setbacks, and also some personal setbacks that have hit me hard, and
drained me emotionally to the point where sometimes I just sit in my
padded computer chair and don't feel like getting up. I feel like I
hardly have the energy to get up and prepare some food to eat, let
alone pray, work, go to class, care for my daughter…
And yet I do get up. I go out and teach a 2.5 hour martial arts class
and I do itwith vigor, because my students are looking to me for
guidance and inspiration. I get up and domy volunteer job at the
Muslim community center. I get up and take my daughter to the lake or
themasjid, and have a tea party with her, and read her the latest
chapter of "Fish Face". I laugh with her and love her with everything
I've got, because she needs me. I don't have time for self-pity.
I get up and do my thing, because that's what it is to be a man (or
woman), to be a father (or mother), to be a Muslim, to be a friend, to
be alive! You get up anddo what you have to do. You pick your foot up
and take a step, then lift the other one and take anotherstep, and
before you know it you are moving ahead, and time has passed and your
problems have diminished and don't hurt quite so much, or maybe you
have overcome them entirely, because you are experiencing the joy of
life.Your love for Allah, and your gratitude, and your attentiveness
to the beautyand blessings around you, all wash the pain away likea
river.
That's what it is to be alive.SubhanAllah.
So, to all those reading thisnow, I send you light and love, and I
know that no matter what physical or emotional aches you are
experiencing, you will rise each morning with gratitude, you will take
a step and move ahead, you will love and laugh, you will push
self-pity to the side and live your lives with commitment, in the
short time that we all haveon this beautiful ball of brown and blue.
--
- - - - - - -