“I was never poor” says a billionaire who once was a broke person, keeps echoing in my head. And this relates to 2 months until I am closing this website down to prioritise other things. I just wanted to make the few final rounds of writing here before I close down for real. It’s bittersweet but I know it’s what’s best for now so I can stay focused on quality actions and invest my resources on the more important things.
So anyway, I’ve been reflecting a lot lately especially going through an emotional roller coaster ride with moving out from a house with a few challenges along the way that has hindered us from settling down smoothly. This requires us to just go through it and it would be less challenging for me personally if money isn’t the issue.
But, Alhamdulillah, a few opportunities have come at the same time and other matters in life that I’ve committed myself to, have become easy. Unexpected rezki comes from different directions—even as small as when a person gives you free food.
In this situation, I cannot help but feel the ayat from the Quran, Surah As-Sharh 5-6, which holds true more than anything during times of, what it appears to be a hardship. With hardship, there is ease. With hardship, there is ease.
It’s both exhilarating and exhausting that I find myself wondering if this is a state of self that I am going to be in for the rest of my life. The state of struggle. And I am not even coming from a place of ingratitude, but absolute curiousity.
Logically, looking back to the ever famous “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” (you can google this if you’re not familiar lol), this “emotional roller coaster ride” is simply tied to a person’s deprivation from their basic physiological and security needs. Yet, with these deprivation, a person is expected to reach the highest expression of themselves i.e. to reach their self-actualisation. Basically, this expectation is to contribute and make an impact to someone else’s lives regardless of whether enough of their basic needs are met.
On the other hand, according to the modern society, if you are going through an emotional roller coaster ride, you are simply lacking of “self-care” and you’re supposed to make sure you don’t just have enough rest and fulfill the rights of your physical needs, but reward yourself to fulfill the rights of your mental needs.
Isn’t it crazy how these things have become almost an our absolute guidance that I too, once, would wholeheartedly believe in these until the reality of life just hits you that actually, you are just creating your own limited self. It’s only under immense pressure and challenge would you grow. It is overcoming this challenge would you break your limited beliefs and when Allah has created you, human being, as the best of His creations.
But more than this is something out of this world happens when a person is tied to their faith more than anything. When a person is faithful to the path that Allah has decreed for them, whether they like it or not (referring to Surah Al-Baqarah), they are still able to function as a whole, to a point that they don’t just master one layer of the “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” but does everything so simultaneously, with His will.
That’s when I realise is that both your mind and faith are the keys to your personal strength. We always talk about how some inspirational figures that manage to get a grip of their lives regardless of their background. In fact, a high percentage of them (not lying, have that stat somewhere in my notebook!) comes from broken homes, families and financially deprived ones. It’s through these experiences does one build grit and resilience to not just survive but thrive.
Coming back to the statement above “I was never poor”, or more optimistically “I have always been rich” is a statement that has changed how I view my life and learned a deep meaning of gratitude or syukur.
Wealth doesn’t start from money but it starts from having a rich mind and a rich soul that a person’s capability to expand themselves by contributing and giving is independent of whether a person needs to go through those layers to reach their highest expression of themselves i.e. self-actualisation, or not.
Anyway, I don’t know what I’m talking about. Just some late night thoughts. Byeee
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Syaza 