Terima Seadanya

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ 

Dengan menyebut nama Allah yang Maha Pengasih lagi Maha Penyayang

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Beberapa hari ni, ayat ni sentiasa terngiang-ngiang di telinga; "Tak apalah aku kerja begini, tak apalah gaji aku banyak begini, tak apalah aku tak dapat travel selalu macam dulu, tak apalah aku tak dapat shopping mewah macam orang lain." Dalam masa yang sama, aku turut pep talk diri sendiri,  Allah lebih mengetahui. Boleh jadi apa yang kita suka, buruk bagi kita; boleh jadi apa yang kita benci, itu yang terbaik untuk kita.

Belajar menerima seadanya bukanlah bermakna aku kalah atau pasrah. Tapi lebih kepada Qana'ah, iaitu merasa cukup dengan apa yang aku ada sekarang. Qana'ah adalah salah satu sifat yang dituntut oleh Rasulullah s.a.w, iaitu merasa cukup dengan kesederhanaan yang dimiliki. Qanaah dikatakan sebagai kekayaan yang sebenar, iaitu merasa hati berlapang dada dan tenang. Ya, kalau difikirkan apa yang kita mahukan dalam kehidupan ni, bukanlah semata-mata kekayaan harta benda - tapi lebih nakkan kepada ketenangan di jiwa. 

Tak tahulah sesuai atau tidak, tapi mungkin konsep ni boleh disamakan dengan konsep Minimalist. Kamus Merriam-Webster mendefinisikan minimalism sebagai satu stail yang mempunyai ciri kesederhanaan yang melampau. Minimalist pula difahami sebagai salah satu alat/lifestyle dengan ciri harta benda yang sedikit, sedikit sebanyak membantu mencari kebebasan - bebas dari rasa takut, rasa risau, rasa bersalah, dan lain-lain.

Sedikit sebanyak sebenarnya konsep minalis ini dahpun diajar di dalam Islam iaitu dengan konsep Qanaah.

Tapi, dah tentu.. sekejap je rasa tenang dan redha dalam berqana'ah. Tak lama kemudian, mesti datang jugak sikit rasa iri, rasa tak cukup pada diri bila tengok kawan-kawan yang lain. Tengok keretanya mewah, tengok keluarganya bagus-bagus, bisnes semuanya berjalan dengan lancar dan maju jaya, anak-beranak berganding bahu dalam berbisnes, kawan-kawan pegi holiday, nampak cantiknya handbag kawan kita.. Allahu.. banyak sangat perkara-perkara yang kita nampak, yang kalaulah pegangan kita terhadap janji Allah itu tak cukup kuat, rasanya sekejap je kita dah meroyan dan lupakan konsep Qana'ah.

Aku harap aku akan terus berpegang teguh dengan Qana'ah, sebabnya bila kita rasa kita dah ada cukup dengan apa yang ada walaupun kita (kalau boleh) mahukan lebih tapi belum sampai masanya lagi -- pegangan ni buatkan aku rasa satu bonding dengan Allah; iaitu percaya pada konsep rezeki yang Allah akan beri, percaya yang segala-galanya terletak di tangan Allah, dan akhirnya percaya Allah adalah final & ultimate goal kita dalam hidup ni.

Semoga kita semua mampu menerapkan Qana'ah dalam diri kita.

Self - Retreatment

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمٰنِ الرَّحِيْمِ 

Dengan menyebut nama Allah yang Maha Pengasih lagi Maha Penyayang

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I was known among my friends, to be the one who traveled a lot - the one my friends kept coming to ask for some travel recommendations etc. Airlines' websites used to be the most visited web on my browser's history (especially Air Asia), I'd almost never missed Air Asia's promotion - I'd grab at least one promo ticket, the cheapest one I could get. Travelling - was my one and only guilty pleasure, so I would usually keep track of my schedule and to have at least once place to travel within 2-3 months gap (6 months gap, max).

But now? Travelling is the last item on my to-do list. The last time I travelled overseas was last year.... April or May? I even donated my blood 3 times in a row because of that gap (you have to observe 3-4 months period after each donation, if you're back from overseas and then you have to observe at least one month gap before you can donate. Check out here). 

And so because I couldn't travel (couldn't relive my so-called passion), I felt so restless. I had no motivation, dragged my feet to come to work. I had to indulge into something else, other than travelling, I had to choose to do something cheap - like joining some running races, binging on comfort food, and sometimes shopping stuff online (blergh I so hate the fact that I like to do online shoppings!).

It been a year, so from day to day I kept looking forward to the days that I could take loads of annual leave!

It so happened that my life became quite dramatic this year. From leaving the office to not leaving the office, and then Mak had to had her renal stone operation - and so that's it! I took mak's operation as an excuse to take my two weeks leave.

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It does not hurt to take a break once a while.

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I kept telling myself, it's okay to take the leave - not that I deserved it, but it was so much needed. Not only I was tired of whatever happened, my positive energy, too, was slowly draining.

I think it is important to take a break sometimes, and I would like to put a term on that - self-retreat. Retreat from whatever we are currently doing. It's not to be seen as a form of weakness (of course, as we know retreat could also mean surrendering), but it's as a strategy. I think in wars, too, retreat means calling back all armies to reshuffle war strategies. 

So I treated my two-weeks holiday as a self-retreatment; where I collected all my thoughts and strategies - what to do, what have I done so far, what should I do after this and all. It's such a refreshing idea to treat the holiday like that (or otherwise we'll usually have the travel blues upon coming back to work, amirite?)

Also, bila bercuti kita kembali ke normal state kita. Zero base semula.

So..

Here's to not giving up, here's to taking loads of self-retreatment so we could empower ourselves more!

p/s: I'm not sure if I said above makes any sense but I hope they do!

How I Overcame my Depression

My father used to say to me, I loved to daydream a lot. “Kuat berangan”, was how he used to tease me. To tell you the truth, yes I dreamt a lot. I used to have a lot of fantasies of the future I want to live in.

Fast forward, 10 years later, I no longer that dreamer-girl. My fantasies were crushed, and I fell into depression few years ago. I was heart broken, but not willing to move forward. 

I once asked my father, how not to feel disturbed by all the strange thoughts – that’s the danger of strange thoughts, they come together with loneliness and emptiness that are not there from the start. And my father answered simply, fill your thoughts with dhikr. It’s cliché, I know, the same cliché as when people always tell us to make ourselves busy in order to forget the past.

Although it is cliched, but the word of wisdom is correct. If you fill your heart with the thoughts of Allah, your heart is full – darkness can never fill in the place where it is full of brightness, isn’t it? You don’t have to force on yourself to forget that someone, you just need to put in a lot of thoughts of Allah and trust me, the thoughts of Allah will take place instead of that someone you loved. You also don’t have to force yourself to remember Allah all the time, take it slowly. Today you say Allah’s name 50 times, tomorrow you’ll double it. The next day you’d want to add another dhikr, because you know you gained peace when you remember him 😊 

I also learnt it the hard way how to overcome my depression. In my situation, depression came in when I tried to defy the reality – I wanted so much for Allah to make my dream came true. As long as the dream won’t come true, I’d keep wailing and torture myself by believing one day the dream will come true. Unfortunately, it did not. If I were to accept the truth before I sunk myself deep into depression, I could have save me, right? That was when I learnt to really have faith in Qada' & Qadar (the divine destiny) - that in order to have faith in them, I have to redha/wholeheartedly accept whatever happened to me in the past. (it is Allah's way in shaping me to be a better person, to which I realized this only recently.)

Once, I heard over the radio, an ustaaz prayed a du’aa where he asked forgiveness from Allah, “to the One who stayed no matter how we servants have strayed, to the One who always love us from the beginning till the end when we servants always think no one has loved us.” It is true, isn’t it? That we always think that no one loves us, no one ever think of us, and because of that we feel like we don’t deserve to be loved – but did it ever occur to us that Allah has never left our sides? Not even once! It is us who have always leave His side, astaghfirullah..

Last year my family was shaken by a news of my mother which was diagnosed with breast cancer (stage 3). Throughout her treatment and until now, I keep my faith so high and I surrender every hope I have with Allah the Almighty. Even some people might have said that we are fighting against a lost battle, but this is a fight which we hang our hopes onto Allah swt. Tell me, which battle is a lost battle when you rely on Allah? This hope – it is a magical feeling, to which I feel ashamed to Allah when I doubted His power during my depression day. Believe me, during that period of time, although I knew Allah is the only one that can help me to get through depression, I had my doubts.

What if... one day I failed the battle, I gave up... and ended up with death?

What if... I lose all interests to live. Like life didn't matter anymore and I surrendered myself?

Who would've helped me?

I know people will keep saying, "keep praying. Don't lose hope in Allah."

But what if I did? What if I didn't want to help myself?

Would anyone even care?

                                                                                                                            ~circa 2016~

But now? I would shake my head in disbelief and if I could, I would say to my old self, “how could you doubt Allah? How could you not want to help yourself when Allah never once leave your side?”

In the end, I always remind myself. Allah has created a life for us to live in. He has given us a mother, a father, siblings, a family, friends and other things connected to all of us. A disturbance to the cycle – let’s say a missing of a soul, could have change the whole cycle. 

That is why we can’t say we are alone, as we are, in fact, a piece of the whole cycle/puzzle. A missing of one piece could disturb the whole system. And that is why we can’t be selfish by thinking that our disappearance to the society won’t affect anything. No, don’t ever say that to yourself. You are an important being. If you don’t see it today, you’ll see it perhaps in another 5 years’ time. Like I did. Now I believe Allah has better plan than mine, that everything happened in the past has made me into the human I am today - I am proud to say that I survived all the predicaments and have learn to love myself again.

To all the girls out there (or anyone battling depression because you cannot move on), tell this to yourself: Don’t beat yourself so hard, and never once lose hope in Allah. Don’t let the depression eat you alive and let you live as the dead. Those who lose you are not worth fighting for, you are better off with yourself. Focus on self- enrichment and please please please if for once you feel like going back into the black cave, grab on your tasbih and keep counting Allah's name.

disclaimer: I know depression does not really have anything to do with religion, but what's a better option (to keep yourself occupied) than remembering Him?