Break Free

Aslmskm wr wb.

There's an Islamic saying which basically goes by 'live with the remembrance of death' or 'live for the after life like you're dying and live for the world like you're living forever'

These inspiring words basically trying to encourage us to increase our 'amal for the akhirah and decrease our sins and also not to mention so that we will not get too attach to this world and it's pleasures.

But if we understand it the other way round it will goes like 'live with the remembrance that you're living'.From this you can really learn a lot from it when you reflect upon it.

I just realise that most of us are feeling stress because we are forgetting that we're living.

Eg. When we're obsessed or hoping etc. on something besides Allah,we tend to forget that we're living

like:when a person are too obsessed to buy an expensive shoe,he would try his best to save up his money and sacrifice his daily food(for a student) just to get that shoe which in reality it isn't worth much as to what he had sacrifices.(if you've seen the movie called "Confession of a Shopaholic" you get what i mean..)

And what i meant by 'we forget that we're living' is that we forget to appreciate what we already have and be thankful for it.

When one is obsessed etc. on something besides Allah, it is like he is attaching himself with a big boulder on his back which makes him harder and burdensome to walk, which is the reason why he is stress.

Sometimes he might even sacrifice his kinship with his family and friends due to his obsession.

But in Al-Quran Allah s.w.t refer us as "ummatan wasatan - ummah of the middle path" from just this two words we can understand that Allah s.w.t command us to live in the middle path,not to be too obsessed or hoping too much of something.And if only we put our hope etc. only to Allah alone,it is like we're freeing and releasing ourselves from the boulder that we're attach to.Thus it is easier for us to walk and we would feel refresh.Because when we're living in the present we will fully concentrate ourselves on what we're supposed to do and forget about the other unnecessary stuff and that will get our job done faster and easier and we wouldn't feel stress.

Eg. like sholah-prayer;sometimes during sholah we tend to think about other unnecessary stuff..like we tend to be either thinking about the past or the future etc. and sometimes our heart would not feel the ni'mah and peacefulness of the sholah and it would feel unsatisfied since we're not fully concentrating ourselves in sholah.

But if we remember to live in the present and fully concentrate ourselves on what we're doing,inshaAllah we will feel khusyu' and our hearts will feel satisfied after it.

Or like a homework/project that have been given to us by a teacher,if we're living in the present,we would finish up the task first before doing any other unnecessary things which by the time the teacher ask to hand up the task, we might be the first one to hand in smiling while maybe some of our other friends are still doing it or maybe copying a friend( like you don't know like that..).

easy to say,when we're living we will get our priorities right(fully concentrate what is most important and obligatory for us to do first than the latter) and so we would not feel that much of stress/burdensome etc.

We just need to remember that we're living (in the present) and appreciate what we already have and be thankful for it and inshaAllah we wouldn't feel stress.

Overall what i'm trying to say is that we need to appreciate everything that we still have and always be gratefull for it,inshAllah Allah will increased His blessings and ni'mah on us.When we're thankfull we will feel qana'ah.

There is a saying goes by Imam Syafi'ee:'A true king is the one who feel qana'ah with what he have and not the one who have the whole world in his hands'.

Also we should not get too obsessed or hoping on something that might take us away from forgetting what is most important for us.

If you're the person who likes to read books,i recommend you to try and read this book called 'The Present' by Spencer Johnson.

It's a great and inspiring book which you can really learn a lot from it.

wassalam.