6 Amazing Life Lessons You Hate To Learn
We all have been given experiences in life that we have absolutely hated. However, isn’t it true that once we come out of the situation and look back, we understand and at times even appreciate the lessons we learn from those experiences? It makes even more sense if one surrenders to the fact that this life is not a carnival where each moment is supposed to be perfect and enjoyable. Life is a giant hands-on training session. If we accept this (usually somewhere in our mid 30s :p) and stop taking it all so seriously, we might even end up enjoying it.
The best lessons are learnt from our worst experiences. And as much as we fancy believing that we alone have the burden of the entire universe on our shoulders and we alone have experienced the worst pain God has to offer, truth is that everyone is being served the same hardships. Or rather, everyone is feeling the pain as intensely as you even if their hardship apparently seems less painful. So, I have made a list of 6 intensely painful experiences that we absolutely hate to go through but which, in reality, are mandatory to teach essential life lessons. And again, the thing to remember (especially if you are going through one of them at the moment) is that no matter how terrible you feel, there is only good at the other end. God promise. It might be in the form of you achieving something, owning (or not :p) your object of desire, becoming a better person, or the best and ultimate where you make a deep and soulful connection with God. So let’s begin!
1. Losing Face/Reputation
One thing we all are told since childhood (especially in our part of the world) is to be cautious when it comes to our reputation. We have heard our elders tell us (especially girls) time and again things like,
‘There is nothing bigger than your reputation’
‘You can afford to lose everything but your reputation’
‘You must do all in your power to protect your reputation’
As a result, we tiptoe our way around life never really going out there because so much fear has been instilled. Dishonest people, striving blindly for a superficial life, unconcerned and uninterested in real purity.
In the struggle, we forget that:
‘…He honors whom He wills, and He disgraces whom He wills’ (Quran 3:26)
So God forbid if disgrace comes knocking on the door, we are left wondering what went wrong.
A common interpretation of this ayah is that the one deserving of God’s honor is the one who is pious while disgrace is a consequence of sins. We may have been misled. Disgrace is not necessarily always a punishment because we know Prophet Muhammad (SAW) to have experienced it. And that too, after being acknowledged as the most honest and truthful person. We know Hazrat Maryam (AS) experience it after being acknowledged as the most pious woman of her time. We have read the incident of Hazrat Ayesha (RA). Sometimes this apparent disgrace is a test for the strongest believers who have exhibited some potential to be put to this great test. It is God’s way of pulling them closer by making them realize that:
· The ones who can put you on a pedestal can (even more quickly) knock you off of it too.
· What offends people is not always in your control hence not something for you to worry about
· Truely pure souls seek to please God only.
· Going through a phase where you are singled out or socially isolated is only meant to deepen your connection with God
So yes, sometimes it is important to lose that ‘reputation’ we have carefully built all these years. It is important for people to think ill of us for us to realize that the only thing that actually matters is what we and what our God thinks of us.
Lesson: Do not expect from people. Know that the way people behave with you depends on their perception which is based on limited knowledge/wisdom controlled by God and not you.
2. Betrayal
We all have also experienced betrayal. We have loved and trusted people with all our hearts and expected them to return the favor. But sometimes they simply could not bring themselves to do the apparently simple (and only fair) gesture. Life is unfair. Betrayal could come from college friends, close relatives, your own parents or children etc. Even if they love us alot, despite them being the best people in our books, and with all their virtues and them being fundamentally good people, they somehow are able to disappoint us.
Betrayal may feel like a slap on the face where you blame yourself for being stupid enough to not have seen it coming. But betrayals, other than teaching you to be more careful with your heart in the future, are again a reminder that as the attitude and commitment of people change towards us, it is not entirely their fault. It is also you giving them much more credit than their human, God-controlled selves deserve.
The best and the worst thing about betrayals is that they come from people close to us. To be betrayed by those very people forces us to re-evaluate our entire belief system. We wonder that if people so close to us can shatter our trust like that, then what really can be trusted? Our search for a higher power begins.
Lesson: You are not entitled to people’s loyalty. And neither are people to yours (Therefore, your loyalty is the best gift that you can offer to somone). Look beyond the horizon where these people stand. The view is definitely much more grand.
3. Helplessness
At least once in your lifetime, you must live a situation where you feel completely trapped and helpless. It could be in business, or in relationships etc. Regardless, it must be so bad that it makes you question the existence of God. You must feel as if there is no God. Or that if there is one, then He must have forsaken you because He probably doesn’t like you at all. Being in that state where all doors of hope and help seem to have have shut on you, there are so many lessons to learn:
· No matter how hard you try, sometimes things will spin completely out of your control. This brings with it the realization that nothing really is required of you other than to observe and acknowledge the signs of the existence of God in this grand show called life. So, relax maybe? :p
· The realization that there is a strong power by whose hand everything is being written in an extremely systematic way and against whose will nothing can happen.
· This test is again to teach you the great lesson of endurance and humility: two extremely valuable virtues to be successful in life.
· As a result of feeling powerless, you discover that authentically your choice and synonymously your greatest strength lies in the kind of a person you allow yourself to become while going through such hardships.
Lesson: Allow yourself to completely feel that helplessness. It all must sink in deep because once the situation turns around and God blesses you once more with His treasures, there will be another lesson to learn. That there is a bigger picture of which you are playing only an atom of a role. You are not that significant to be disliked by a power that is all about love.
4. Losing a Loved One to Death
The death of a loved one must be experienced by us to not only tell us how easy it is to lose people we hold dear, but also to remind us that we also have to leave this world one day. It teaches of the temporariness of this life and of this one universal truth that we all seem to agree upon.
Lesson: This world and this life are temporary. Keep all the love and attachments of this world on the palm of your hand. Never allow it to creep up your arm and enter and occupy your heart which was created to love and be attached to the One and Only. Also, you must make an effort to figure out, to the best of your ability, some answers about life. The treasures lying in there are beyond precious.
5. An Event that Proves you Wrong
And then we absolutely must go through an event in life that challenges our values, determines for us the illusiveness of our beliefs, questions our code of ethics, and sometimes simply proves us wrong. Before experiencing such an event, we might be very sure of the things we believe in and even be somewhat proud of what little knowledge and wisdom we have gained in life. And then there comes along an incident that brutally and unapologetically slays all that pride.
Lesson: Stop judging. Give people the benefit of doubt. Hide their flaws. Forgive. Empathize. Stop with the self-righteousness. Practice humility. People have as much right to be wrong as you.
6. Falling in Love
Falling in love is probably that crash course that encapsulates all the 5 lessons mentioned above and much more. There is a reason we all have been designed to be curious about this feeling. This hunt for love which seems to be as universal as death must be leading somewhere, right? Because we just do not seem to be giving up on it. Is it possible that the feeling of love that we experience in this world is a much diminished version of what we are supposed to feel while in connection with God? Is it likely that this worldly love is a miniature of something much more grand that we are being pushed to recall? Is it fair to give so much credit to an imitation than the real thing itself?
I feel that there are levels of falling in love. The highest is to fall in love with God. Then you must love yourself most. More than any other human in the world. Only after fulfilling these two is when you can truly love any other person as is due. It is only when you love in this order (a kitten may be an exception though :p) that you can achieve a harmonious relationship with all. Unfortunately, it is almost never so when we start to experience this feeling.
We tend to fall in love with other human beings before God and before ourselves. And that is when everything comes tumbling down with all the lessons that you absolutely must learn. To truely understand the importance of falling in love in the correct order, one must fall in love in the wrong order first.
Lesson: If this is the mistake you, like every other person on the planet, have made: embrace it. The sooner you do that, the sooner you shoot for stars. Because a person who finds divine love through experiencing the pain of falling in love in the wrong order has found part of the truth and hence, becomes invincible!
In conclusion, it seems like all these experiences are about losing something physical or abstract. They are designed to make us humble and realize the temporariness of events, people, things, and emotions. And when we reach that point of clarity we also realize how God has always been there with us consistently and how (in the first place and all along) God and God alone was deserving of the pure dedicated love, expectations, and dependency. Moreover, these events also serve as signs and evidence that all point towards an entity that has power over things we cannot control and knows way more than what little knowledge we have.
