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ofonespieceofmind · 3 months ago

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The Art of Letting Go and Letting God Works His 'Magic'

Bismillahirahmanirahim, it's been a long time since i last wrote my thoughts. I've been keeping them all in the list hoping that one day my fingers and brain are aligned--so they could write again haha.

A lot of things have happened unexpectedly and most of them are too beautiful, too good to be true (in which while I'm writing this sentence, I was initially thinking of writing 'there were also not really good parts' but I didn't because I couldn't recall them being that bad).

I found myself having this filter now. The thoughts-filter system that helps me to see things from different angles. Just like how some drivers are automatically installed inside our computer, this system eventually exists in me too now. And it's all begin when I found this ayaat;

فَسَقَىٰ لَهُمَا ثُمَّ تَوَلَّىٰٓ إِلَى ٱلظِّلِّ فَقَالَ رَبِّ إِنِّى لِمَآ أَنزَلْتَ إِلَىَّ مِنْ خَيْرٍۢ فَقِيرٌۭ (٢٤)

So he watered ˹their herd˺ for them, then withdrew to the shade and prayed, “My Lord! I am truly in ˹desperate˺ need of whatever provision You may have in store for me.” (Al Qasas: 24)

As a person who owns a loud brain--one that never stop thinking and worrying over things around me, this ayaat has beautifully radiates light inside me. MashaAllah, with the power that Allah holds, this ayat is life-changing and eye-opening. My brain is more relaxed now and my chest feels lighter. I found myself to be calmer as I begin to practice this ayaat and understand its meaning.

The story behind this ayaat is related to Nabi Musa. It was when he ran away from Mesir to Madyan to save himself from Firaun and he was desperately in need of help. In Madyan, he found two ladies who struggled to water their herd as they were blocked by other shepherds. Nabi Musa watered their herd and went back to the shade and recited the ayaat, asking for good from Allah (Al-Qasas: 24). Then, one of the ladies came to him and told Nabi Musa that their father (Nabi Syu'aib) invited him to repay his help and kindness. When Nabi Musa met Nabi Syu'aib and told him his story, Nabi Syu'aib later told him to not be afraid and assured him that he is now safe (Al-Qasas: 25).

This ayaat truly shows how Allah is our best hope and we confide in Him to take a good care of us when we are in a state of not knowing what else we could do. We are hoping for goodness from Allah and we are putting our faith in Him that whatever and however it is, Allah will give the best for us. And all we need to do is to have tawakkul and be patient because whatever Allah gives us and wherever Allah leads us to, we are surely going to be okay.

There are times in life where we found ourselves burnt out from doing good or giving good to others especially when we are also in desperation and exhaustion. It's hard to give when we have less and it's hard to help when we are also in need of help. But the story of Nabi Musa reminded us that when we help others, helps are also given to us by other means. And all it takes for us to believe and have tawakkul in Allah.

When we put our faith in Allah and His Mighty hands, we will feel less worry about life and whatever it stores for us. Our confidence grow stronger as we know that Allah will always get our back and everything He gives us is the best for us.

So now when I found myself spending too much time thinking and worrying over things in life, I would just tell myself;

"You know what, Nadia. Let's just let Allah works His 'magic'. Everything will fall to its place when it is the right time."

And I would worry less (sometimes I even forgot about the concerns I had). Amazing, isn't it?

The 'magic' that I am referring to is Allah and His infinite Power. He is Al-Muqtadir (The All-Determiner) and Al-Barr (The Source of All Goodness). Allah's love is the greatest. He loves us so dearly that every plan He has for us, would be the best for us. And all we need to do is believe in Him.

Sometimes, I found myself wondering why I faced a certain situation that I have no idea of how I should go through it. And slowly, I realized that Allah would not give a journey that I couldn't bear and run through. Holding on to that truly eases my mind, Alhamdulilah.

And as we grow older, we have too many commitments on our shoulders. So many weights to bear and adding on our worries about life makes it even heavier. We need to give ourselves a break. And by having tawakkul in Allah-- trusting Him that whatever and however it is, He will surely give the best for us would help us to walk on. So friends, don't be afraid to let go of our worries, the weighs we are bearing, and the bottled grieves we are keeping. Allah is As-Samee' (The All-Listener) and Al-Alim (The All-Knowing), He listens and He knows. Let's rest all our concerns, hopes, and faith in the hands of Allah and trust Him that everything will be alright.

May Allah keep us in His beautiful list, forever.

With love, Nadia.

14th June 2025

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ofonespieceofmind · 4 months ago

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ofonespieceofmind · 7 months ago

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Rare photos for the Capital of Palestine - Alquds 1920 which is 29 years before the born of the Israeli occupation.

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ofonespieceofmind · 10 months ago

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Of laying our worth up to one's perceptions.

"The way we feel about ourselves should top the way we thought others may feel about us."

It's been a long time since I had these unsettling feelings about my self-worth. And I've got to admit that sometimes, I do lay my self-worth up to one's opinions. It is as if what they think of me reflects the values of the things I did and the way I live. If nobody reacts the way I hope them to react, my worth drops.

Crazy, isn't it?

Why would we place our worth in the hands of others? Why do we try so hard to please others and wish for them to please us with affirmations?

If they don't give us the affirmations we hope for, we feel like a loser. Contohnya when we do something but people don't really give good responses to it then we get so anxious thinking that they dislike what we do and hate us. Oh my, that's the worst of it all.

Especially, in matters of our look. Sometimes, we feel so insecure about how we may appear through someone else's lenses. When in fact, the way we appear is interpreted differently by everyone. Just like how they say, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Everyone appears uniquely to everyone as we all have respective preferences and ideals. It's not wrong to not perceive someone in the same way and to have your own opinions towards someone. But, it is obviously wrong to pick on someone's look and throw your unneeded shade at them. Being respectful is easy when we understand and appreciate how life works.

I still remember how a teacher once spoke his mind out loud to me and my friends back in high school. He said, a pretty woman usually marries a 'biasa-biasa' man, and a 'biasa-biasa' woman usually marries a handsome man.

And then he pointed out to me,

"Nanti kamu dapat lelaki yang handsome lah."

Come to think of it, hahaha lol. He was actually implying yang I ni biasa-biasa je la and so I will get a handsome partner. This was honestly a preposterous logic :D

Throughout my entire life, ever since I was in school. No guy has ever decently approached me. Combining the scenario with my teacher's logic, imagine how I have been viewing my self-worth for years. Alahai. Sad, isn't it? Ish Ish Ish.

I somehow did lay my worth up to that perception. And it took me years to realize that all these while I have been wasting my time concerning over my looks and my self-worth just because nobody has ever approached me.

Oh, come on. That sucks. Don't do that to ourselves. We are actually more than what we think. Sometimes, people don't even notice what we noticed. And they don't even think what we thought they might think. So, if we keep feeding ourselves with worries and tripping over others' opinions about us, when will we walk our lives confidently?

Life is too precious to be spent according to one's perceptions and expectations. We cannot please everyone, and they cannot please us all we want too. Hence, it's best to value and appreciate our once-in-a-lifetime chance to live and reach our listed dreams<3

With love, nadia. 13.11.24 | 0008 hrs

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ofonespieceofmind · 10 months ago

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Of being a teacher-learner.

"Being a teacher-learner, we've got to add up our knowledge, remaster what we once learnt, and practice it."

Today marks the 43rd day of my career as a teacher. Honestly, so many things have happened and somehow my mind has never been completely silenced since I began the journey.

One of the thoughts that surely echoes the loudest is being a teacher requires us to do things beyond the original teaching work in the classroom. We need to be a learner too! We need to equip ourselves with various knowledge and awareness in different fields because a good teacher doesn't only teach a subject, but they teach life as a whole.

Being a teacher requires us to control our thoughts, our feelings, and actions. We cannot simply speak out the inside of our minds, lash out all of our feelings, and physically do what we wish to do. Being a teacher requires us to learn how to regulate our emotions, and constantly remind ourselves that we are dealing with a bunch of kids that actually need our help to shape them.

And I won't deny how some kids truly do challenge our patience and sometimes we just can't help but to explode. After all, we are humans too and what they did was rather unacceptable. But above everything, when we finally calmed down, I'm sure that the major part of our hearts would surely reach back to the idea of how each of them is just a kid who has a dynamic backstory.

Being a teacher-learner, we've got to add up our knowledge, remaster what we once learnt, and practice it. An unpracticed knowledge is just a theory and soon it will fade away. That's why it's important for us to learn, understand, and practice them.

It was a few weeks ago when I noticed something was wrong with the way my kids play their infamous 'lawan pemadam' game in the classroom. I felt somewhat off when a boy proudly showed me a bag of erasers he got whenever he won the rounds. It was a lot!

And so I asked,

"Semua ni pemadam awak ke? Banyak nya! Macam mana boleh banyak macam ni?"

The other boys went on and told me how he collected the erasers. It turned out that every time he won the round, he would take the opponent's eraser.

When I heard that, I macam berfikir kejap. Hold on, this is somewhat off. I wished to tegur but I reminded myself to revise the whole thing first. So, I told them that I don't think it's permissible to go by that 'rule'.

A few days after, I got my ideas checked with an ustaz and it turned out that what I had in mind was right. Hence, I decided that I should let the boys know too. As I ended my class with the boys, I called the 'eraser mania' and explained to him. I asked him to promise me that he won't play by that rule too, and no more collecting erasers from his opponents. Alhamdulilah, he understood it well. And earlier today, the boys requested to play 'lawan pemadam' among them and the 'eraser mania' told me that he is no longer collecting erasers from his friends ever since I advised him not to. Phew.

The incident was small but I believe it's important to notice what our students do at school. Whether it's right or wrong, we need to pay close attention to it. Be it from religious or morale aspects, we need to guide and help to shape them well. I don't dare to imagine if I ignored and tak tegur. What if one day I contribute to my student's wrong deeds. Astaghfirullah, God forbids. Huhu.

And so, I constantly remind myself that I truly need to learn, revise and practice a lot of Ilmu. Need to top up where I'm lacking then practice it well. After all, learning an Ilmu is never a waste. It brings us wisdom.

Hopefully, InsyaAllah, we become a teacher who possesses beneficial Ilmu and benefits our students with what we know too.

With love, nadia. 12.11.24 | 2120 hrs

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ofonespieceofmind · 10 months ago

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Are We Being the Real Us?

"How to know whether we are being ourselves or not?"

If I could separate the inner self of my body and communicate with it, I probably ask the same question. And, I think it might take a long time to finally come up with an answer. To begin with, I would say that no humans know us better than ourselves. In some ways, we are the one who knows what we really want or in other words, how we would like to appear in this world. The expectation, the imagination of ourselves walking on the earth and even what kind of clothes we would like to wear every day.

Everyone is different in terms of everything. Well, maybe there's a bit of similarity between your preferences and my preferences but the differences are much bigger than the general preferences we are talking about. As in, we both might love spicy foods but maybe I hate to see chillies on my plate, but you love seeing chillies in your meal. That's the difference. Hence, to connect the dots to W's question above…

My little cents would be that if we are being ourselves, it means we are ready to;

“Check back our bucket lists, have we made it or not. If we haven’t, then why? What’s stopping us? Get the answers and rewrite our plans to achieve our goals.”

All the goals we set in our lives could be one of the indicators that can show us if we are being the real us or not. Why? It’s because we all have different goals in life. And, I'm repeating it, we are all different. People around us don't know our goals in life so how would they know if we're being ourselves or not. "What are my goals in this life?" This is a hard question that we need to ask ourselves. Flip back our diaries, go through our bucket lists again and see what we once set in our mind on how we would like to live our lives to the fullest. However, here I also would like to remind you that it doesn’t necessarily mean that we are a complete failure or totally not ourselves if some of the goals missed the targets. For example, I wished to become a doctor before, but now I'm on my way to becoming a teacher. That, that doesn't mean I'm not being myself (facepalm). This type of goal is likely depending on God's will. We planned, but God's plans are the best for us. We must believe that.

The goals I mentioned above are more on how we imagine ourselves one day and if in the present day, we are not like what we imagined, then we should reflect on what's stopping us from being one. Like before, I always imagine myself as a person who is calm and can manage my anger in a good way, but now I'm all the way too grumpy, too cranky, and too annoying. If it went like this then, I should ask myself what's stopping me from achieving that one goal of mine. As I dug further, I found myself trapped in dissatisfaction and unfair judgments that were made on myself, it turned me into a person I never wanted to be. And, that could be a slap on my face as I realized, I have turned into a monster that is not myself. But then again, should I just let go of the goal I set and continue being the grumpy one? Nope! For that! We will call it a negative change. And negative things should be flicked away from our souls. Hence, I should rewrite my plans in order to achieve the goals that I once set which is to become a calm person. Maybe, the plans could be like ‘I should tape my mouth when I want to vent out my anger. Or maybe I should walk away and do something I love to just let it slide.’ These might get you like “Em hello Nadia, will those work? Won’t it be worse? Suppressing anger could turn fatal.” But, Nah, it’s okay. I know myself as someone who is easily annoyed with someone who does things that are against my logic or things that happen really in weird ways to me. So, maybe by practicing those I could teach myself to be calmer in some situations that I could not control. This is literally like I smacked my head and said, “Not everything goes in your favor, you freak!” (◡‿◡)

Ps, we are all different, and you know who you are so of course, you have better plans for yourself. ^^

“Reflect our life goals and question ourselves, are these goals really me? Are these goals really good for me? Or is it just some delulus expectations?”

Sometimes when we set our goals, we tend to think highly of what the future holds. Well, we should believe in ourselves as Norman Vincent Peale, the author of The Power of Positive Thinking, once said, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.” I always heard people quoting this. And, by chance, I happened to know the name of the person who said these meaningful words when I was searching for it. Anyway, I agree with what he said. We shall aim high and believe in ourselves. However, we all know that we all have our unique capabilities in something. Everyone is not a genius who knows everything right in his mind. Some people know what you don’t and it’s vice versa. There’s nothing wrong with setting big goals but being realistic is another thing we should keep in mind. Some people give up on their dreams because they are too focused on the big dreams that they set till they forget the capability and the power that they actually hold on the other things that they are good at.

Nevertheless, I was once in that situation too. I have so many dreams and goals that I want to achieve ever since I was in primary school. I want to explore a lot of fields, be it medical, psychology, engineering, software, and many more. But, hahaha. I woke myself up and told myself that, it’s never wrong to dream but I should know where my real capability lies on. So, here, am encouraging you guys to set your goals and ask yourself if the goals are good for you. Or is it just some expectations? I would like to highlight this part as nowadays we tend to get influenced by a lot of things, especially from social media. When we scroll our timeline and we see people that have something we don’t have, we tend to mark our goals to be like them. And, the mistake we make is when we expect ourselves to be like them and from here the insecurities hit us! As I previously mentioned, there’s nothing wrong with setting your goals high but just remember your capability. It’s not like I’m saying no need to dream, you never gonna be like them. But here what I want to state is that, don’t push yourself too hard because only you, yourself know how you work things out. The goals are not only on materials and how you imagine yourself living in a big mansion in the future. However, it also involves your goals on how you want to appear on Earth. In a simpler way, you might look great when you use this product but maybe it could irritate my skin when I use it. Not everything is for everyone. And, expectations do kill because some things are not within our reach. :)

“Open up, be honest to yourself.”

Allow yourself to stop and ponder what is best for you. If you think it’s not, then it’s okay to change.

We all know if we do something against the borders. Like when we are in a country, we must follow the rules and laws. The same goes for Islam, we have the Syaria’ that we are obliged to follow. The guidelines that I believe all religions have lined out to the believers. The dos and the don’ts. Hence, don’t lie to yourself. Listen to your inner voice. Pay attention to the intuitions you have in your gut. We all know what’s right and wrong. If we are wrong, then how about we change the route on our ‘GPS’ so that we can achieve our life goals but on a better and safer path. For example, we would like to go to our dream palace, and it has many routes to reach there. One route filled with joy and fun, so we chose that. As we walked, we sensed that the route was filled with thorns and it was hurting us. You realize it might risk our safety, but we lie to ourselves saying “It’s okay. The thorns are nothing compared to the joys along the route.” And as we continued, we realized that our bodies bleed more than we thought, and it makes us weaker. Try to imagine if we stop when we start to sense something is wrong with the route we took and make a calculation again. We can avoid the thorns by choosing other safer routes to reach the palace. The route might fill with boredom and no fun but remember, the real joys wait for us later when we reach the palace. So, never lie to yourself. Be true. Trust your intuitions and hunch. We all make mistakes but the moment we realize our mistakes, embrace them, and come up with different ways to not repeat the same mistakes.

“Accept and stop dwelling in the past.”

This is a hard nut to crack. Accepting what we have done and experienced in the past is indeed never an easy thing to do in life. Sometimes we make a wrong choice and regret it, or we happen to experience some ugly incidents that haunt us like ghosts in our nightmares. However, one thing we should know is that when we dwell in the past, we are like pushing ourselves into the deep sea with a metal ball chained to our feet. It made it harder to swim back to the land as the heavy metal ball pulled us deep down the sea. Close your eyes and imagine, what would you do if you were in that situation for real? Imagine the heavy metal ball chained to your feet as the past you chained to your mind. In order to save your lives, are you going to let the metal ball chained to your feet? Or are you going to muster all the courage and try to unchain the metal ball off your feet though little struggles are required to do so? Which one would you choose? If you chose the former one, man, I’m telling you. You are insane (facepalm). But if you chose the latter, then I would praise you for your courage. What’s worth more than a try, right? To be honest, I also have a problem with letting go of my past, and that makes me insecure about everything in my life. So, what I mentioned above is for myself too. Maybe with some little courage, we can finally be free from our past. Let’s start putting a stop to all the miseries, shall we? ^^

“Embrace your differences and flaws.”

We all need to keep this one in the back of our minds. We all have our beauties and flaws in some ways. Maybe I have flaws in something that you excel at. So, again, we are all different. By the time, we accept our flaws, that means we are closer to being our real selves. As no one is perfect in this world and even if you think someone is perfect, maybe that’s from your perspective. And, by the time you start to compare yourself with others, that’s when you start to hate yourself. You start to hate yourself because of the flaws you have. That’s why, the world needs to normalize not to idolize something too much till it can lead us to question ourselves, “Why do I have flaws? Ugh.” The major standard is taken as if it is the big picture we must be. No biggie but I do believe that there’s nothing wrong with idolizing something if that could be a fire to ignite your spirit but it becomes all over the mess when you expect yourself to be exactly like them and when you start to downgrade yourself. That’s a no-no, okay.

“Shut your ears to negativity and insecurities thoughts.”

Have you ever heard your mind telling you that you are not good enough? Or maybe, it told you that you are totally below the standard. If we would like to know whether we are being ourselves or not, this could be other indicators too. The moment we can find a way to shut our ears to block those negativity and insecurities thoughts, that’s when we are being ourselves. Why? Because that means we are accepting ourselves the way we are.

“They hate me, but don’t worry, I love me!”

Keeping the best for the last one. Love yourself. You could put this as the top priority if you’re being asked what’s the reason behind all your efforts to get yourself back on track. When we love ourselves (in positive ways), it means, we truly love ourselves for being who we are. We accept the flaws we have, we accept our capabilities, and we accept our existence. It’s like when you love something, people might wonder why you love that but who cares, as long as you love it and that’s more than enough. In other perspectives. Initially, we all have the original state of ourselves. In deeper meaning, we all have our characters and personalities to begin our lives with. And, due to some other factors, we are influenced by some changes. Originally, we were strong and confident with being us, but, then insecurities hit. And, bam! Where have the strength and confidence gone? :(

Originally, we are calm but then the past haunts us, and we become a person with too many grudges kept underneath our breath. We began to question ourselves about everything that we do, and everything that we have. And when that happens people, we are likely to be said as, doubting. Doubting ourselves. We doubt our life choices, appearances, et cetera.

If we would like to be the real us then we should accept our life nature, our past, and our existence. We are all human beings; we are not superheroes who can change into other versions only by wearing costumes. To gather the courage and finally embrace the scars we have in our lives is not easy. The real key is never to give up on yourself. Never give up loving yourself. Give yourself time to deeply take a breath and exhale all the hurting miseries. One day, you surely can face the world with confidence and a smile.

With love, nadia.

28.07.20 | 2334 hrs

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ofonespieceofmind · 10 months ago

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Of a special write-up on being 'special'.

"We cannot be a 'special' person—one who masters everything in life—but we ARE special."

Since I was small, I have always been feeding myself with the idea that 'I can be everything and I can do everything'. As I was influenced by my favourite childhood show, Ms. Barbie Robert told me that I could be everything I wanted. Hence, I told myself, yes. I can be everything!

That sentiment has sparked my curiosity and interests in so many things. I found life as an amazing place to explore and I always believe that however and whatever it is, I'm so sure that I can develop my interest in it. So I'm not that worried if my parents send me to a course where I need to learn something I never learn before. I love the idea of being able to try out everything.

But as I grew up, I've learnt that I actually cannot be everything and I cannot do everything. Taking my own preferences and fears into account, I realized there are things I cannot do. Though up to this day, I'm still firmly holding on to the vision of being a 'multi' person, I eventually realized that even a genius is not a genius in everything. Allah has created life so fairly that everyone has their specialities and is given chances in different areas.

However, Allah also makes life so perfectly interesting that it will be such a waste if we don't make use of the time that He lends us to at least explore a few good things. So, why not explore life with bigger prospects?

To tell you, when I was 13, I was so eager to try out playing tennis. I asked Dad to buy me a racket (a pink one even!) and he did. I told him that I was going to learn and try to join as many tournaments as I could. And I was in the tennis club in school too but I wasn't even able to properly learn and train because the teacher who was supposed to coach us moved to another school. So, up to this day, the game of staring at my pink racket is the closest tournament I've ever entered :D

Then, when I was 18, I began to discover touch rugby. A sport that I was only able to dip my feet in one club meeting back in high school then bye bye, the curtain is closed for all form five students. So, rugby was a sport I never really thought I could learn again. And now it is something I could never move on from (<3).

And when I was 22, I finally found out that I could do high jumps! Since I was 7, my teachers and friends have always asked me to take part in high jumps but I would refuse and run away. During selection, I would just crash myself to the pole or slide under it to not be selected as I was scared. I was scared of the pole. What if I injured? What if it's painful? What if I cannot do it. But, never in my lifetime, at the age of 22, I found out I could actually do high jumps. I scored a bronze and I think that was a surprisingly random achievement I never imagined I would ever tick in life. It was never on my long wishlist either.

And to talk about the musical parts of my brain, I tried out playing an ukulele when I was 11. My teacher taught me how and I bought one for myself too. But, maybe a string-related instrument is not my forte. So again, strumming my ukulele in my imagination is the only performance I've ever performed. While now I'm still learning to play a keyboard, I think it will take some time to balance out my steel fingers. But I will try my best to get the hang of it as I am now a Music teacher, I need to recall the recorder lesson I learnt back in primary school too. It's gonna be fun and learning them has always been a dream.

Hence, in life, the world of knowledge is so vast that there are so many things we can learn, so many languages we can learn to speak (please pray that I could finally end my personal lessons on two languages :'D), and so many skills we can try to master. Though we cannot be special in everything we should know that we are special and unique in our own ways. And it gets better when we pluck out the courage to take up a new journey and try out new things in life. And though we cannot be everything and do everything, we can at least learn and have experience of trying it out. We never know if what we thought we were not good at could become something we are actually good at.

So, let's explore the world while we can. Let's learn as many Ilmu as we can. And remember to balance it out with the knowledge of our Deen and gratitude while contributing our knowledge to others for good. As we are still breathing, we should be thankful that the Almighty is still giving us the chance to learn. Hence, learn because Ilmu is never a waste. With love, nadia.

27.10.24 | 0125 hrs

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