Failure

Ahhh....the word is painful.

But there is no such thing.

Most of our lives we struggle to catch up to our society. We want to be recognized for something. Deep down we have a fear that we'll live our lives in mediocrity, that our lives don't really mean anything because no one knows what we've done. That especially goes for sports or any type of competition. Unless we win gold, all that effort is useless.

Till I was about twelve years old, I hated sports and loved eating, with predictable results. After my uncle visited me from Pakistan (cue in teasing galore) I decided to change and ever since then I've been obsessed with sports and exercising (at least I like to think that). But because I was motivated by the sheer desire to look good, to stop getting teased about being fat, I didn't have the right reasons. In 2002, I trained seriously for the first time in my life in preparation for our annual taekwondo tournament. I wanted to win badly. I ran, I lifted weights, I practiced my patterns everyday...

I lost.

That was a turning point. My hopes of ever winning any competitions was shattered. "What is the point," I asked myself, "of putting effort into anything if it all comes to nothing?"

In Egypt, I've learned the answer. Because you love doing it. When I don't exercise, my body feels like a Safeway cake; soft with no substance and no energy. There's no carrot-on-the-stick now, no competition driving me on to exercise because I want to win. If I exercise or not, it makes no difference to anyone but me. But any effort I put in now is not without benefit. Someday I'll realize that any action I've done, no matter how small, helped me in some way. Before I came to Egypt, I thought that the three years we had spent studying with Ammo Rafik were useless. We weren't consistent, we couldn't understand anything; we were studying simply to make ourselves feel good. But no action is ever wasted. Ever.

It was not fitting for the people of Medina and the Bedouin Arabs of the neighbourhood, to refuse to follow Allah's Messenger, nor to prefer their own lives to his: because nothing could they suffer or do, but was reckoned to their credit as a deed of righteousness,- whether they suffered thirst, or fatigue, or hunger, in the cause of Allah, or trod paths to raise the ire of the Unbelievers, or received any injury whatever from an enemy: for Allah suffereth not the reward to be lost of those who do good;-

Nor do they spend anything that may be spent, small or great, nor do they traverse a valley, but it is written down to their credit, that Allah may reward them with the best of what they have done.
-Surah Taubah (120-121)

So for some little kids out there, don't worry. The pain you feel will dissipate, but your efforts, bi'idhnillah, will not.

~Ameer

p.s. Sauleha once told me, "I will win and I will lose, but I will never be defeated."