You are living the life most can only dream of…

Aunty O’ktam is so happy. Her cow was heavily pregnant when we got there and she gave birth to two calves. She couldn’t be happier.

– This is a sign of baraka, a blessing from God, she says.

– It’s going to be a great year for us, a year of prosperity inshaAllah, she adds cheerfully.

We all shared her sentiments. It was the talk of the town for an entire month- the cow had two babies. We visited her before we left. Three months on, she was still talking about her cow and two calves, beaming with joy and happiness.

Let me ask you something – would having two cows make you so happy? Do you ever feel special? If you feel blessed with some specific incident today, would you assume your entire year would be full of blessings too? Often it’s not the actual events and situations, but rather the way we interpret those situations and events that will have a bigger impact on our quality of life.

Aunty Oktam feels grateful. She has got good thoughts of Allah, she’s assuming and expecting the good in her life. So she is ready to receive more blessings.

“If you are grateful, I’ll give increase you in favour” (Qur’an 14:7)

“I’m as my servant thinks I’m” (Hadith Qudsi)

You see, you attach meaning to everything you experience in life. Your mind will process and interpret things for you which will then affect your quality of life. In a hustle culture, most people don’t acknowledge the good in their lives because there is so much more to achieve. There’s so much more to do and so much more to be that you forget to be grateful for the countless blessings you have right now. Your happiness has such high standards and is often short-lived. You don’t attach meaning to owning a car, a comfortable house with all the conveniences, having a stable job, having good health as if there’s no value in these things… Your mind didn’t acknowledge them because it’s so common. It didn’t interpret buying a car as a blessing from God, didn’t interpret moving to a bigger house as a sign of baraka.

In reality, your life that you think of being so dull, so dry, so monotonous is so many people’s dream. Your 9-5 stable job is so many people’s dream. Your house full of conveniences is so many people’s dream. You’re living the life most people can only dream of. Today, acknowledge your blessings and start attaching more meaning to them.

Remember you are someone’s dream.