Turn to Yourself

Too many people I care about dearly have been feeling abused by their lives. They’ve been feeling unhappy, and extremely helpless with no control of the circumstances causing their unhappiness. This is for you if you feel this way.

Nothing feeds unhappiness as much as feeling helpless. Every time you take a look around yourself and think there is nothing I can do, you are choosing to solidify your sadness. I understand that your life is horrible, I understand that your circumstances are making you miserable. I can see clearly how it is not your fault that any of what is happening is happening, and that you cannot stop it from punching and kicking at you. But here is my question to you; what if your life never gets better? What if you continue being patient and waiting on life to stop abusing you, and instead all it does is move from kicking to cutting, and from cutting to stabbing? What happens then?

Will you spend your entire life being miserable? Will you carry that stone sitting on your chest for the rest of your life? Will your heart always be heavy, will your mind forever remain shackled by life’s abuse?

I want you to close your eyes and think for a single moment. I want you to think of everything happening in your life, and you will find that we always have a choice. The choice may be horrible, between two things each worse than the other –but the choice is always ours. We can choose to quit and live the misery of being without a job, with no money and no hope for it, or we can choose to stay at our dreadful jobs where a sliver of hope exists. We can choose to surrender to the beating, or we can choose to fight back and get hurt. There is always a choice, stop robbing yourself of that truth. You are in control, and when offered the choice between bitter and sour you chose which one you will withstand.

You are not helpless. Life happens the way it happens and sometimes we cannot help what is being thrown at us, but that does not make us helpless. God granted us the gift of ultimate control, he granted us the very weapon we can use against life’s abuse, but we choose not to use it. We are raised to believe happiness comes from without. Happiness is money, a present, it is travel, a smooth ride, new things, games, friends, family, good food –happiness is a good life. None of that is true. I dare you to bring forth a single person, whose life you actually know all the details of, and tell me their life is perfect. A perfect life does not exist. Just as ever present light does not exist. Our world was created on the very basis of opposites co-existing. Life is chaotic, it is a neverending gamble full of ups and downs. So stop expecting the world to grant you the impossible, stop expecting your life to suddenly turn around and go from bad to good just because you were patient. I can tell you right now that that will never happen.

Use what God gave you, that weapon he embedded in all our minds, the one rusting away in a corner under a pile of false beliefs. Take control of your own self. You have the power that no other creature was born with, the power of a mind strong enough to override itself. You have the power to rewrite your expectations, the power to take a step back and actually see who you are and edit every single aspect of yourself. You cannot force life to bend to your will, but by God you can bend your mind to your will and force it to find happiness amidst your misery.

Accept that patience is not the answer, waiting for things to get better is not the way to find happiness. You find what you look for in life, if you are waiting for things to get better so you can be happy, then all you will find are the bad things that are robbing you your joy. Shut life out, take a day and be with your mind and find your happiness in there. Happiness is hope against doubt, it is a smile bursting among the tears. Happiness is possibilities, it is dreams and an imagination, happiness is taking life as it comes while you work for the life you want. Happiness is comfort, it is faith, it is taking control of yourself and celebrating inside achievements, it is working to improve your life and yourself –whether those improvements pay off or not. Happiness is, above all else, nothing but acceptance. Accepting life’s imperfections, accepting that our choices are difficult ones, accepting that bad is a part of good.

My life was in ruins for years, and the day I decided to stop fixating on my life and fixate on my own self instead was the day my life got better. If I choose to, I can still see how none of it has been truly fixed, the negatives plaguing  my past still exist, and yet all I see is positives. No one found happiness by looking for it outside, no one found it by trying to create it in their lives. It can only be found by working on your insides, and when you are fixed you will see that while you were busy within yourself, your without got busy getting fixed. 

Twenty-Six

All my life I had been postponing living, postponing any dream, wish or goal I had “until”. I pushed everything back in order to focus on my studies, and all that got me was that at twenty-five years old I realized that I hadn’t done a single thing I wanted to do. All I did was focus on a future that refused to come, and wait on living until my life had passed. I was supposed to have everything I ever wanted by 2015, and instead I had absolutely nothing. Twenty-five was the year I decided to put a stop to that, the year I decided that I would live today and never postpone anything for any reason ever again.

And so, twenty-five was the year I surrendered to the present and said yes to every opportunity. It was the year I stopped fighting the current, and started swimming right along it. It was the year I found the self I’d lost, the year I created countless memories full of love, laughter and smiles. It was the year I gave a Tedx talk, the year I scratched things off my bucket list. Twenty-five was the year I re-invented my entire view of my future, the year I found happiness and content. Twenty-five was the year I changed my own life, and it was nothing short of miraculous.

Twenty-five gave me so much, and until the very last hours it continued and it gave me ideas for the gifts I traditionally give myself before a new year of my life begins. First and foremost, I give myself the gift of opportunities. If life won’t present you with that which you seek, go out and create it yourself. I give myself the gift of taking control, and creating my own opportunities and my own good fortune and luck.

My second gift is a promise. I promise myself that twenty-six will be even better than twenty-five. I promise myself a year that fills me with pride, a year of achievement and making a name for myself. I promise that my past will never be my present again, and that the future will not ruin my now in any way.

And finally, for my birthday, I give myself the gift of good advice. You made the mistake of focusing on the now that will lead to the future you want, and exiling everything else once before. Do not make that same mistake again. But do not commit a crime against your dreams in the name of avoiding the mistake. You have a vision, you have a dream –make them into a plan. Work today as though you have nothing to wait on in order to reach those dreams. Start creating that future, not just by studying, but by actually beginning the long and grueling building process now. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have the required ingredients yet, it doesn’t matter that you don’t have your degree or the means to make it all real. Build it, build it now, today.. that is the only way it can ever be built. When your dream is unreal, the path you take will surely leave reality behind.

Trust in yourself, in your deepest goals and in Allah. You’re driving blindly, but he can see –let him lead the way. Follow the path, and along the road begin to build your dreams. And while you’re at it, I strongly suggest you enjoy the ride. Life is not the station we’re driving towards, life is the ride.

Happy birthday..