When I give in to a wrong desire – whether it be a sin or not bothering to fulfil one of my chores for the day I feel disabled to do anything else meaningful. I feel this way because I regret the wrong I have done but I fear the thing I need to will be tainted as a way of punishment for the wrong thing that I did. I believe doing wrong will affect my life so it’s almost a self fulfilling prophecy. It’s debilitating and has meant I have wasted days where I could have got things done yet doing something wrong meant I thought “I’ll do it tomorrow with a fresh start”.
I know fearing the consequences isn’t a bad thing but then if I feared them so much I wouldn’t have given into my desires in the first place, right?
But everyone errs, right?
I think I need a better mechanism to deal with the aftermath of regret. I need to move on and work to change my circumstances, of course that includes starting by asking for forgiveness. I can’t sit and waste precious time wallowing in fear of the unknown and falling into a self fulfilling prophecy when I at least have the ability to try to avoid it. If I do get any deserved punishment in this life Allah knows best about which form that punishment will take. I can’t know when I’ll get that punishment so I can’t sit around wasting time, adding to my list of wrong doings. And I of course have to try my best to not do the wrong stuff in the first place. This all requires a lot of fighting with the nafs. The most difficult kind of fight.
Comments
You're not the only one - it is common to let a weakness, mistake or other less than perfect circumstance debilitate us into inaction.
Understanding that we are not perfect is a big part of this - none of us is all good and perfect all of the time but that doesnt mean we can't strive to be better.
The falling down is human. It's what we do next that matters - do we pick ourselves up and keep moving or not.
Keeping on moving is easier said than done because acknowledging weakness can also mean changing your view of where you see yourself in the world.
The question is that now you know you are not perfect, how do you move forward with that knowledge.
"For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'" - David Cameron, UK Prime Minister. 13 May 2015.