The Best of Our Selves

The Best of Our Selves BY MAISARAH AHMAD KAMIL

m a i s a r a h a h m a d k a m i l | 2

May we always be reminded of our purpose in life

May we never forget

May this book serve as a reminder to all of us on the little but

important things in life that we may have overlooked, or

forgotten

3 | t h e b e s t o f o u r s e l v e s

INTRODUCTION

This is a humble book, written with the shy hope that it may

serve as a reminder. A reminder to the self, and to others. It is

a book written with the hope and prayer that it will benefit the

one who reads it, even if just a little. It is a book which aims to

remind us that we live in a harsh world, but with an All-Merciful

God; that we have choices over the paths we take, but that we

are never alone; that we will keep on stumbling, falling, but that

it is okay; that we are here because we have been chosen by

Him, and it is to Him we will return.


AUTHOR’S NOTE

Alhamdulillah, praise be to Allah for the completion of this book.

First and foremost, thank you very much for taking the time to

read. For some of you, I may be a new author venturing into

the written world. For quite a number of you, however, you have

pestered me for too many years already to produce a book, so

here we are – and thank you for your constant support.

This is not a book of facts.

It is a book of insights. Of ideas. Of perceptions. It is a book of

thoughts, emotions, confusion and realisations – things I wish

to share with you, dear readers, with hope that it may bring

hope into your hearts and make you realize that, truly, nobody

can replace you. You are your own, unique, perfectly imperfect

self, and you are precious.

Feel free to distribute this e-book. It is a free e-book, with hope

that it may equip me with the courage to write a full-length book

one day.

May Allah bless you always, all ways.

Maisarah.


Who are you, if…

You lose your job.

You don't have a salary, or a source of income.

You fame dies away.

Your car disappears.

Your house taken away.

Your family, gone.

Your friends, no more.

Stripped away of all the things you hide behind, the illusion of

what you think you 'have' or 'possess': money, fame, class,

family, friends…

If all that is taken away and you're finally left exposed, just

you, the world, and God…

Who are you, really?

Who is that soul residing in your body: the you who really,

truly matter; the only you that actually exist?


TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: THE ILLUSION OF INDEPENDENCE ...................... 7

CHAPTER 2: WE ARE BORN PERFECTLY IMPERFECT ............. 12

CHAPTER 3: IN STRIVING TO BE BETTER ............................... 17

CHAPTER 4: WHEN VERY BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO US ......... 23

CHAPTER 5: WE ARE ALWAYS READY ................................... 27

CHAPTER 6: LIVE BRAVELY, LIVE WITHOUT FEAR ................. 31

CHAPTER 7: BECOME THE BEST OF OUR SELVES .................. 37


CHAPTER 1: THE ILLUSION OF INDEPENDENCE

In our world today, we are often under an illusion.

An illusion telling us that with the advancements of technology,

we can do everything ourselves.

TV commercials show how successful we are driving our

expensive cars, carrying our slim briefcases everywhere,

connecting to people and getting our work done with just a few

touches of our screens from one gadget to another. The same

messages are shown to us in newspapers, pop-ups, articles,

billboards. We are convinced that once we earn our own

income, we have grown up.

So we feel accomplished.

We feel independent.

We immediately fall under the illusion that we are capable of

handling our own lives.

Has it ever occurred to us that behind the hand phone or tablet

or laptop we’re using to ‘stay connected’, there are thousands

of souls actually working to help us?

Has it ever occurred to us how many people it took to produce

our gadgets? Or how many are working to keep the

communication lines open? From putting the pieces of our

gadgets together, to assembling it, to ensuring it works, to

selling it to us, to maintaining the network for us to ‘connect’, to

repairing our devices when it breaks down…


Have we ever given a thought to those souls who physically

worked to help us? Or do we believe, that because we bought

the gadget with our own money, paid for the network, exerted

the strength of our own fingers to send messages to the other

party – that we’re actually independent?

When the truth is… we’re not.

Independence is an illusion.

Imagine if nobody is around to produce our gadgets.

Imagine if nobody is around to keep the network up and

running.

Imagine if nobody is around to repair our gadgets when it

breaks.

Wouldn’t we be alone?

Would we still be independent?

There are times when bad things happen to us, and we lose

our patience.

Sometimes, when we’re waiting at a queue, we often think that

the person behind the counter is deliberately taking his/her

sweet time while the line gets longer and longer. And we stomp

our foot and huff and groan, thinking “Goodness, hurry up! I

don’t have all day to queue up like this!”

But what if there’s nobody behind the counter?

Sometimes, when the garbage truck accidentally skipped our

house, we come home and see our rubbish still piled nicely in


their plastic bags, and my goodness, it stinks. And we angrily

blame the truck for not collecting our garbage because

seriously, the smell and sight of it is making our house look bad!

But what if there’s nobody to collect our garbage, ever?

Sometimes, we face network problems at work, or our

computer crashes and we lose all our months of hard work. So

when the IT guy comes to help us, we shout at them, blame

them, blame the world for causing us such distress. “As long as

this problem isn’t settled, how am I supposed to finish my

work?”

But what if there’s nobody to help us when a problem occurs?

When we start thinking we are independent, we are capable of

losing compassion to others.

When we see beggars at the side of the road, we think very

badly of them. We work hard, we get our own income – why

are they sitting there asking for the money we worked so hard

to earn?

When a car breaks down at the highway, causing a massive

jam that keeps us from important meetings and engagements,

we get frustrated, wondering why on earth did that person not

take care of his/her car better and cause so much problems to

others? Because we always take care of our cars. We never

face that problem.

When a waiter carries our plate away after we’re done eating,

we never stop to thank them because we pay for our food.

Carrying plates is that person’s job. In fact, we’re doing the


waiter justice – if we didn’t take time to visit the restaurant, the

restaurant wouldn’t get our money. If our restaurant didn’t get

our money, the business may not have run. If the business may

not have run, the waiter may not even have a job. No, it’s the

waiter who should thank us, not the other way around.

Independence is a dangerous illusion.

It makes us proud.

It makes us forget how dependent we are on others.

So we forget to give charity.

We forget to stop and help that person.

We forget to say thank you.

We forget to do a lot of things, because we think we’re

independent – we don’t need others, we say.

But let us remind ourselves of this.

Let us remind ourselves of the Judgment Day.

When our sins and rewards are put on the weighing scale…

and we realize that we only need just one more reward, just

one more, to save ourselves.

That’s when we’ll realize…

If only we gave the shillings in our pocket as charity.

If only we stopped to help someone.

If only we said thank you.


On that day, it will finally dawn on us that we have never been

independent at all.

It will finally dawn on us that person we didn’t want to help, the

one we looked down on – it’s that person who may be the one

who could have saved us.

But by then, it would be too late.

But not now.

Now, it is still not too late.

This book is not about helping others. It is about helping

ourselves.

Let’s begin.


CHAPTER 2: WE ARE BORN PERFECTLY IMPERFECT

By nature, we were created, born, designed – to be imperfect.

Every single one of us are perfectly imperfect, living in a

perfectly imperfect world. Nothing around us is perfect. Not

even the Earth we live in.

The moon cannot give out its own light.

The sun will one day die.

Mountains will never withstand the test of time.

And we… we will eventually leave this world.

We have never truly seen perfection in this life. Consciously,

we don’t know what it is, but we have an idea in our minds what

it looks like. But we can never get there. No matter how hard

we try, no matter how hard we strive towards it, we just can

never, ever get there.

Not in this life.

I can hear the voices of the pessimists now: “If it’s impossible

to be perfect, then why bother trying at all?”

Let me answer in a different way.

Imagine if we’re perfect.

We know everything, we’ve been through everything. Nothing

marvels us anymore, because we’re perfect. All our work is

perfect. All our relationships are polished, clean, amazing.


In a perfect relationship, maybe we won’t even need to

communicate anymore. We’d know our partners inside out and

backwards – one blink and we know what they’re feeling, how

to make them feel better, how to have that perfect life.

Does that sound ideal?

Personally, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I were

perfect in this life that is designed to be imperfect.

Imagine if there’s nothing left for us to learn.

Nothing else for us to experience.

Imagine not needing to exert any effort for anything anymore,

because we’re perfect.

Perfection lies only with the One.

Even though we have never seen perfection, we have an idea

about it. It’s human disposition to want to be perfect.

Have we ever stopped to ask, how come? If we never met a

perfect human being in our lives, if we’ve always lived in this

imperfect world, then how is it that we even know what

perfection means?

The answer is, it’s because we were born, created – in Jannah.

In an unconscious level, far too complex for us to comprehend,

that’s how we know about perfection. We’re struggling to get

there. To return to where we belong. To meet Him.


In the process of striving, however, we make a mistake.

We make the mistake of trying to be perfect, when it goes

against our very nature, our very capability, of becoming

perfect.

We try to become something we can never be.

Caught in the illusion of perfection, we look around us and

define the things we see.

We look around ourselves, and we keep on telling ourselves

we want to be as ‘perfect’ as Person A or Person B. That in

school, if we don’t score straight A’s or if we get a place in a

lower university, it somehow means we haven’t ‘succeeded’.

We get these weird notions in our heads that life is a

comparison between us and others. Who owns the latest

gadget. Who has the better car. Who lands the better job. Who

gets married first. Whose children are most successful in

school.

How wrong we are.

How deluded we’ve become.

We keep on comparing, and comparing, and comparing,

because in our hearts, we see that if we are ‘better’ than others,

it’s a step closer to ‘perfection’.

But truthfully, we are actually the worst judges to determine

that. From what we see, we may think Person A has it better.

But if we truly knew, maybe we won’t ever even want to be

Person A.


After all, we know stories of celebrities who ‘have it all’, but

have broken families and divorces and end up committing

suicide.

We also know stories of families living under harsh conditions

who are always at peace, always happy, always grateful and

fulfilled in living their lives.

Perfection is an illusion in this world that we can never get.

Nobody in this world is perfect.

Science tells us that people are born with different IQs. Science

also teaches us that some people are born with diseases,

illnesses, sicknesses, health conditions. We don’t need science

to know that some people are born in rich families, and some

people are born in poor families. But does that make these

people less ‘perfect’ than others?

No. It doesn’t.

It’s just one of the million differences they share between us.

How smart we are doesn’t really matter. How healthy our body

is, how pretty we are, how strong we are. How rich we are.

Those are traits of our bodies, of vessels.

Vessels, bodies, don’t matter – they too, like this world, will

grow old and die.

What matters is what’s inside. The soul. The heart.

Our perfectly imperfect selves.


It is important to accept the fact that we cannot be perfect.

It is important to accept that nobody is perfect.

And nobody will ever be in this life.

It is, however, important to accept ourselves as who we are,

and be at peace with our imperfections.

Accept the body that we are born in. Love it. Cherish it. Thank

it for shielding our souls, our hearts, and providing us the

chance and opportunity to experience this life.

Accept our intelligence. Accept that there will always be people

smarter than us. Accept that in certain situations, we may need

to work harder than others to achieve something.

Accept our wealth. Our social status. Our friends and family.

Accept that these are the things given to us. This is the ‘default

setting’, the starting point, in which we will start to live our lives,

perfectly imperfect in its own way.

Once we accept our ‘default setting’, our starting point, our

perfectly imperfect selves, we can begin to move forward.


CHAPTER 3: IN STRIVING TO BE BETTER

When we realize that we are imperfect, and that we can never

reach perfection, does that mean we have no reason to keep

trying?

Does that mean we should give up?

That all our efforts are futile?

We may not be perfect.

We may always make mistakes.

We may hurt the people we love.

We may constantly disappoint ourselves.

But we can always be better.

Being better is more important than being perfect.

It is the one thing we should always strive for, endlessly,

stumbling and falling and pushing ourselves back to our feet

again and again.

After all, it is human disposition to always want to be better. To

always keep on trying. To never give up. It’s within our nature,

within our design, to keep on striving, no matter how slowly, no

matter how painfully.

There is, really, just one formula to be ‘better’.


We must benchmark ourselves against our current self.

I’ll tell you a story.

Unlike many of my friends my age, I went through my high

school education overseas, in the UK. And while the

opportunity equipped me with so much knowledge, so many

experiences, it deprived me of one thing:

I didn’t have SPM Bahasa Malaysia.

When I came back to Malaysia, not having the high school

certificate of Bahasa Malaysia limited the choices of

universities I could go to. And I knew, if I didn’t sit for SPM

Bahasa Malaysia soon, it would also eventually limit the jobs I

could apply for after I graduate.

I won’t talk about how badly butchered my Bahasa Malaysia

was after living in the UK for four years. Suffice to say that my

friends often laughed at me with tears streaming down their

faces because my Bahasa was so bad. I recall one memory of

my friend falling on the floor, laughing, because my language

was so bad. But anyway.

In the second year of my degree, I decided that I was brave

enough to register for SPM Bahasa Malaysia, so I did. I was

twenty years old. The last formal education I had for Bahasa

Malaysia was when I was in primary school, Standard 6, eight

years prior. So, alone, with no tutor, no tuition, no teacher, no

knowledge of the exam format, no clear idea on what to do and

how to do it, balancing my degree at the same time as the

exam, I prepared myself.

I studied like heck.

Note: SPM (Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia) is the high school exam certificate in Malaysia,

equivalent to GCSE/O-Level in the UK. It’s the compulsory exam to take before

applying for college or university. ‘Bahasa Malaysia’ is ‘Malay Language’.


I didn’t worry about what my friends scored when they sat the

exam. All I knew was that Bahasa Malaysia was my weak spot,

and I wanted to score a C for my SPM. I was an A-student, but

I didn’t even aim for that. I wanted desperately to get a C.

People started telling me I was aiming too low. That I should

aim for an A or a B. Our typical education system have us

believe that if we don’t score A’s, we’re not good enough – but

I soldiered through. Getting an A wasn’t as important to me as

improving my language command overall.

Long story short, I sat for the exam. And the morning when I

was waiting for my results, several friends of mine waited with

me, nervous to get the news.

The clock ticked.

I was getting increasingly nervous.

Then the SMS came in.

I scored a B.

There was an important lesson that I learned from the

experience which I hold onto until now.

For the first time, I was truly clear of my aim: to be better than

what I currently was, regardless of where others were in that

race.

It didn’t matter to me that most of my friends scored A’s. I

scored a B, and to me, that was an accomplishment in being

better with my command over the language. I wasn’t studying

for the grades. I was studying to improve my language


command. I didn’t take the exam to prove my abilities. I took

the exam to chart my life forward.

It made me realize that when we struggle to be better, what

matters is not how we are compared to others. What matters is

how we are compared to our former selves.

We cannot reach perfect.

But we can always reach being better.

When we aim to improve ourselves, our only comparison

should be ourselves.

We can look at others for inspiration. We can look at them as

set goals; that we want to be like them.

But when we work on developing ourselves, our only goal

should always be to be better than who we currently are.

That way, we will never fail. We will keep on moving forward.

Even if we make mistakes and end up taking two steps

backwards, we know that we just need to take another three

steps to move forward again.

Imagine life as a race.

Only we’re not racing against anyone else. We’re just racing

against ourselves.

We’re at the starting line. The horn blows. Then off we go.

Some of us sprint. They go so far ahead of us that we know for

sure we’d never catch up with that kind of drive and stamina.


Some of us run steadily, at a set pace.

Some of us jog.

Some of us walk.

Some of us crawl.

Some of us… will refuse to even race.

Now the interesting thing about this race is that our finish line

is Time.

Time determines when we ‘win’.

For the sprinter, if his lifespan is 20 years, then by the time he

dies, he may have reached 100,000km.

For the runner, if his lifespan is 30 years, he may reach

80,000km.

For the jogger, if his lifespan is 40 years, he may reach

60,000km.

For the walker, if his lifespan is 50 years, he may reach

40,000km.

But what about the one who refused to race?

If his lifespan is 100 years, he will still die at 0km.

The thing about life’s race is that we never know how far people

will have gone. The span of their lives may deceive us. We may

believe that people who live longer may have succeeded more

than those who live shorter lives, but that’s not true.


The sprinter, who lives half as long as the jogger, will still have

run almost twice the distance the jogger will have covered.

Looking at our friends, our family, the people we know; we will

never know whether they’re sprinters, joggers, runners.

The only one we’ll be able to know is ourselves.

So look into our hearts. Where are we in life’s race?

This is why we must always benchmark only on our current

selves.

When we judge ourselves, judge ourselves based on who we

were yesterday.

How much distance have we covered? How much farther have

we moved?

Or have we not moved at all?

The thing about life’s race is that we determine our own

finishing line.

We are also in control of how fast we want to move.

There are times when we can sprint. There are times when the

terrain is so rough, we stumble and fall.

Weakened, hurt, exhausted, we continue the race on our hands

and knees, crawling and crying and bleeding.

But we will still move forward.


CHAPTER 4: WHEN VERY BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO US

I remember going to a seminar, and someone stood up to ask

the speaker a question. She asked:

“What’s your opinion about girls who have been raped? Or

babies that were dumped and left to die? Why do such bad

things happen to them? What’s the purpose of having these

things happen in this world?”

And the speaker, a woman I respect very, very deeply, paused

to gather her thoughts before answering. And she said this.

She said…

The bad things that happen to people are not as important or

impactful as how they deal with it. In life, if we were to look at

bad things happening, the span of time of it happening is

actually just a few moments, like a bad dream.

In the afterlife, when people talk to each other, they ask, ‘How

long did you live on Earth?’

And the other person would say, ‘A day, maybe half a day.’

In terms of span of time, how long is a traumatic experience?

Half a day? Maybe a quarter of a day, if even that. Realistically,

maybe one or two hours, or even less than that.

If we live for seventy years, and something traumatic happens

to us for two or three hours in our lives…

In the afterlife, if seventy years only translates to feeling like “a

day, or half a day”, then the two or three hours of traumatic

experience we went through would only be seconds. Moments.


Like a bad dream.

And we are left with all the remaining time in the world to move

on from that dream.

Life is peppered with trials and tribulations.

Nobody will ever live without facing trials in his/her life.

It doesn’t mean our trials are easy. It doesn’t mean it’s fair. It

doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt, or that it didn’t leave us broken.

But it does mean that it’s to be expected, and as we grow older

and move farther, we’ll keep on facing one trial after another.

The question is: for trials which last for seconds, moments if

considered in the context of the afterlife, how deeply will we let

it affect us? How much will we let it break us?

In one day, if we pricked our finger against a needle, the pain

will probably last for a few painful seconds. Will we allow the

prick of a needle let our day spiral downwards, casting us into

depression?

Or will we mourn over our wounds for a few seconds, then

move on?

They say that life is 10% of what happens to us, and 90% how

we react to it.

When we are running that race against Time, there will be times

when we struggle against the harder terrains. When there are

rocks everywhere, when the ground is uneven, when the wind

blows too harshly or the sun is too hot, we will struggle to keep

on running at a steady pace.


The question is whether we want to continue struggling, or stop

moving altogether.

When facing traumatic experiences, do we want to stay put?

Are we happy there? At the rough terrain where it’s hot, where

there is no water, where the harsh wind bites our cheeks, do

we want to stop running and say “This is it. I’m going to stop

here, and wait for Time to take my life. This is my finish line.”?

Or are we going to slow down, but keep on moving?

Bad things are not everlasting, just as good things are never

everlasting.

Indeed, the only constant thing in life is change.

So things will change. If we keep on moving towards the right

direction.

Slowly, slowly, things will change. Just keep moving forward. If

you stop, then you’ll know for sure things will never change.

Like not knowing how to read the Quran.

If you moan about it, and decide to stop there, you’ll know for

sure you’ll never be able to read the Quran.

But if you move slowly? Start learning the alphabets? Then how

to pronounce? Then how to link the letters together? Then the

words?

Slowly, slowly, you’ll know for sure you’ll be able to read the

Quran one day, if God wills it. If Time wins, then at least you

know you died travelling towards it.


Get up.

Continue moving.

Never stop just because life is at its harder parts.

Change will come. Change always come. What determines

whether it’s a positive change, or a negative change, is our own

attitude and choice.

After all, even happiness is a choice.


CHAPTER 5: WE ARE ALWAYS READY

I have a friend who has a health condition, to do with the nerves

in her right arm. She is incapable of writing. Or twisting tight

bottle caps. She’s in and out of hospital. From time to time,

she’ll be in pain. Real pain. Pain that makes her unable to

move, that will render her unconscious. Once it also affected

her memory for a while, so she’d wake up at times not

remembering certain people, or certain events.

One evening, we wanted to have dinner outside, so we drove

to a restaurant about ten minutes from her rented house. On

our way back, she had an attack. I sat beside her, at the back

of the car, holding her, while her housemates went to search

for her pills, but we couldn’t find it. We couldn’t move her either.

So we could only sit and wait for it to pass.

The pain was bad enough that she was rendered unconscious.

And, because of the pain, she woke up again. And will faint

again. And the process continues.

Throughout it all, I wondered – will something happen to her?

Will I find my friend dying in my arms?

To close the story, my friend was fine that night. But the health

condition will stay with her until God-only-knows when. The

point I want to make by telling this story is that even with this

kind of trial facing her, she never gives up. She’s one of the

sprinters. And I have the utmost, deepest level of respect for

her.

To date, she is one of the most successful students I know,

academically. She studies far, she studies high. Her faith is

strong, as well as her courage and character. She did not let

the trial bring her down.


Through her, I learned one profound truth: whether we believe

we can, or whether we believe we can’t… we’re always right.

There will always be people who doubt our capabilities.

Even more often, there will always be moments when we doubt

our own strength to get through the trials and tribulations of life.

But the beauty is that we determine our own strength,

steadfastness, and patience.

We choose how we want to go through the things we face.

It has been promised to us that we are never given a burden

that our shoulders cannot carry.

Our past experiences have prepared us for what we are facing

today. It is different to the tests we face in school.

In school, we are taught the answers, then given the test.

Whether we prepared ourselves for the exam or not is our

choice, our attitude, and will determine how our marks will be

when the exam results come out.

In life, we are prepared first. Then we are given the test, with

the answers in our hand. We are given the Quran, the Hadith –

we are given people more knowledgeable than us whom we

can refer to. The only thing preventing our success is our

choices, our attitudes.

Since I started working just a little more than a year ago, every

day, I would drive past a new housing area which includes a

new mosque.


Every day, for the past year and a half, I watched as they built

that mosque, bit by bit.

First laying its foundations. Then structuring, bit by bit. Day by

day, I drove past and took note of the little additions, the little

changes of this beautiful mosque that’s being built.

Of course, for someone who looks at development day by day,

I didn’t really notice the changes. I didn’t notice when the

foundations turned into bricks. When bricks turned into walls.

When walls turned into a solid structure. When the solid

structure became increasingly beautiful.

But there were times when I’d take my sisters out, and when

we drive past, they’d exclaim in wonder. “Wow! So much new

development! It’s so pretty!” they’d say delightedly as I drive

past.

And I’d realize that for them, who never see the day-to-day

work, it’s like from nothing, the mosque just became

‘something’.

Life is like that. Like building blocks.

When we admire people for their knowledge, wisdom,

capabilities, we have the tendency to forget the thousands of

hours put into achieving those things.

We then get frustrated with ourselves when we can’t achieve

something fast enough.

That it takes too much time.

But time is needed for us to get somewhere. Everyone needs

to start from alphabets. Everyone needs to start from the


bottom, learning slowly, moving painfully, to get to where we

want.

We may not notice what we go through day by day. But as a

few months pass, or as a year passes, if we keep on enduring,

keep on working, then we’ll begin to see that something has

changed.

We will have learned more. We will have gained more.

Collectively, the building blocks would have turned into a

structure, into a beautiful mosque, that took your time and effort

to make it happen.

We are always ready to face trials.

We are always ready to move ahead.

We just need to realize that.


CHAPTER 6: LIVE BRAVELY, LIVE WITHOUT FEAR

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never

hurt me.”

Is the idiom above familiar?

We hear it all the time, especially in arguments and fights.

It is a brave idiom, which says that words never hurt.

And to those who are able to say the idiom above and mean it,

I respect you for your strength.

Words hurt.

In fact, the idiom above exists because psychologically, words

can hurt even more than sticks and stones.

We may not realize it at times, but there are moments,

instances, where we even hurt ourselves with words.

“If.”

Two letters that makes up the most dangerous word in the

English language.

Other words like ‘if’ include ‘should’, ‘could’, ‘would’ – in English

grammar, we call these past-conditional forms of an auxiliary

verb.

In present tense, ‘should’, ‘could’ and ‘would’ are ‘shall’, ‘can’

and ‘will’. And the present tense of these words are not as

dangerous as its past tense counterparts.


Why?

It’s because the past tense forms deal with what did not

happen.

It could have been like this.

It should have been like that.

I would have done this instead.

Then comes the dangerous word, ‘if’.

If I had done this instead, things would be better.

If she had improved sooner, things could have been different.

If he didn’t say what he did, the problem would have settled by

now.

If, if, if.

And we constantly dwell on if.

The more we dwell on it, the more we refuse to move on, to

accept reality as it is. And this is dangerous, because even as

we dwell, Time is moving.

Through using these words, we hurt ourselves.

We refuse to let ourselves move on, to accept what has

happened and continue going ahead.

When we make mistakes, we dwell on things that we could

have done, things we should have said, things that we would


do. We hurt ourselves, blaming ourselves for things that

happened.

Our lives are 90% of how we react to the 10% of what happens

to us. It’s important to remember that we live our own lives –

our race is our own, and our reactions are also our own.

But that doesn’t mean the 10% is not crucial to us.

Every action that we do sends a ripple across the universe that

affects those around us. Whether intentional or not, our actions

– or lack of action – affects those around us.

And so, those around us react in response to the ripples we

send to them.

In return, we react back.

And the cycle continues.

We are never independent from the world. Rather, we are so

dependent, so intertwined and linked, that we must always be

cautious and wary of the actions and inactions that we take.

The point is that, because we are not independent from this

world, the things that happen to us are often beyond our

control.

We are only capable of controlling a small portion of what

happens to us.

The rest are left to how the ripples we send intermingle with the

ripples sent by others.


So when something bad happens, or when we take an action

and the results are not exactly what we hoped for, we have the

tendency to dwell on what we could have done better. What

could have been different.

When in fact, the outcome of our actions are not completely

within our control.

Recognising that life will not turn out 100% the way we want it

to be is the first step towards accepting the imperfect reality

around us.

In an ideal world, we may put in all our effort into achieving

something, and as a result, we will obtain what we are working

for.

But in this world, in our world, no matter how much effort we

put into something, we may not get what we want.

There are two ways of looking into this matter.

The first way, is to live in fear.

We fear stepping out of our comfort zone, because exposing

ourselves and putting effort into something big may result in

failure, and we fear failure because it hurts.

This lack of action due to fear, is exactly what we want to avoid.

I’ll explain why.

We believe that if we don’t get what we want, that outcome is

“bad”, so we refuse to even allow life to give that chance of


giving us that “bad” outcome. Between getting what we want,

and not getting what we want, we choose not to get what we

want, because we fear we won’t get what we want. Get it?

For example, I want to publish my book. And that requires

sending my book to a publisher.

Two things can happen. Either I get published, or I get rejected.

But out of fear that I may be rejected, I decide not to send my

book at all. I don’t move forward – I just stay where I am.

The other option, is to live bravely.

I send my book to my publisher, and will either be accepted, or

rejected.

If I get accepted, then all is well. My book would be published,

and I will have gotten what I wanted.

If I get rejected, I will get hurt. But I will also know where I stand,

and will work on moving on from the hurt.

You know what the difference is between the two?

It’s the fact that ten, twenty, thirty years down the line, if I chose

to live bravely and try, I would never need to ask myself ‘what

if’.

I would never wonder what the outcome would be, because I

already know.


If we could hear those who are lying in their graves, what would

we hear?

We’d hear them desperately asking for one more chance to

pray.

One more chance to do good.

One more chance to reap rewards.

Our race is against Time.

Because our time is very, very limited.

So stop staying put at that line, and move your feet forward.

Even if you’re moving slowly. Do not fear what life will give you.

Whether they give you what you want, or whether they give you

what you don’t want, remember that He has promised us:

We will always get what we need.

And whatever happens to us, it will always be the best thing

that is supposed to happen to us.


CHAPTER 7: BECOME THE BEST OF OUR SELVES

Let's change our mindset. Let's change the way we say things,

the way we see things.

Instead of saying anti-war, say we're pro-peace.

Instead of saying anti-global warming, say we're pro-going

green.

Instead of saying anti-corruption, say we're pro-transparency.

Instead of saying we don't want to fail, say we want to succeed.

Instead of saying we don't want to be late, say we want to be

early.

Instead of saying we don't want to be alone, say we want to

meet our special someone.

The way we say things make a difference. A big difference.

What we say is what we ask for.

Say the word fail, that's what we ask for. Say the word rape,

murder, war, corruption; that's what we're asking for, even if we

put 'don't want' or 'anti' or 'no' in front of it.

So let’s say what we want instead. Say we want safety, peace,

richness, happiness.

Let's change the way we say things. Together, we'll change the

world.


The best of our selves are capable of accepting that we are

perfectly imperfect, living in a perfectly imperfect world.

The best of our selves are capable of accepting that our bodies,

vessels which shield our souls, come with limitations. We will

get tired. We will fall ill. We will grow old, and we will eventually

die. The best of our selves, will never deny that fact.

With the constraints that we face, the best of our selves will

constantly strive forwards. Whether running or walking, jogging

or crawling, we’ll constantly take one step forward after

another.

We are not fearful. We trust the promises that has been made

to us by our Creator, and we hold onto those promises.

The best of our selves are aware that life come with trials.

Sometimes, the trials are small, almost unnoticeable.

Sometimes, the trials are traumatic, capable of crippling our

strength and faith.

The best of our selves, however, know that life has already

prepared us to face those trials. Not only has it prepared us for

it – it also gave us the answers in our hands, so we are always

carrying answers while answering the trial.

The best of our selves will not despair, because we know, for

sure, that we will always get what is best for us.

The best of our selves will know that as long as we keep on

striving, we will be okay.

When bad things happen to us, it’s okay to feel down. It’s okay

to cry, to moan, to feel sad. It’s okay to be weak.


It’s okay to make mistakes. Even if we hurt the people we love,

it’s okay.

Because we’re not meant to be perfect, it’s to be expected that

we will stumble and fall.

But it’s okay.

As long as we keep on moving forwards.

The best of us are always kind to ourselves.

We forgive ourselves, and we forgive others.

We give charity, and we smile to spread happiness.

We do our best, even if others do better than us.

Stripped away of all the things we hide behind, the illusion of

what we think we 'have' or 'possess': money, fame, class,

family, friends…

If all that is taken away and we're finally left exposed, just us,

and God…

Let us be the best of our selves.


The Best of Our Selves

Documents

v e s chapter

t h e b e s t o f o

v e s introduction

humble book

book of thoughts

fulllength book

book of facts

book of insights