Assalam Aleykum Warahmatullahy Wabarakatuh
Hello my people!
For the past two weeks or so I’ve been quite vigilant in
trying to make sure that I have a post up every Wednesday and Sunday. To the
ones who noticed and reckoned that there was no Wednesday or Sunday post for
that matter because this will probably be going up on Monday, I sincerely
apologize. I simply was not in the right state of mind nor mood. To the ones who didn’t notice, never mind.
As I’ve expressed on my blog before, It’s much easier to
make posts surrounding products or items that live in the actual world and not
in my constantly wondering head; because then I don’t have to go into the
depths of my intricate mind and rack my brains out in order for me to carefully
pick out jumbled up thoughts, and somehow manage to arrange them into a written
piece and hence give them a meaningful life. Basically, posts that aren’t
labeled ‘thoughts’ I personally find to be much easier to handle. Although they
entail their own level of 'handwork' such as taking great pictures and having the
perfect setting, they don’t necessarily force one to painfully look at
themselves and converse with their inner troubles.
So...Wanderlust; a strong
innate desire to travel and explore the world. It comes from the German words ‘Wandern’
which means to hike and ‘Lust’ which means desire. When directly translated, it
means the enjoyment that comes from hiking or roaming about or wandering; atleast
according to Wikipedia. Wanderlust seems to be a state of mind that has captured
many of the moon children of our current generation. And as much as I strive to
stand out and not be a groupie, I am unfortunately part of this crowd of people
who simply want to explore, discover and experience the wild adventures that
life has to offer.
I find it quite intriguing
how diverse our world is, how we can have so much diversity in food and style
and language and dressing. How we can say hello and thank you in a million
different languages and how one thing in this culture means something
completely different in another culture. In the holy Qur’an, Allah The Exalted
tells us that He created us from a single pair of male and female and made us
into diverse tribes and nations so that we may learn from one another. And isn’t
it fascinating how much there is to learn about each other? I mean in Kenya
alone we have 42 different tribes, 43 if you include Nubians, all with
completely different languages, traditions and customs. Instead of looking at
our differences as aspects of life that divide us, we should realize that our
differences are actually where our individual beauty lies and what unites us as
humanity, because if we were all the same, we would not learn anything from
each other because there’s nothing to learn from in the first place.
However, just as history has proven, human being’s acceptance
of ‘different’ has not always been that smooth. Often times the reception has
been accompanied by fear and anxiety. Which as I write this post seems
completely absurd to me and yet I am living proof of it. In a few weeks in shaa
Allah, I will be traveling to Rwanda for an internship, God willing if
everything goes well. I will be there for a period of six weeks and it will be
my first time traveling alone, to a different country, by myself. As much I am
excited for this amazing opportunity, I am also completely terrified for the
simple reason that this is different and not what I am used to. My brain keeps
coming up with all these situations that could possibly go wrong and then because
my brain is so fascinating, it comes up with solutions to problems that
it created in the first place! Oh brain how awesome you are!
In all honesty, the fear I am experiencing is making this
experience, which is not yet even guaranteed, seem quite daunting and scary, because
I’m leaving my comfort zone and heading into uncharted waters. I feel like we
are so accustomed to always having someone to hold our hands throughout life,
and when we lose that hand we are paralyzed in our tracks. A simple
example spending time alone; because how many of us feel completely confident going to the movies by
ourselves? Or going for an event by ourselves or eating lunch by ourselves?
That being said, we need to start being comfortable with the idea of being
alone, because being alone is not being lonely. *Note to self.
Unfortunately, the idea of allowing fear to convince us
into cowering away from our dreams and ambitions is something that is quite
prevalent, especially in this day and age. Not only because of the immense
pressure to be successful , but also because it has unfortunately become so easy for us
to focus solely on what could go horribly and forget that you know what? Things
could go absolutely great too.
Being a graduate who I would say was suddenly thrust into
the world of adulthood, and basically expected to know exactly what to do and
when to do it, you kind of quickly learn that fears will always be there. Today
it could be one thing and the next day something completely different.Basically, there will always some
type of fear that is relevant to where we are in life. A few months ago it was
what grade a certain lecturer is going to give me, whereas today, it’s
something different.
I remember reading in one comic whose name has completely
slipped my mind, that the essence of conquering your fears is not waging a war
against them, but learning to coexist with them. It’s about facing that fear
and admitting that while the fear is a possibility it is not a reality. Atleast
not yet, and until it is, I we need to open the door that is our mind, say hello
to our fears, welcome them in for some tea with a smile, and sit down to watch our favourite
shows together.
Being afraid isn’t wrong, it’s human; but letting fear
control us, that just sheer cowardice. And who wants to be a coward? Certainly
not me, and I hope you don’t either.
