A Year and A Lesson

I t has been awhile I haven't written anything. After a year of having an exhausting year, I took a break and went to Langkawi for a vacation with my family. It was an awesome vacation before starting my new life as a student again.

A year come and a year end. Time went so fast until sometimes I don't know what I have done last year but it seemed last year was really havoc. There are many times things happened in my life without my control and there were many times I was really tired and I didn't want to think anymore and just let things happened.

I remembered one of the topics in economics I taught to my student was business cycle. It shows few stages of economic conditions. Sometimes economic will be at the peak and sometimes it will be at the bottom/trough. I relate it with the story of prophet Yusouf. Prophet Yusouf interpreted the king's dream as the first seven years to come will be good years with good harvest, but the next seven years to follow will be bad years with famine and hunger. It just like our life, we face ups and down in life, just like rollercoaster. I remembered 2006 was a really good year for me where I was truly happy in that year, many things went smoothly. But like what Einstein said in the theory of physique, what goes up must go down. It just like a life cycle or a law of life. 2007 was a challenge year for me. I faced a lot of challenges but despite all these challenges there is one good lesson I learnt, If you have problems or choices, solve it ASAP, If not it accumulates more problems. Seek the guidance from Allah (istikharah) and forget about what is going to happen in the future. Kick the worry habit. All we can do is give our best effort until bedtime and let tomorrow take care of itself.

One thing we must remember is that things happen for a reason. Life has many ups and downs and we must try to bear the many challenges that come our way.When life gives us lemons, make lemonade! However if we just think hard about why things happen and why our life has turned out the way it is, we will find that the problems we had were meant to make us stronger.We must remember that life is meant to be lived and that life will inevitably gives us a lot of surprises that are sometimes pleasant and make us happy or...maybe life will shock us, make us sad...Whatever happens, we must remember that we are not in control. We can plan our life all we like but actually we must remember that it is God Almighty that determines the outcome of whatever we had planned. It is not easy to relinquish control at times because we tend to forget that it is He alone that controls our fate. But then that doesn't mean that we don't better ourselves and try to get on with out life.The best way is to work hard at achieving our goals, become a better person and be happy!Of course the main thing that we ought to do is to put in the effort to make our life better, pray hard for His blessings and guidance and wait for peace and happiness to finally arrive.

Happy New Year!