About Failure by JK Rowling

Note: This post was written towards the end of Semester 2 in my college campus.

My masters study has gotten hold of me, I guess. IIUM's workload is freaking me out, pressure is mounting high from all the brilliant master-mates of mine who seem to effortlessly score (as in putting less effort but still can score better than those who studies 24/7) and the expectations from people who seem to think that I'm the real Hermione Granger. But don't worry about me. I've been receiving therapy from PHD.

With respect to this, have you ever felt that the sayings 'you reap what you sow' is a bluff? And then when you got bad grades despite all of your efforts and your other friend who seem to say that he/she doesn't have time, didn't study much and said he/she is totally going to get bad grades suddenly got flying colours? Or when you see your colleague who never did any work but still got promoted just because he/she has connections?

Then in an effort to make you feel better, your best friend or the ones closes to you, try to sooth you when in fact, they have no idea how you feel inside. How can they possibly know when they have never been at the bottom? How can they possibly understand when they always get what they want. ALWAYS get what they want with LESS EFFORT than you. It's unfair..don't you think?

Well, if you never experience this then, WOW. Again, I'm not asking whether you have ACTED upon this but, have you ever FELT like this?

Those who know me would know that I admire JK Rowling so much. And she has spoken these words during Harvard's 2008 Commencement Address. Matematis Muda has posted this on my Facebook wall and to me, this is the best graduation present ever!

I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality. 

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.

So what I'm trying to say here is, you fail because ALLAH is making you stronger. You fail because ALLAH is teaching you about empathy. You fail because the moment of victory has not arrive yet. 

As Muslims, we must always think good about ALLAH. And ALLAH is what we think OF HIM.

In a Hadith Qudsi, which was narrated by Abu Hurairah, Allah Most High says:

“I am as my slave thinks of me and I am with him whenever he remembers me.” (Agreed Upon).

As Muslims too, we must be confident that ALLAH never breaks HIS promise to help us.

"...it was due from Us to aid those who believed." (Ar-Rum:47) 

Furthermore, Salahuddin al Aiyubi once said that:

"I ask for strength and ALLAH gives me difficulties to make me strong. I ask about wisdom and ALLAH gives me problem to solve. I ask for prosperity and ALLAH gives me faculty and energy to work. I ask for courage and ALLAH gives me danger to overcome. I ask for LOVE and ALLAH gives me people with troubles to help. I ask for nikmat(pleasure) and ALLAH gives me opportunity. I didn't ask anything for myself but I get everything that I need."    

So, better ask ourselves again. Are we really failures?

"You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you find, you get what you need"