Two years ago as autumn turned to winter, I noticed that there was something wrong with me. I did not know what it was, but my emotions were heightened, I was on edge, easily upset and very inconsistent in my day to day dealings. My mood would swing between the strangest misery and confused folly. The misery revealed itself in the tears that welled up for no apparent reason from the tiniest seed. The folly in the quick humour which would rise rapidly and then die. I seemed to be dissatisfied with myself. My heart ached, feeling heavy in my chest.
Returning to England following a summer spent overseas, I quizzed myself about my unhappiness and decided that I could change it by engaging in one project or another. Each attempt lasted barely two weeks. There was a group writing initiative, to which I contributed five articles before hurriedly retracting four of them again, turning my back on the project because of the melancholy which kept overcoming me. It was all ups and downs, backwards and forwards, proposals and withdrawals. At work I wanted to be a writer, then a graphic designer, next an IT trainer, then a communications officer; and then, just as I was offered an interview for the latter, I was resigned once more to my role. Perhaps tomorrow would bring a better day, I concluded; perhaps it was not so bad.
Verily mankind is ungrateful. My first job after university was very comfortable. I earned a better salary then than I ever have since. It was located on a country estate outside Maidenhead, in converted stables between a lovely walled garden and a grand mansion with manicured grounds. The Chairman liked his fast cars but he was generous to us, keeping the fridge stocked up every week to provide his staff with a free lunch. For some reason, though, I was dissatisfied, despite a great wage for the simplest of graphic design work.
When the company downsized after the slump in the market following the attacks on the United States in September 2001 and I was out of a job, I started up my own business offering publishing services. This was a situation where I was in the position to do what I most love: creating beautiful books. Alas I became dissatisfied once more, even though I was given the opportunity to typeset some really very important works. There had to be something better, I told myself, and so I moved onto new ground. I ended up as Office Manager in a busy training department, a role that allowed me to do many interesting things. Yet again I became dissatisfied and so the cycle started again.
What is it that drives me over the edge again and again? Why is it that I am never satisfied with what I have? Is my situation not better than the poor soul who sets up his table on a bridge over the Bosporus every evening in Istanbul to sell ice cold, bright yellow lemonade to hot and tired commuters? Indeed, is my situation not better than those dry, scorching days I spent administering an internet café in the summer of 2003, with the fumes of traffic numbing my brain? Or the days spent serving prickly Thai and unsophisticated Lebanese cuisine to three hundred customers over lunchtime off Berkley Square?
Perhaps it was pride: pride, which made me think that the job I was doing was never good enough, pride which got in the way of an honest day's work, making it seem worthless and me worthless as a result. I thought I had been stumbling away from a path I once knew when I was younger and more devoted to treating a lump of flesh beneath my ribs.
One of the first books I was given to read when I became Muslim in 1998 concerned the purification of the soul. When I reflected on those uncomfortable symptoms as autumn turned to winter, I realised that it was time that I returned to that work and others like it, recognising what it was that was creating this unease. My soul had been neglected as the smog and noise of a violent and political world obscured the reality of faith. As this realisation dawned on me I sat alone one night and prayed.
Oh my Lord, put comfort back into my heart and do not let me die other than as one who has earned Your pleasure. Take away this heaviness and ache in my chest and replace it with lightness and appreciation of the sweetness of all of Your blessings. Oh my Lord, let me return to You with a good heart. Amin.
Some months later I put my eldest brother's name into Google one afternoon and clicked on search; he came up as the first listing out of about 476,000 returns. He has been involved in a number of landmark cases in the High Court and Court of Appeal, and Chambers and Partners list him as an up and coming individual. I then put in my sister's name: she also came up first out of about 51,000, with eight further listings on the same page for work on single-crystal X-ray crystallography. I immediately felt a pang of regret, looking in on myself. In the next instant I was wondering what studies I could undertake to get out of this rut--to be something beside my siblings: the lawyer, the diplomat and the PhD doc. A moment later I realised that only pride lay behind this urge of mine.
For months I had been lamenting my place in the world of work--I commonly described it as being stranded--but recently I decided to just go with the flow, to go where my Lord takes me, to submit to His plan instead of crying over mine. Applications and interviews aligned to my interests yielded no results; the description of my current role seemed to be what I was looking for, but its reality had proved far removed. Stranded here, at last I began to recognise that I have a station according to my efforts--and others have their station according to theirs. Over recent years I have found myself in the company of intellectuals and had started to consider myself one by association, but the reality is entirely different. That friends of mine are solicitors, teachers, academics and diplomats does not alter the fact that I am a simple worker whose eight hour days pay the bills and little more. Over a number of months, the past that led me here had preoccupied me, but acknowledging mistakes cannot alter time.
There has always been a reason for every path I have taken, though I could not comprehend it at the time. I pray al-Istikarah at every juncture and move onwards accordingly. Friends ask me what I aspire to achieve in life: every time I just shrug my shoulders and mutter that I do not die other one who has earned my Creator's pleasure. A dear friend of mine, now a high flying diplomat overseas, once gave me a telling off in the final weeks of my degree when he asked me what my intentions were. I told him that I did not know and he promptly told me that this was not good enough, that we all had to aspire to something. What he would think of me today, I wondered, if he knew that my answer eight years later was still the same. I have dreams of course, but all I can say is that I want to honour God.
I only have these pangs of regret every now and then, when I realise how my siblings are doing and what my friends have achieved. But what lies behind this? I work to live, not vice versa. This simple job of mine pays the bills, puts food on the table. Does any man need any more? It is only pride that fosters these regrets of mine: the desire to be a great success, to be a match for my loved ones, to be known amongst the people, but that is not my station. Those that have reached great heights did so through hard work and perseverance, for we only reap what we sow.
Between my soul and God lie my heart and my deeds. The greatest obstacle that has stood in the way of my own spiritual progress over the past few years has been me. I have faced addictions, desires and distractions that taunt me, keeping me from realising any lofty goals. I once wrote to a friend with some thoughts that were pressing on me just then:
I fear I am regressing spiritually. I am torn between chasing after my religion and other matters, but more and more it is the other matters that dominate. I feel I really need help to get back on track because I cannot sustain anything on my own. I can bow down one evening in sincere repentance, only to slip again two days later. It is like I am falling.
There were times in the past when such realisation drove me to instant reform, but now I found myself with a kind of dispassionate resignation, which troubled me, the lack of emotion worrying me. Emotion can drive change, creating an energy and impetus. Instead I had this quiet realisation--I knew what I needed to do, but did not have the great drive. I had a problem, I told myself, and that was me.
Yet another truth dawned on me within a matter of days. The truth is that there is not going to be a starter whistle that tells us that now is the time to start putting our house in order: it is not going to work that way. We are going to have to realise that we need to take action and make a real effort. It is going to be hard, but it is the only way. Perseverance is the key: we have slipped a lot and we have a lot to do to get back on track.
The initial realisation came within only a matter of hours. It was not immediate, for there was another trip-up before I got there, but at last I took myself away and did some dhikr for a couple of hours in the garden. I took my little purple pocket prayer book with me and repeated every supplication that seemed relevant. With it came some ease and some resolve. I just need strength and perseverance now, I told myself, for I have been down this path before. There is not going to be some great fanfare--we just have to get going and try our best. It is up to us to make the effort, for nobody else is going to live our lives for us.
Tawbah--turning back to God--means to return to correct action after error, asking for God's forgiveness and turning away from wrong actions. We know that God is the Compassionate, the Most Merciful, but it is only when we recognise that our turning to Him is in fact His turning to us that we begin to appreciate the height of His mercy. We cannot travel this road alone, for we are dependent on our Lord in everything that we do. As individuals and as communities we often lose sight of our direction, becoming obsessed with our own ideas and aspirations, which although innocent or well-meant at first can soon take us away from the realities of our existence.
