Hardship Is A Mindset

Assalamua’laikum dear soul!

As a working-at-home-mother (WAHM) who is only learning to be good at “everything” (read: cooking while managing my daughter’s extreme mood swing and managing School of Deen events and audio lessons at the same time) – I seem to find many things difficult.

I still remember when I first had to edit an audio lesson myself – I asked my husband “How?” Then the only thing he said to me was – “Learn”. 

“Go google.” – He added.  

So, I took his simple advice and googled – “How-to-edit-audio” and masyaAllah – there are so many reliable ways out there that you can learn from and follow step-by-step. Of course it did take some time but once I’ve learned it, I began to master it and things gradually became much easier.

Consequently, I realised – “Hardship is just a mind-set”. It is something that I “tell” myself each time I am afraid (and lazy) to embark on learning and starting new things.

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You know there’s a Malay saying that goes – “Nak seribu daya, tak nak seribu dalih” which means -“We’ll put as much effort as we can to find ways to achieve things that we want, but we’ll put up as many excuses as possible for something that we do not want”.

Indeed, it’s true.

In our life, our closest “companion” is our mind. We are what we think we are.

If we think that we can, then we will do it.

But if we think we can’t, then we will never do it.

Imagine if Bilal bin Rabbah radiallahuanha, one of the great companions of the Prophet ﷺ ,set in his mind that he is a slave and can never be more than that – do you think he will be remembered until today?

Bilal was free not because before that he was chained by his master but because he has changed his mind set. He refused to be a slave of his master who worships the idols. And whatever harm inflicted on him did not make him change his mind-set.

And subhanallah – just by changing his mind-set, that he is a free-man, he eventually did become just that when he was bought and freed by Abu Bakar As-Siddiq radiallahuanha. He even became the first Mua’zin to call people to prayer later in his life. Ma sya Allah!

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From his story I learnt that everything is indeed possible when we set our mind right. Things will always be hard if we keep telling our mind that it’s hard!

But if we are positive and believe that Allah is always there to help us – then like Bilal – we will eventually be successful no matter how hard and impossible things may seem to others.

So now, let’s pause and look deep into our mind and fix whatever that is needed to be fixed.

Because truly – everything starts from there.

Humbly,

UmmSumayyah
#SchoolofDeenFridayLetter