By: Zeela Shoaib
Someone once told me that a person’s life is the brief duration between Azaan (the call for prayer) and offering prayer in response to the call. The only difference between this and regular prayer is that you don’t get to offer the prayer to the Azaan that was once given in your ear when you were born. This prayer is offered by other people after your soul has departed this world. This realization that life is short-lived and consists of no more than a few years would send many into questioning their lives.
We are deluded by wealth, competition, the desire of being successful, of being perfect, and flawless in whatever we do. We eventually become so ignorant about the true meaning of happiness that we associate worldly things like success, wealth, power with happiness. These things may bring us temporary happiness but when we are lying on our death bed with several needles delivering God knows what in our blood, we might question a lot of things. We might question the endless frustration we felt before an exam that might change our life. Or the misery we felt when we were unable to get the gift we wanted from our parents. We might question the endless moments when we could take a break and feed our soul but we were too busy feeding our pocket.
Come to think of it, life doesn’t have to be a series of depressing and frustrating events or an endless race. We shouldn’t tell ourselves to be happy only when we have a certain something or when we are at the top of the competition. We can easily be grateful and happy in the presence of certain people like our friends, family or cousins. People living with their grandparents would know that at their age, the only thing that can light up their face is their grandchildren and family members.
Therefore, one must work hard to be successful and secure a better future but one mustn’t make that his life’s purpose. It is because in the end, spending a happy life while doing something you love is what matters the most. This life is too brief to be spent on hating others, conjuring evil thoughts, or collecting wealth.
(Image from here.)
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