Diary of a Traveller Live, and let live - 25 When I was younger, my grandmother (Beah-ji) and beloved friend (May Allah be pleased with her Soul) would always give me the same advice, maybe she just knew that my temper and attitude would always cause trouble(!). She would say, ‘Sadak, when your walking on one side of the road and you see trouble heading towards you, someone who may harm you physically or emotionally just cross the road and avoid it altogether. Thats better for you then allowing them to hurt you or you hurt them’. 16 years later and I finally understand what she meant, maybe if I recognised the wisdom behind her advice earlier in life I would have saved myself a lot of heartache and valuable time. The beauty of her words is that she knew, through her own life experiences that sometimes its better to walk away from a fight than to meet it head on. My temper would never allow me to appreciate her advice or to take heed ‘Ooooh but Beah-ji Im not scared!!!! Why shall I cross the road, why cant they? If theyre gonna come charging at me ill kick them in the face! Im not scared of anyone!”. Not the answer she quite expected! I would have to listen to a barrage of abuse in Mirpuri for that retaliation hahah. She was a wicked character, her name was Mirza Begum, and she was a sultan in every sense of the word. When you think about how quick our life passes us by, you come to recognise and appreciate that every minute is valuable. Why then would you chose to waste it in a pointless confrontation when so much greatness awaits you? Majority of the time, the debates, he said/she said rubbish is exactly that, rubbish. We can easily avoid these collisions by maybe allowing our pride and ego to take a hit from time to time. We dont always have to have an opinion on something and if we do, we dont always need shout it to the world. In so many communities, people of differences live alongside each other, happily. Yes thats right happily! They dont feel the need or insecurity to attack each other because of the different caste/race/religion/style of living. Nah, they live their own life and let others live the life they CHOSE to. For some, trouble comes looking for them, it may be that your completely innocent or that it was unprovoked. We all have a choice to make, are we going to pursue it? or diffuse it? It was my ego and pride that would encourage me to take people on in arguments, sometimes even instigate them. I wasnt afraid of a physical fight and neither would I let fear dictate my responses. I might have even enjoyed some of the action but now that death is constantly on my mind, the same confrontations, arguments and fights scare me. I don’t want to die leaving behind a massive army of people that will complain against me. Nay, thats not the way not for me anyway. So much of what we say, do and fight over is trivial, when those seconds arrive - you know, the ones leading to our last breath we will all have some regret or another. Dont let it be that you wasted your time fighting when you could have done something more valuable. I love Rumis quote, this one in particular - ‘What you seek is seeking you’. Isnt it true? If you leave your house with your nose in the air sniffing for the nearest bit of smoke to set alight then thats exactly what you will find. I guess what Im trying to say is, if your about to pick a fight with someone about something. STOP. Ask yourself why are you doing that? If this is to be your last 24 hours alive would you start that fight or would you walk away? How do you know its not your last 24 hours alive? Peace & Love
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 16:55:51 +0000
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