To Light a Small Candle is Better Than To Spend Your Life Cursing The Darkness

Alsalam Alikom,
Hello,
Hola,

How are you today ?

Today I wanna talk about something that has been bothering me for a while and keeps hitting my mind so i decided to let it out here ...

I wanna talk about a thing that is supposed to be a personal trait but the weired thing that in reality it is a community trait ...

I wanna talk about something that is holding us back and if we just stopped it or at least suppressed it for a while, I think our lives will improve a lot ....

Wanna know what I wanna talk about ???

Well continue reading & you will know ... :D

I wanna talk about us complaining all the time about our bad life circumstances and never do anything about it ...

Just complaining, screaming, shouting, cursing .. but never thinking what to do to change it ..

The weired thing that this should be a personal trait, i mean this should be how a person a like, this is his/her character, but not to be a trait that all the community share ???

If you watched the Movie " Yakobian Building " .... " عمارة يعقوبيان " ..... Khaled Saleh in a Scence said a sentence that is completely true ... He said
" People are looking at the government as if she is their mothers " ....
" الشعب ماسك فى الحكومة كأنها أمه "

Although he said it in another context, but when i thought about it, i said to myself yeh this is completely true ...
How ?? & please don't jump into conclusions and start judging me ... just read till the end to understand my point ...

Moms in our countries always do everything for their kids, and kids always expect that from their Moms and we grow up, get out of our homes to the real life, face difficulties and see the reality of life and how hard it actually is and this causes a lot of negative feelings inside us that we have to look for a relief for them ... How do we do that ??

Simple, by throwing the responsibility on the government, even if we share part of this responsibility ... I'm not saying that this is how everyone reacts, but a great proportion of us do so ...

Every difficulty in our lives, every problem we face, every hardship, directly the government is announced responsible...

I'm not saying that it is not responsible, of course it is ... but what I'm aiming at, what did we do about it ??? we just stop at defining the responsibility, then wait for the responsible to have an action, what if he didn't ?? what will be the situation?? what we gonna do ??? No one knows , No one thinks, No one takes an action ...

Let me ask you something ...

What if you are living in a building that needs some serious repairs or else it will collapse, and the owner of the building or the president of the Owner's Union is someone who is corrupted and won't take any action & you tried every single method to force him to repair it but he still didn't???
What will be the most appropriate action you gonna take ??

A) Will you keep holding him the responsibility then keep on complaining, shouting, cursing, screaming may be crying and never take an action till the building collapses on you and your family ???

Or

B) Will you take an action, start planning with other residents/owners to repair the building on your expenses for the sake of yourself and your little family???

Of course, you should choose B ...

Although this is a very simple and very logic choice but when it comes to reality the majority chooses A ... I don't know why ?? I can't figure out a reason for such a silly choice ...

I think the problem is that we don't see the bigger picture, we don't understand that the building will collapse, I think this is the reason ... and Hence my post here, that i wish it could raise the public awareness, of course if the public read this, but if i only got just 1 person to see the bigger picture, then my job is done ...

What I mean is that We don't have to wait for the government to do everything for us, everyone who can fix anything should do it .. you are not doing it for the government you are doing it for yourself, this is our government and this is our country we can't work against each other, we have to work in a synergistic way, we complete each other ...

for example, if you complain of garbage that is everywhere, then you have to know that this is your garbage, you made it yourself, so if you don't like it then next time you should not throw it in the streets, when you driving your car, don't open the window to throw an empty can then complain of Garbage and remember the Hadith that says :

" اماطة الأذى عن الطريق صدقة "

& so if u can't remove it from the street, then at least don't complicate the problem more and more ...

Of course this is a very simple example, but if u thought about it, you'll see that you can apply it to every single aspect of our lives, if you have a problem, then try to figure out a solution for it ... for example if you complaining of bad education, then you can look for advanced courses, I personally hold a great respect to some of my friends who took a step forward than that, back in college they ran for a position in the student association and when they succeeded they started so many useful activities, they started arranging their student conference, which was a 1st in my faculty, that we hold a conference that is totally arranged by students, and they started arranging for courses in moderate & convenient fees for all students, they even started a student exchange program where some of our colleges traveled abroad through this program and gained a lot of experiences ....

Believe me it is easy to find a solution, if you really wanna find one, you just need to think with hope and faith in ALLAH and trust that ALLAH will reward your activities all the way ...

And you also need to do something else, you need to live as ALLAH and his Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) told you to live ... ALLAH created us to do 3 things ..

1. Worshiping ALLAH ... عبادة الله
   
2. Building Civilization on earth ..... عمارة الأرض
3. Improving yourself to reach honesty in your worship of ALLAH .... تزكية النفس
   

N.B.
تزكية النفس هو العلم الذى اذا طبقته يتحقق الاخلاص فى العبادة بمعنى ما يردده لسانك يردده قلبك فى نفس الوقت

And to do no. 2 we need....

- To work together ... most of our problems especially in the Arab world is that we can't work together, we are stubborn enough that no one can ever be flexible to listen to others opinions and actually follow them if they are correct ..

- To make our aim is the welfare of our countries and the Islamic UMMAH ... If you ever tried to do even a very little thing but with your intention is the welfare of the UMMAH, believe me the feeling is priceless, the best feeling that you can ever think of ... just try it once and you will never leave it ... and Remember the Verse that says ..

" و من أحياها فكأنما أحيا الناس جميعا "


- To play on the referee whistle ... I mean you gotta work to improve our lives, to build civilization till the last breath of your life, even on the death bed ... From where i get that concept ??? ... From the prophet's Hadith ....

اذا قامت الساعة و بيد أحدكم فسيلة فليغرسها "
صدق رسول الله صلى الله عليه و سلم

What is the meaning of this Hadith ??

It is an order from our Prophet to plant a seed if you have one in your hands even if the Apocalypse has started already i.e. play on the referee whistle, this is a clear identification of our role on planet earth, to build civilization ... even during Apocalypse and to have Hope till the last breathe .. i.e. it is a call for hard work, hope in tomorrow and to be optimistic ....

ِAnd at last ...

To light a Small Candle is Better Than To Spend Your Life Cursing the Darkness

I'm done talking, Hope that I had delivered my message ...

By the way, there is a really great book that can help you change your life .. it is named " How to stop worrying and start living " by Dale Carnegie ... Here is the link to it in Amazon ...

http://www.amazon.com/How-Stop-Worrying-Start-Living/dp/0671035975/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214485915&sr=1-1

If you are interested, you can order it from Amazon, and you can find it in Virigin in Citystars, or in ElKotobkhan bookshop in Maadi ... Also, I think you'll find a translation for this great book in Arabic ... just ask for it ...

Talk to you later, waiting for your comments ...

Salam,
Bye,
Adios