Most things in life are overrated

 Life has the ability to disappoint you. Sometimes you look forward to things, believing that it will be wonderful, just to be reminded that it wasn't such a big deal in the first place. This can apply to big things and small.

For a while I wanted to buy the new Magnum Black Espresso ice-cream. The adverts of it made it seem divine. The mouth-watering, rich ice-cream, with perfect coffee flavoured swirls covered in intense dark chocolate almost made me drool. Who wouldn't be attracted to such a pleasure?  So yesterday my sister decided to buy it for me (May Allah reward her), and I finally got to taste it. I’d be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it, but after a short while I came to this realization- MOST THINGS IN LIFE ARE HIGHLY OVERRATED!

The ice-cream was obviously not as enjoyable as it was made to look, and of course that should be expected since advertising is a huge industry and those people really do their jobs well. But this is a reminder to us all, the things of this world are all like that. It provides the promise of something wonderful, just for you to come to learn that in fact, it’s not that great after all.

Let’s look at bigger things, because deriving life lessons from a simple ice-cream may seem silly to some people.

What about something like marriage? We look forward to getting married with a firm belief that it will be perfect. We dream of having the best spouse and a life that will make others long to be us. Only to find that it’s more work than fun and the dream does not match the reality at all. Same thing with having children. It’s a pleasure and a blessing, but it’s no walk in the park and parents will tell you that their concerns, worries and work never end.

The same can apply to almost anything in life, anything material that is. The promises of joy when it comes to things in this world will always be overrated, but I think it has to be that way. How can we enjoy everlasting Paradise if we get satisfaction in this temporary world? How can we understand truth without first having lived through the illusion? This world is merely a preparation, and this means that everything in it is flawed, and so of course when we expect perfection from things in this imperfect world then we will end up feeling disappointed and perhaps even cheated.

But while most things in life are overrated, we can expect there to be the opposite of this and so Inshaa-Allah we will find that things of the hereafter will not be overrated at all. Yes, I know that I have not actually experienced the hereafter, but I have the promise of my Creator and that means that the descriptions of Paradise is not some truth laced with a whole load of illusion (as is the case in this world). When Allah Almighty tells us something, then we can be assured that it is pure and absolute truth, and so things will be exactly how they have been described to be. No misleading advertising, no glamorous ploys, no emotional manipulation, just the plain down truth, and we are told something to the effect that our expectations of Jannah (Paradise) will never be accurate, it will always be surpassed because we do not have the ability to comprehend things of the Hereafter. So Inshaa-Allah what we expect from Jannah will be much, much better than our expectations, and obviously then “overrated” will not even feature.

The lesson in short:

Things of this world will always continue to disappoint us but things of the Hereafter will be the opposite.

MAY ALMIGHTY ALLAH GUIDE US, HELP US AND ALLOW US TO EXPERIENCE THE TRUE PLEASURES OF JANNAH, INSHAA-ALLAH!

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A New Year Dawns- All The Best for 1435

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New Year Duaa (Prayer)

Oh Allah you are the EVER-LASTING, the ETERNAL, the FIRST, and your Magnificent great bounties and the nobility of your independent generosity. This new year has approached and I ask thee protection during the year from shaytaan and his friends and I ask thee assistance of this evil nafs (of mine) and assist me to do such actions that will bring me closer to thee, O the POSSESSOR OF GREATNESS AND HONOUR!

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Whoever recites the above duaa at the beginning of the year, the shaytaan says:

“This person has safeguarded himself from me.”

Extracted from page 56 from the kitaab “Youm Aashoroli Or Uskaa Hookam” By Hazrat Moulana Ahmed Saeed Sahib Dahliwi (Rahmatullah Alay)

How do things become “Fashion?”

My most recent musings led me to ask myself this question as I wondered about the origin of Red Velvet Cakes (out of all things). See most recently the trend in baking has been red velvet, suddenly it’s all everybody talks about, and making the most perfect red velvet cakes is testimony to your excellent baking skills. Now I have never tried making these myself, mainly because I’ve tasted it and really can’t understand the obsession. I will always remain a chocolate cake loyalist.

It got me thinking though- Does everybody really prefer eating red velvet cakes above all else. I mean do they actually love the way it tastes, or has this just become the latest fashion? Now I get that people need diversity in life, that’s all well and good, even I would get sick of eating chocolate cake all the time. But when something suddenly takes the world by storm and becomes the latest craze, I usually look at it with a good dose of scepticism, being the anti-fashion person that I am.

Red velvets aside, I can name many other things that have taken people by storm and this is as diverse as a particular hairstyle to the type of water bottle that people use. Yes, you’ve heard me correctly, even water bottles can come into fashion. A while back I saw this glass water bottle being sold and wanted to buy it for my mother, unbeknownst to me, this very bottle was the latest craze. Soon I saw it all over the place and everyone was suddenly using them. I had to wonder how come so many people suddenly understood that drinking water is healthier than any other drink, but anyway, at least people were drinking water right?

It would be interesting to know where things originated from. Who first decided to try out red velvet cupcakes and how did it manage to become a craze? Which person thought of the idea of selling funky glass water bottles? Who decided that beaded bookmarks would be cool?...

Where exactly do all these “fashions” or perhaps they are more aptly referred to as “fads” come about? And how does a simple idea suddenly become so popular?

I’d like to hear different thoughts on this and at the same time, the next time you’re about to eat a red velvet cupcake, I would like you to consider whether you really like it for what it tastes like or do you like it because it somehow makes you feel like you are part of the “in thing”? And of course this applies to every other “fashion trend” which so often surfaces.

Let’s start thinking about whether our choices are our own or if they are simply choices made under the influence of others, as bizarre as that may sound. 

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The basic essentials of brainwashing

It’s something we all think about in negative terms, something we all insist will never happen to us, something we may think involves a long process, yet I see it happening more and more these days. People just seem to be brainwashed in so many ways and the ease at which it is done is actually something to be really scared about.

So I decided to do my own little analysis about this problem and I bring you what I term, “The Basic Essentials of Brainwashing”.

1.   Have the desire to sell something, whether it’s an object, a lifestyle even an idea, it doesn’t matter what it is at this point, the focus is to sell this to as many people as possible.

2.   Give the thing you want to sell an image. This would involve a considerable amount of manipulation, but that’s not a problem, because that can easily be achieved in the next step.

3.   This step involves one of the biggest tools of manipulation. It’s called ADVERTISING. So this is where you portray your product, idea, lifestyle etc to others in a way that they would actually begin to like it, long for it and eventually do anything to get it. This is where you turn your otherwise ordinary thing into a brand.

4.   This step is linked closely to the one above, here, you’d need your brand (product, lifestyle, idea etc) to be associated with someone who is rich, famous or good looking. Either one of these criteria can be used, it doesn’t really matter as long as the person or people associated with your brand has the ability to make it seem like the world cannot revolve without it.

5.   Okay, so once you have decided what you want to sell, you’ve given your thing and image, advertised it, in association with a particular type of person/s then it’s time to start the actual full scale brainwashing. Now this is where you already have people hooked and in this step, you start sending out your messages. Any message you’d like to send out will be accepted at this point. It doesn’t even matter if your messages are negative, harmful or even plain down nonsense. Why? Because your brand has the status of an “in thing”, everybody is talking about it, and naturally everybody wants to have it, or live it, or think it.

6.   So all that’s left is to continue the brainwashing process, over and over, until eventually the initial steps are not even necessary any more. At this point, you can introduce new things to sell and it won’t even be questioned at all.

This sounds a bit crazy doesn’t it?

Yet, I see the effects of this very process, so blatant and it’s just getting worse and worse. This is why people can so easily see a particular thing or lifestyle on a popular TV show and suddenly wish to become like the people they see, long to own the things that these people have and even wish to have the type of relationships that these people have. And they don’t stop to consider, not once, that in fact they have been brainwashed into believing that what they see is wonderful, even though it opposes their values, and their beliefs like the cold opposes the heat.

And then, people’s standard becomes what they have been manipulated into believing is perfect and when they get what’s real instead of the imagined fantasy, they are not happy and they become miserable, depressed, despondent and so on.

The worst part however is that when anyone decides to point out that in fact this is systematic brainwashing, they get shut down so quickly they are probably left wondering how that happened. And the people who are able to see through the brainwashing of course are the ones who are boring, old-fashioned, clueless and who knows what else.

So here’s my challenge to you:

 Take a look at your life, a proper look, one of those deep, life-changing, analytical kind of looks, and ask yourself, how much of the things in your life is actually who you are?

How many of your ideas and opinions are your own?

How many of your desires are free from the brainwashing that’s so rampant in our societies?

Be honest with yourself and where you have to, admit that you have been brainwashed! Admittance is the first step to change after all.

And after reading what I’ve written here, I urge you-

Don’t just blindly accept what I’m saying- please, think about this for yourself and come up with your own opinion, because like I said, it’s so very easy to be brainwashed in today’s world!  

And one more thing, please don’t be afraid to be the only one who thinks differently, society achieves nothing if all the people think the same.

May Allah Almighty save us all Inshaa-Allah!

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Eid ul Adha Greetings