Think Big Dream High-E11 – Love

Eternal Love

I came from the village. As someone from the village, I’m always evaluating and praying that I can improve myself every minute of the time. More so when I’m on my own in the Wilayah Persekutuan mosque. Many images and visuals come and go. Love is one of the issues that surfaced in my imagination. Love is mentioned many times in the Quranic Tafsir or Hadith or in other forms of writing. All this while, I thought that love is relevant to the teenagers only. They are the ones largely involved in love. The more I pondered, the more I realized that love is not exclusive to the teenagers only. It is relevant to all levels of the communities. It is relevant to all of us.

The Hierarchy Of Love

Our love for Allah SWT is the most important love of all. Followed by love for our religion, love for our Prophet Muhammad SAW, love for the Malaikat, love for the Anbia, love for the Quran, Injil, Taurat and Zabur. Love for ourselves,our parents,our wife and children,relatives,neighbours, the ummah,all of the mankind,all the living things,the universe and all of Allah SWT’s creations. All of these are essential love and borne automatically out of someone with iman and takwa.

I do read a lot of life stories and biographies of successful people either Muslims or non Muslims. They could be the Prophet’s SAW’s friends, Islamic Mujadid or the life stories of the country’s leaders or corporate figures. I am indeed very impressed with the life stories of these successful people. From my observation and research, one of the factors that contributed to their success is that they have abundance feeling of love and affection inside themselves. They love themselves. They love everybody around them, They love everything about their environment. They love the people and their nation. They love their work, career, and their business. They love to gain knowledge and skills and are open to criticisms. They love learning, giving advice and sharing experiences that they went through and gained. They love challenges and risks. They love to win and for the sake of winning they love their success.

Learn To Love Oneself

I often asked myself the question, “Do I love myself enough?”. If I love myself enough, I should be doing only things that can guarantee my happiness in this world and Jannah life hereinafter. If I love myself enough why is it that sometimes I am lazy to put in more effort to achieve success? I am sometimes lazy to perform the late night solat and other ibadat ? I am sometimes lazy to read and increase my knowledge and skills. I do at times think of negative things and sometimes think bad about other people. I do at times feel disappointed, loosing hope and sad. At times I do feel there is no more hope for myself to achieve any ambition, nobody to rely on in solving the many problems I faced. At times I do feel that I’m a born looser and that is my fate. I am always facing dire straits and failure in life. I’m still being unfair to myself. I’m still uncertain of my intelligence and maturity. I still do not love myself wholeheartedly. I still fail to get to know my actual self. At times, I do feel I’m great, successful and getting closer to Allah SWT. In actual fact it’s the opposite. I have not love myself wholeheartedly. I’m still not sincere and transparent to myself, not fair to myself. I still do not know myself.

If all these images still crosses my mind, still exist in my being, still bothering and disturbing my feelings, still affecting my actions and decisions, it looks like I still fail to love myself. I know that I can love myself. I really do want to love myself. I realize the condition for me to love myself is to put aside all negative thoughts, feelings, assumptions and actions that prevent and make me far apart from loving myself completely. I now realize that I am the main culprit to be blamed for preventing myself to achieve any form of success. I actually have not love myself fully. I still put the blame on myself, still having bad impressions, still not confident and belief in myself. I still have an inferiority complex.

Strengthening The Love For Myself

From now on I must strengthen the love for myself. I will not do anything to trouble myself or my family. I will first ask my inner self and myself whether a particular thing is good or bad before making any decisions or actions. I do not want to blame myself anymore. Actually I can criticize and make comments upon myself but not to the extent of hating and blaming myself. Other people too will be invited to criticize, make comments and advise me. This will in no way stop me from loving myself. All these criticisms will serve as a motivation and guidance for me to love myself more. Laziness, disappointment and giving up hope are the actual causes of failure and this failure will dampen the love for myself. Alternatively, self awareness, intelligence, diligence and tawakal are the metaphors for my success and this success is the fertilizer for the love of myself. I love myself. I will not allow any negative elements to become the barrier for me to increase the love for myself. I am very confident and positive that I will succeed in loving myself.

We Do Not Love The Other People Less

Have you heard of the saying,” we have to love the others before we love ourselves?”. How can I love someone else without me first loving myself, my environment. How can I express the love for my countrymen and my country. Take for instance the emergency situations during a flight. We are reminded time and again to fasten our safety jacket before we fasten the safety jacket of the children in our care. This does not mean we don’t love our children. By saving ourselves first we can then save our children in a more effective way. The same goes with charity. We are asked to give donation to our family first before donating to our neighbours and other people. The morale of the story is that the love for ourselves are more important and meaningful. However, this does not mean that we love less the other people. Just like my love for my Muslim brothers comes first before my love towards the other communities. Islam taught me to love every of Allah SWT’s creations. This is a priority. Nobody can question this. This has been my practise, belief and stronghold as a Muslim. Now that we know our real selves, now that we love ourselves completely, we can then share and distribute our feeling of love and success to the people around us in a more effective manner.

The True Meaning Of Love

Now I know what love means. From now on I will appreciate myself more, thanked myself more, respect myself more, reward myself more in whatever achievement I make and placed myself on a pedestal. However it will not be to the extent of making myself proud and arrogant. It will not be to the extent of me being takabur and forgetting my roots. It is just to express my appreciation and love towards myself more. Only this kind of love will be the motivator for my success. I only want to succeed. I just want to think big dream high and have a strong heart in order for me to be successful.I have a right and deserve to be successful just like anybody else before me. InsyaAllah.