Set a Purpose

(Majid Ali Khan, Rawlpindi)

Why is this life? What’s the purpose of it? These are the questions we might ask our self when we get depressed. God has made us His vice due to fact that we have the most powerful tool on the planet “The Microcomputer” between our ears. It’s the ability to think, ponder, innovate, create that makes us superior to the other creatures on the world. We might not be as powerful as a lion, as speedy as a tiger, as clever as a fox but we are intelligent enough to overpower these powerful creatures by our mind.

"It is the mind that maketh good or ill, that maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor." - Edmund Spenser

By this we can say that life is not just about eating, drinking, excreting, sleeping etc but it’s a cycle in which we have to act as social animal where we have to communicate, where feeling and emotions does exist, where there are necessities to be met, where we want respect, where we want to be trusted, where we want to be successful as a human and as a gentle individual, where we have to follow our religion. Success makes a man happy but to be successful it takes a lot of hard work and concentration. The first step of every action should be to aim at a goal or to set a purpose so that all the energies converge at a point and our mind do not get distracted from the path we want to follow.

We haven’t seen our God but this is our innate belief that He exists. We as a Muslim pray five times a day, if you (the reader) don’t then you should. We bow before our God but the mindset with which we start our prayers is of keen importance because prayers mean direct communication with our creator. But if our concentration is not there then the purpose of the prayer is not met. The reason for writing this is that almost 5 years ago when I was in ninth class, I heard my teacher saying that you duffer guys if you can’t concentrate on the lecture and I wonder that how you people manage to concentrate in prayers. On that day I felt that in fact I have never concentrated. I have rather been involved in making castles in my thoughts while praying. This life is mortal but we must prepare our self for the immortal life by shunning the way of Satan. Everyone wants his hard work to be fruitful but it’s the mindset that also needs to be checked before and after we take an action. Once a famous pious woman Rabia Basri prayed to God that if I am praying due to the fear of Hell then put me in Hell but if I am doing it only for Your pleasure then do not keep me from having a glimpse of You. Have we ever longed to have a glimpse of our Creator...?

We are just moving around a zero point in our life where there is regression in every aspect of life. Some people say that our religion is hurdle in our progress then if we ask our self that are we good practicing Muslims? The answer will definitely be NO then are we progressing as an individual or as a nation? Again a NO is expected in answer. The reason for our regression is that we have nothing to aim at in our lives every day we keep on replicating our actions of the previous days. If we are not progressing then the gravity (automatic pull) will attract us downwards.

"If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you’ve always gotten." – Anonymous

Progress and success gives energy to the life but with our aiming at something in life is just like a weed in the forest growing uselessly but spoiling the beauty of its habitat. Purpose gives a direction to life it converges all our energies to one point. If direction is not set we can stray from our path. Think of two arrows pointing in the same direction. If you make a tiny change in the direction of one of them, if you push it three or four degrees in a different direction, the change will probably be imperceptible at first. But if you follow that path for yards and then for miles, the difference will become greater and greater until there's no relation at all between the first path and the second.

By setting a purpose it is not meant to be a robot in fact it means that for our every action the reason should be known to us. Most people like army for the reason that they do things in an organized manner and work until goal set by them is achieved. What we have done is that we have left all on the mercy of luck. But it’s worth knowing that luck favors those who try.

"The meeting of preparation with opportunity generates the offspring we call luck” - Anthony Robbins

In childhood most of us would have wanted to become Doctor, Pilot or may be an Engineer and after growing up we realized that these profession does not suits us (in fact our marks weren’t enough to meet the requirements). And we became an IT student in hope that this time around things might turn well for us. This shows our lack of seriousness towards the life in which every event has been accidental.

A purposeless life leads to frustration because the dreams have been always been bigger than accomplishments. It is said that actions are influenced by our thinking then from where will the creativity and the positivity come? When we have nothing to aim at. To get rid of this frustration, I think we should be more inquisitive to our self. For this we must bring subtle changes in our life. It might take long to adapt to a new mindset because things can’t be changed overnight but once we set a direction to be chased, we will definitely be internally more satisfied than what we are currently. In accomplishment of the targets set by us we’ll be challenged mentally, physically, monetarily but the best of the man can be found when he finds himself in threat, or in the delirium of life and death ; all of a sudden a changed man comes out of him. A Poetess describes this in a beautiful couplet...
When Heart Gets Sink And Soul is Torn
We Learn To Pick Flowers Out Of Thorn

In trying to achieve the target and the goals set by us there are two possible thoughts that might come in our mind. One is that I can do it, when a congruent command is given to the mind that things are doable then all of a sudden new doors of creativity will open in the mind that will lead to our success. Second is that I can’t do it, when we think like that all of a sudden every hope of possibility of that event vanishes. So we should always be hopeful, because hard work is never wasted rather you get success or you gain an experience.

“For every disciplined effort there is a multiple reward.” – Jim Rohn

At last I would say that be a doer but if you can’t do at least not be the one who exaggerates things and also refrain others from taking brave steps. Knowledge is good to have but implementation is more necessary. If we want to make our every day count as a special day where we gained something new, we must create our own world where work, enjoyment, love, friendship, necessities, sentiments, mistakes, religion should have a proper definition. So that we find our self socially, spiritually, financially and religiously on a higher place from where we find our self today.

May the road rise to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sunshine warm on your face, the rains fall soft upon your fields, and, until we meet again ... may God hold you softly in the palm of His hand.

Majid Ali Khan
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