Get Up and Do Your Thing

Life has been challenginglately. In July I've faced some financial
setbacks, and also some personal setbacks that have hit mehard, and
drained me emotionally to the point where sometimes I just sit in my
padded computer chair and don'tfeel 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 doit with vigor, because my students are looking to me for
guidance and inspiration. I get up and do my volunteer job at the
Muslim community center. I get up and take my daughter to the lake or
the masjid, and have atea 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 and do what you have to do. Youpick your foot up
and take a step, then lift the other one and take another step, 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 beauty and blessings around you, all wash the pain away like a
river.
That's what it is to be alive. SubhanAllah.
So, to all those reading this now, I send you light and love, and I
know thatno 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
shorttime that we all have on this beautiful ball of brown and blue.
One last note: Eat healthyfoods, drink water and – very important –
get enough sleep. These are all critical to maintaining an emotional
balance and moving forward in life with a positive attitude.