Tentang A*

Bismillah.

Rasanya seperti energiku sudah habis, sehingga enggan untuk kembali. Rasanya seperti, motivasinya menguap. Aku tidak punya alasan untuk melangkah maju. Tapi aku paham lari bukan pilihan. Ingin rasanya mengobrol dan membicarakan hal ini secara gamblang. Bahwa rasanya aku ingin menyerah sebelum mencoba.

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Paragraf itu aku tulis, berniat berkeluh kesah di sini, daripada disimpan rapat kemudian aku berdalih ingin sendiri padahal sebenarnya sedang lari dari masalah.

Alhamdulillah kemarin sudah berani menemui masalahnya, diberikan kemudahan dan jalannya sama Allah. Tinggal gimana aku mengisi bensin energi dan motivasi, tinggal gimana aku belajar bertanggung jawab dan menyelesaikan yang harus tuntas.

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Sebenarnya masih ada yang ingin aku tulis di sini. Tentang konflik dalam diriku yang membuatku enggan maju. Tentang komersialisasi, ah, susah kalau nulisnya ditutup-tutupi begini. Ada yang masih ingin kutanyakan tentang A*, detail prosesnya, step-stepnya, bagaimana nanti jika ini dan itu.

Sebenarnya masih ada yang ingin aku tulis di sini. Tentang konflik dalam diriku yang membuatku enggan maju. Bagaimana jika ada yang tidak layak? Masih kurang? Ah, siapa lah aku untuk menilai itu. hmmmmm. Bekacalah bell. Apakah kamu ingin hanya menjadi penonton? Bukan pemain.

Sebenarnya masih ada yang ingin aku diskusikan di sana. Rasanya masih butuh teman diskusi secara gamblang, denotasi, tanpa perlu mengabstrak begini. Tapi pada siapa? Aku ga nyaman tanya di grup. Tapi mau pm ke siapa gatahu. hmmm. Ingin meminta bantuan, tapi seperti biasa ragu.

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Terakhir, pengingat untuk diri:

He says, (فَاِذَا فَرَغْتَ فَانْصَبْ) (QS Al-Insyirah: 7).

Very powerful words. When you find yourself free, exhaust yourself. When you find yourself free, exhaust yourself. And what in the world does that have to do with… ease and difficulty? Allah does not want you and me sitting idle. When we are in difficulty, Allah actually wants us to exhaust ourselves.

You see other people when they find themselves in difficulty. They sit back and start giving up. They get depressed, they get anxious, they start quitting, they take a backseat.

But the believer because of these ayah, “Oh, you’re in difficulty.” Well the moment you find yourself having free time, of any kind. Exhaust yourself, put yourself to work, make yourself productive.

The ulama would comment exhaustively on this ayah. When you free yourself from da’wah, busy yourself with, you know, ‘ibadah. When you free yourself from ‘ibadah, busy yourself with da’wah. Like the Prophets (ﷺ), every time he’s exhausted from one task. He needs to busy himself with the other tasks.

The question is how much free time do you and I spend, thinking about how terrible life is, sitting there doing nothing, letting our mind take us around in circles. While we sit there, completely unproductive, completely paralyzed. And Allah says, you have way too much free time on your hands and you’re not exhausting yourself. When you’re not exhausting yourself, you are allowing the difficulty to win.

And if you don’t, the ayah starts with a (ف). Which is called (فَ – اَلسَّبَبِيَّة). “Therefore.”

“Because you want ease to come, you better exhaust yourself.”

As a result of learning this, you better put yourself to work. So you and I have to actually live meaningful productive lives.

Sometimes it is easy to become overwhelmed with the experiences that we’re having. It’s easy to become overwhelmed with sadness, or grief, or nervousness, or anxiety. It’s okay to do that, but we have to learn to fight through that, through Allah’s words. Find the strength to actually put ourselves to work and busy ourselves with something.

- Nouman Ali Khan, A Life of Ease