether we can survive in it until the end. The details of my test would be different to the details of yours, because the things that I struggle with are not going to be the exact things that you struggle with. But, the main thing is to keep holding on. During difficult times, to realise that it is indeed difficult and seek Allah's help, because, without Him, no one can pull you out. During times of ease, to realise that it came from Him, to thank Him, and thank Him more for giving you the ability to remember Him. We need to realise that its okay that we have failed in the past, because it is our thoughts and actions that follow the failure that matters.
I think I am finally working out the secret of having balanced emotions. I am the sort of person whose emotions naturally go haywire. I need a box of tissues to watch romantic comedies and I feel ecstatic when I can see the colours of the rain, so you can imagine what I would be like when actual emotional events take place. This can get slightly annoying (I know, because I get annoyed by other people who are a lot more emotional than I am). But, I am really grateful for my emotions, because, as cliched as it sounds, they do bring colour to my life. The only trick is to use them optimally, which can be done by creating a balance. If you are an emotional person, its quite harmful to just attempt to suppress it all the time and hide behind a mask. It is equally harmful to express every single emotion every single time to every single person in every situation. What you need to do is identify some people that you can share things with. It doesn't have to be one of two people - it can be a whole group of people, with each of whom you share different parts of your life. Then, there are some things that are better unsaid to people, and you share those with Allah, and you make dua for directions, or strength, or whatever else it is you need. The tricky part is to decide which ones are better kept only between you and Allah and which ones are better to be shared. I am yet to figure that out in detail.
The important thing to remember is to choose the levels of people in your life very carefully. I have made the mistake of letting in a wrong person way too many times, as have most other people. But I guess we just have to keep at it, and consciously realise that there are some people that are plain harmful for us that need we need to stop letting in after a certain point. For example, if you know that one of your friends has a problem with backstabbing, don't tell her things that you don't want others to know, even if you are feeling very vulnerable and feel like that person is the only person who will be able to support you, because, frankly, they are not. But that doesn't mean that you completely push them away. You tell them things that are okay to be public, and you never, ever backstab. Because, if they are talking about someone else with you, they will do the same to about you. I learnt this valuable lesson in my final year of high school, when certain information were randomly flying around from mouth to mouth in ways that I had no idea about. This eventually led to huge fractures in the relationship between a few people, who I had eventually lost contact with. Which is a shame, because at one point, I really did feel like we were very good friends. Moral of the story is, create a balance before you realise that its too late to straighten the tilt.
Our lives are so very different. Yet, at the end of the day, we are all sitting the same test - whether we can survive in it until the end. The details of my test would be different to the details of yours, because the things that I struggle with are not going to be the exact things that you struggle with. But, the main thing is to keep holding on. During difficult times, to realise that it is indeed difficult and seek Allah's help, because, without Him, no one can pull you out. During times of ease, to realise that it came from Him, to thank Him, and thank Him more for giving you the ability to remember Him. We need to realise that its okay that we have failed in the past, because it is our thoughts and actions that follow the failure that matters.
worth a hundred times read!
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