Today I was drowning with anguish over the times I was told that I was not good enough. I was good for certain parts but never the whole picture. I was good for the moment, but not the long run. I wasn’t good enough to stand out there with others. I still remember a teacher mocking me how it was foolish pipe-dream to pursue a higher post graduate degree with my credentials. Few occasion, it came out right, I really ended up not getting what I dreamed and wished for. I ended up failing along the way for stupid mistakes I made or sometimes for something entirely out of my control like a death.
I needed to change the dialogue in my head. I kept on praying-
حَسْبِيَ اللَّهُ لاَ إِلَهَ إِلاَّ هُوَ عَلَيْهِ تَوَكَّلْتُ وَهُوَ رَبُّ الْعَرْشِ الْعَظِيمِ
“Allah is sufficient for me. There is none worthy of worship but Him. I have placed my trust in Him. He is the Lord of the Majestic throne.”
I kept on with my istigfars. I kept on reminding myself that Allah is the best of planners and my trust on Him is unquestionable, unconditional. But the pain was like waves, recedes one moment then crashes overhead on the next. I kept asking myself why dream of a dream that was impossible, why love a lost dream with such intensity! Why know of it, if it was not for me? Astagfirullah, I wasn’t questioning the divine plan, but rather my nafs, like whats wrong with me?
I listened to a lecture about how to deal with difficulties and doubts. The scholar was saying the road to Jannah is filled with difficulties. Its iblis’s goal to add doubt and despair on that difficulties.
So I asked myself, what do I lose when I am told I am not a good enough child. Am I trying my best still to take care of them? Alhamdulillah, I am trying and doing it. With all the love and affection I feel, if only they accepted me, we all could have had a blissful life. But when Allah doesn’t write the bliss in this life, we know He will reward us with more bliss than what we can perceive in this life. If this is one of the difficulties that leads to Jannah, Allahu Akber, I can tread the path.
Then I asked myself, how much did I lose when I wasn’t good enough for a certain someone. All the things I didn’t get, did it kill me? Did I get physically paralyzed as my heart ripped to shreds? Didn’t Allah guide me to repair the damage to my heart? Who defines, who has the right to state my life stayed incomplete? May be my nafs mourn the absolute happiness I felt then, but isn’t the happiness in the here after more desirable? Aren’t we taught that there is nothing absolute about our life here? Then what was the purpose of the soul deep connection, love and affection, you ask? To teach my heart that it has the capacity to love that deep and more. The only one deserving of that all encompassing, almost blind love is Allah. And its the infinite mercy of the most Merciful that I am good enough for His love as long as I walk towards Him.
Then the anguish over my qualification. I got delayed because of health reason, and a reason that was not in any control of me or my doctors. While I got into the program I desired without that recommendation, my research proposal got accepted, but a death and a sickness derailed that plan. and that doesn’t mean I wasn’t good enough, does it? I realized that one 5 minute conversation some many years ago, has kept me prisoner. One of my manager once told me, to never let someone else define what success is to me. He said while he wont tell me which decision to take, he will tell me this, that no amount of qualifications or money will ever dictate how successful a person is, not in the long run. He said “run if you love running, but don’t chase after something someone else thought you need”. So what if that teacher who ridiculed my aspiration may be proven right? I gained what I set out to gain, which was wisdom.
Alhamdulillah, after 8 hours of painful assault on my emotions, I calmed down, by the help of Allah. I could redirect my dialogue. The purpose of all these is to gain Allah’s love. I imagine Allah said to my soul “I am going to make you strong”. I pray that I am guided to a wonderful path where I can use my heart which is resilient and unbearably soft in times.