I have never felt more aligned with who I am than I currently do. Up until now, I have always felt that there has been a mismatch; who I was externally did not always match up to who I was internally. But now, I’m doing things I genuinely enjoy doing. No one is forcing me to do anything their way. I’m doing them my own way. I have a summer checklist that I’m working on and it’s full of either activities I want to do or things I want to quit. I’m okay with myself. I’m good. For once in my life, I’m not filled with self-loathing. I like how I feel about myself. Alhamdulilah. If I never lived up to this point in time, a part of me would’ve always believed that life was a “Try Not to Kill Yourself” challenge, EXTREME edition.

I’m okay with how things are, but something is telling me that things could always be better. I could always aspire for more. I could try to be and do more things in life. But, I don’t know. I feel like I shouldn’t extend my hands to grasp for more, even though I’m fully aware that Allah swt is capable of giving me everything and some more. I’m thankful for what Allah has given me now. May Allah swt allow me to benefit myself and others with the blessings he continues to bestow and shower me with. Ameen!

I was never taught how to love myself. I was taught to fear Allah because if I didn’t, I’d be cast away in Hell for eternity. I was taught that I need to love my parents, but really the “love” they demanded from me was unconditional obedience even when I desperately desired to find my own way of living life. Very early on, I was taught that it’s disrespectful to talk back at people who were older than me just because they were older than me and I was just a little girl. No one ever came to me and said: take care of yourself first. think about your own needs first. Well, I guess the Qur’an sort of did, but I was far too young to heed the lessons in the Qur’an.

You can’t help yourself or anyone if you’re not good with yourself. Preserve your sharpest judgement for yourself because no one really cares about you but yourself, dear reader. It’s true. Everyone cares about themselves first, then they spend the rest of their care points to the people they deem worthy to spend on. If you wake up every new day with nothing but self-hate, you’ll notice over time that you’ve spent all that time doing nothing but hating yourself and the fact that you exist. No one really says this because it’s such an elementary fact, but you exist and you need to be okay with it. You need to be okay with the fact that you were born into this equally messy and beautiful world. You shouldn’t go to your parents and ask them why they decided to have you because they already did. It already happened. Make peace with what has passed.

Your energy will be best spent on now. You can now focus on choosing what to cultivate over time. You can teach yourself about yourself: what your likes are, what your dislikes are, and how they show up in your interactions with the world. If you’d like to cultivate qualities of ihsan, you need to know yourself. It helps to know the answer to the following questions: What are your strong points? What are your weak points? Does saying kind words come easy to you, or does it depend on the person you’re talking to?

Just because nobody is visibly puppeteering your actions doesn’t mean that you’re doing them out of your own volition. This is why it’s important to understand yourself, so you can delineate your touch from others. Oh! & stay close to the Most Merciful. Things have a way of working out when you do everything you can possibly do, then place your trust not on the outcome, but on your Lord. Your Lord always knows best.

فِي أَمَانِ اللَّهِ