EXPERIENCES ARE LIFE’s CONSTANT TEST

By: Abdullah R. Sirad


I had read a quotable quote of Anthony Robbins from Patric Chan’s Your Ultimate Inspirational Guide book which says: “It's not the events of our lives that shape us, but our beliefs as to what those events mean”.

I then pondered deeply on the message of the quote and tried to evaluate myself against those events or experiences I had undergone. I realized that in some way, I was able to grasp the meaning of those events because I wasn’t able to be carried away by my previous dark experiences in life. We may believe that experience is our best teacher. But it won’t help us grow unless we come to realize and interpret the meaning of those events and take them as inspiration in struggling to reach our quest in life.

I remember when I was a freshman college student when at the middle of the second semester; my mother pulled me out in the University and told me that I cannot go back to school anymore due to feudal (Redo as we termed it) problem that our family had once involved. I felt as if that was a total havoc on my future the fact that I thought I would be like my childhood relatives who grown up with revenge motivation on their mind. It was after a year that my mother thought it’s already safe for me to go away from home and continue my study but I was a bit frustrated already. I know I couldn’t be qualified anymore to our University’s academic and extracurricular scholarship grants and that I’m a year behind to my batch. I was blaming it all to the feud tragedy that stricken our family.

With my mother and some friends’ counseling, I was able to realize that such tragedy was allowed by ALLAH (God) to touch our lives because He wants something for us. Through such tumultuous event that I was able to be strong enough to face the challenges of paddling my own canoe to combat with life’s constant tests. It may be hurtful to see some of my relatives defending our clan from the feud we were involved but on other hand, I thought it wouldn’t be fair if I will regret to my professional quest for after all it would benefit the entire family.

If I was convinced that such life smashing event brings us to dark side of life no matter how we tried considering that feud in our culture is timeless, I wouldn’t be as I am right now.I would have been in the far flung places in the mountains carrying rifle all the times. Thanks to God that he let me think that indeed, problem couldn’t be solved by another problem.

Same story was shared by my colleague – Aleem Abubakar Sharief. He wasn’t able to finish his secondary study due to financial constraints but when he grown and turned responsible as Fadre de Familia, he realized to at least finish his Arabic study and so he succeeded in it. He said he was thankful enough that his frustrations when he was a young man served as his inspiration because he truly understood that God wants him to be a preacher.

We see, our life on earth is full of challenges. God allows these challenges to interfere in our living because God wants to test our level of patients and commitment to overcome terrific problems. Right now, we are facing our individual struggles and in every step, it coupled with different challenges be it good or odd. OFWs cynical moment is another example of it. There are times we received good news from our loved ones in the country like when they let us know that they are bouncing for happiness for the money we had sent or in contrast, we learned that the money we sent was spent irresponsibly thus we feel devastated. Now, if we failed to understand the reasons behind such event, we would probably take wrong decisions like we will keep our loved ones to be dependent or we might keep grudge against them for their irresponsibility.

In our office setting, especially when we are working with different nationalities with different kind of behaviors, we usually encounter event that we cannot ingest like when we were reproached of something we are not responsible of or when we are a victim of blame passing. This event usually makes some people to decide quitting and end their career pointless. But for some who take such event meaningful in their quest, it serves them to be strong and more committed to their work. These are those people who likely to succeed in their battle.

You see, it's never the environment; it's never the events of our lives, but the meaning we attach to the events -- how we interpret them -- that shapes who we are today and who we'll become tomorrow (as Anthony Robbins further quoted).

I have eventful happenings in my life. You have yours too. But it shouldn’t stop us in our journey to reach the point of our aimed destiny. Rest if we must but don’t quit because experiences are just life’s constant test.