There's always a choice.
Every morning, when we get out of bed to start a new day, we're making a choice.
Every breath we take, every minute that we do not throw ourselves down a flight of stairs, it's a conscious decision to live.
I abhor people who go through life blaming life for every road they take. The times when we feel we do not have a choice, is when the choices are the most difficult. But they are still there. We're never helpless, because God gave us free will.
The qismet and naseeb we talk about, our fate, that's what governs the quality of choices we're faced with, the alternative roads we can decide to go down.
But the will, the decision, is always our own.
I have a friend who is faced with difficult choices. One road leads to what her heart desires. The other to what her mind dictates.
The road towards her hearts desire is rocky, strewn with hardships. Her life will be difficult. She will have to change completely, forget who she used to be. No one around her will support this decision. And after all that, in the end, the destination might not turn out to be what she expected. Because the only thing we can ever be sure of is that people change.
The road that practicality would support, is an easy life. It seems that everything she ever wanted, she would get down that road. Material things, as well as the love and support of all her loved ones.
So this is what I have to say, A:
It's your decision, it will always be your choice. If you decide to choose the second, and even if you do it to please your family, don't blame any one else for it later on. Decide that you will not spend your life with "what if"s. Understand that you need to fear nothing, because this will not be the end of the world, or the end of hapiness. There's a life time to live, still, and hundreds of choices to make, and millions of ways to reach self actualization.
Whichever road you choose, give it your hundred percent.
Because you deserve that. And because life deserves as much.
8 comments:
True true true! :]
*nods*
So true :-)...and if we analyze a bit we get a very interesting revelation that there are some options which must be chosen when pitted against a set of options and the same options which must be ignored when pitted against a different set of options(with some or no change in circumstances).
And yes I totally agree that the will, the decision is always our own because Allah Mian has promised us that but again an interesting question here is that what about actions? Are they our own as well? See if I decide to do something that was my independent decision but the question is will I be able to act on my decision or not? For now, my take is that actions are not really in our control but it’s still an open question for me.
And I couldn’t agree more with the last part. Beautifully put masha’Allah.:-)
My advice to A... Take the road ur heart desires... Coz life is too short to make other ppl happy.. yes even if it ur own family... waisay bi there ur family..theyll be happy anyway.. I was fucked up by a person who took the easy way out...
Hassan, one can either think with ones heart, or ones mind. There are some cases where one should think with the latter.
When we're "in love", we forget the mind completely. We overlook everything else except the very strong needs we're experiencing. Tends to cloud good judgement. =]
I believe we are responsible for our choices, and our actions pertaining to those choices. For example, if you decide you do not want to go to a med school, even when everyone else keeps pushing you. If you DECIDE, there's always a way. Except for very few cases, I believe this to be true for almost every concievable scenario.
Some times the action may have to be drastic. But you still have a choice to act it out. Always.
LPS, iss friend k circumstances are more complicated then how I put them. But yes, I agree with you completely. One shouldn't get into something agar you can't give your hundred percent.
"I was fucked up by a person who took the easy way out..."
Believe me when I say I know what you're talking about. =]
I believe heart is place from where our very basic feelings/instincts stem; feelings of affection, of love, of hatred, of anger etc. They are all born in the heart. Whereas mind is a place which provides logic/reasoning about those feelings etc.
That’s why we see that all these traits are exhibited by animals as well because well I believe animals have a heart like ours too. But you know what they lack is a mind and that is why they don’t have control over their feelings, they lack the power of judgment, logic and reasoning. It’s the killer combination of both of them that makes us a superior being. By killer combination I mean balance; balance between heart and mind.
But this question is not that simple as well. Let’s consider the feeling of loyalty; common sense suggests that loyalty must have some very strong connection with faith. We also see that loyalty is something exhibited by animals as well, but then what connection do they have with faith? Is it some very weak form it? Because we also know that our basic instincts usually tend to reject the notion of faith, faith in some higher being, faith in believing in something even though it’s not in front of us etc.
Love has a very strong connection with faith as well. Love is not complete without faith. So is it right to say that the feeling of love which stems only from heart is a complete form of it? This feeling which doesn’t have the backing of the mind, is it really love then? Is love without faith really love or just a strong form of attraction or infatuation? Is there no difference between the love shown by animals and the love shown by humans then? Why did God give us a mind, why did He give us knowledge to reason with, may be because He didn’t want us to love and have faith just because we have to, He gave us a choice, He gave us feelings but gave us a mind as well to reason and think and decide by our own which feelings to follow and which not to. We have faith and love in our hearts but they are made stronger by the reasoning which our mind provides on the basis of knowledge given by Him which at times might contradict the reality of the situation hence your point that sometimes one should follow one’s heart(which I take as one’s heart together with the faith complimented by mind). So the question is that is it then ‘love’ which tends to cloud our judgment or is it the basic nature of human instincts, which tend to reject any sort of reasoning provided by our mind which pulls us towards that balance?
As for your second point, I agree that as a general principle God usually lets us transform our decisions into actions but does it mean that we are really free in our actions? Because all God has promised is free will. I am not sure if He has promised the ability to transform our decisions into actions as well.
oh and i don't mean to say we are not responsible for our actions. We totally are. As its our decisions which usually lead to them.
So true. :)
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