Sometimes in life, we come across situations that completely catch us off-guard. A complex situation introduces itself before you, and you cannot ignore it, turn away, change your direction, or pray that it resolves itself. You are bound to face it head-on, and make the decision because your choice directly or indirectly impacts the people close to you (for e.g. family members). At that time, you realize too late that you’ve grown-up enough to have such stake-holders associated with your decisions. And what’s worse, you are not trained, or have not learnt how to make ‘good decisions’.
So you start by asking around for ‘others’’ opinions/suggestions for this critical, life-changing and turning-point decision ‘your’ life. You ask your relatives, friends & associates, and you end up even more confused than before.
The direct stake-holders (obviously) urge you to make the decision that benefits most to ‘them’, and ‘you’. So you are in an impasse.
Overall, you find yourself in the dark, looking around for a light to guide you but you are unable to. And you start thinking that all of the doors you see appear closed. No door open!
When the time to make the decision is so near and you find yourself completely hopeless, and nowhere near any conclusion. And because of over-thinking, you imagine yourself going through a maze, or an immensely dense & blinding fog.
To ask for consultation one last time, you sit down with that one genuine sincere friend, and that friend sternly and loudly tells you (through that fog), to just do it, say ‘yes’ to it and just go for it.
At that time (because you are already overwhelmed by over-thinking), you are unable to properly analyze if your friend is telling you the right thing or not, but you definitely receive the feeling that whatever he/she is telling you, is from the deepest & most genuine sincerity in his/her heart.
And then you make that decision (without thinking anymore), just before the time is up, and you end up realizing that you made the ‘good decision’.
I want to emphasize that I completely know the turmoil I was going through, but that even happen to teach me so much. I want to add that during that phase of confusion, ‘life’ was also silently (and through indirect signals), telling me to make that same ‘good decision’, but I wasn’t listening to it, not until life ultimately had to put forth someone before me who had to yell it to my face at the eleventh hour.
When I’m in my most isolated and private moments, I realize how much I have learnt from that experience. I’ve learnt:
- How to be positive even when the glass appears completely empty
- What to do when you’re inside a pitch-black darkness, and all the doors appear closed
- To look for ‘all’ options
- To ask for guidance only from those people who are genuinely sincere with you, and who have good knowledge & life experiences
- How to make ‘good decisions’
- How to listen to Life’s guidance & signals
For the first two points, I realized that in the situations when the glass appears completely empty, or you cannot see and light in the pitch-black darkness, you do these two things:
(i). Have patience
(ii). Have this hope & faith in your heart that “even though I can’t see any light, its maybe because I’m not looking for it in all possible ways, but I know the light is there, and it will definitely reveal itself to me.”
Or more simply, “Have hope even if it doesn’t ‘appear’ to have any hope”
But hope is always there. Always!
For the 3rd point, I remember I was in a training-session with a corporate trainer who proved that we don’t usually see all possible options by asking us to count the number of squares you see in the diagram:
Guess the total number of squares? Its 40!
If you’ve been able to count them all, great!
But if you haven’t been able to count all of them, its alright. Its just an enlightenment that we don’t usually see ‘all’ the options. Its good to develop ourselves to be able to see all the options.
For the point (4), I would just sincerely request you to please do yourself a favor, and don’t ask for suggestions from all the people around, it would only leave you even more confused.
Please, only ask for guidance & suggestions who are genuinely sincere with you. You may be surprised to know that some of your friends are actually more genuinely sincere with you as compared to your relatives.
For the point (5), I’ve observed through experience that there are mainly three categories of decisions:
(i). Emotion based
(ii). Mind based
(iii). Belief based (or risk—based)
Emotion based decisions are never recommended, as Hazrat Ali (RA) narrates “Never make a decision in anger, and never make a promise in happiness”
Also, ALLAH has granted us our brains to make our decisions. But sometimes, in the cases when you have to make turning-point decisions of your life, even your mind reaches a dead-end. Your processor hangs-up. There is a void in your path that is unable to be filled either by the intensity of emotions, nor the cleverness of your mind.
That void is filled by faith and belief in ALLAH, and you take that risk…. You make that ‘jump’.
You jump over that void, and see your wings finally opened. You see yourself flying now.
So, I just want to share that sometimes, even your mind reaches its limits, and then you have to take the belief-based & risk-based decisions.
For the point (6), I would like you to know that you have to keep your eyes, ears, mid & heart open. Always keep your observation-mode on.
Through some co-incidential events, life silently communicates with you and tells you what to do, or what option to choose.
One of the many ways of indirect messages life gives you is, for e.g., if it wants you to choose B instead of A, it would make your path towards B easy, and would make the path towards A difficult.
And this is just one example of a way life helps you choose the ‘good option’.
I would suggest that when you’re in a difficult situation, ask life what to do, and you would start getting answers.
“Ask and you shall Receive”
But I was naïve. I wasn’t listening to the silent & indirect messages of life earlier, not until life got so annoyed by me and had to finally bring forth my friend to loudly and directly say it to my face at the very last hour.
May ALLAH grant you ease, and grant you the ability to distribute peace.