Thank you for getting back to us, and letting us know how you have been getting on. However, you seem to spend a lot of time on your own creating scenarios and a fait a compli. It is so easy just to continue with bad habits, and say that well as I am going to die anyway, what is the point! Is that not the basis of your soliloquy? Then again, I suppose it depends on how you want to die, slowly, and painfully, causing suffering amongst those who love you, or knowing that you have taken up your responsibility in this world, by taking care of your health, making the most of the gift of life you have been given, and taking care of your family? Would it not be nice to die knowing that one has just done that – with a level of contentment?

You can continue chewing something addictive, knowing that it has the potential to cause some form of cancer, and make believe that you have got cancer of the mouth, so what the heck! Do you think that there is any benefit in that? Too cowardly to commit outright suicide, but in actuality that is what you are doing, just at a much slower pace! What a waste of a life, but that is the problem is it not dear brother, the fact that you are not happy with your life at all!

You continue your life by going to work, running your business, and being there for your family in some form or another, and the only risqué thing that you do, do, is to chew pan masala! Not very adventurous is it brother!

{That it is He Who Granteth Laughter and Tears}(El-Najm 53: 44)

Laughter and tears are what we feel or express when we are in touch with the world, and when we do not step outside of the process of life. In other words when we engage in life there are things that make us laugh like:

• The innocent child who does not see the obstacles that we see

or…

• The silly ways in which we complicate issues

or…

• The innate pleasure of something simple

We laugh from our hearts when others do make us feel that we should not laugh, and with that laughter comes a lighter complexion on life, and a renewed energy.

When we deprive ourselves of genuine laughter, laughter that is not at the cost of another life, we cut ourselves off from His blessings, and the simple solutions that are waiting for us to lay claim. We deprive ourselves of this medicine that releases the buildup of negative emotions.  We deprive ourselves of the mysteries of life, and the challenges that beckon us to take on life with meaning. We deprive ourselves of living each day as it comes, with the secrets of tomorrow waiting to teach us. We miss out on the opportunities to rise above our current state, towards the gifts of jihad an nafs (struggle with the self)! Would it not be wonderful to rather feel the sameness of everyday, to rise to the blessings and lessons of everyday? Would it not be wonderful to instead of wallowing in self pity and contempt to instead say this is my mistake, and I have learnt from it?

When we deprive ourselves of tears, we also deprive ourselves of the medicine endowed in it by Allah (SWT). We deprive ourselves of its ability to release emotional and physical toxins in our bodies. We deprive ourselves of the pain of suffering that we see, and our ability to do something no matter how small to relieve that suffering, because we do not want to cry anymore, or feel anymore – we just want to be happy! However that kind of happiness as a huge price on our souls because to cry means to be open, to be sensitive to the ups and downs of life, and when we close that door we close the door to being able to give as well as to receive. Instead we attach our happiness and the happiness of others to things of this world, things that can only give short term happiness, a happiness which in fact is a form of escapism like the pan masala that you chew. With that kind of happiness we pave the way to kufr, not the kufr of common belief, i.e. disbelief, but the true meaning of kufr i.e. ‘ to hide the truth’. We begin to hide the truth of little things, until those little things become large enough for us to shelve The Truth when we are in close proximity because of the level of tension it causes between our lies and the Truth itself. Is it not this which led you to write to us in the beginning dear brother?

If there was one thing you could do now to change your life dear brother, what would it be? Let us for example look at your level of apathy. Let us then look at what contributes towards your apathy in terms of your health – pan masala! What if for one day, you make the intention to not chew pan masala! Just try one day at a time, we all make mistakes and slide back, but equally we can say ‘Ah well, let me try a little bit harder’. The time you spend chewing pan masala, can be used to develop some hobby, preferably a hobby that involves some sort of craft. Let that be your challenge dear brother until one day becomes a week, and a week becomes a month, and then take a visit to the doctors.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us!

We ask ourselves

"Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?"

Actually who are you not to be?

Your playing small doesn't serve the world.

There's nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you…

As we let our light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we liberate from our own fear, our presence actually liberates others.

For further guidance, please try the following link(s):
Do You Feel Happy?
Spiritual Detoxification Tool Box
Make Something from Nothing
The Perpetual Journey
Empower Yourself, Not Your Circumstances
A Personal Education Program Called Life